Jace Arden drifted in a space without edges. Not darkness. Silence. No streets. No voices. No neon pulse.For the first time since the murals awakened, the city was gone. He should have felt relief. Instead, terror bloomed in his chest.This is what erasure feels like. A voice spoke, not aloud, not inside his head, but everywhere. You have emptied yourself.Jace tried to move. There was no body to move with. “Who are you?” he asked, or thought, or remembered asking. The silence shifted. I am what remains when remembrance fails.Light emerged, not neon, not color, but a pale outline, like a shape drawn where something had been erased. A figure formed, vast and incomplete, its edges dissolving as soon as they took form.The Null Architect. Not monstrous. Not divine. Lonely. “You’re not a machine,” Jace said slowly. “You’re… broken.” The figure pulsed. I was named once.Fragments flickered, ancient cities carved in stone, people pressing symbols into clay, stories passed mouth to mouth u

Morning came without permission.Not sunrise. Detroit rarely bothered with romance, but a dull gray light seeping between buildings like it had someplace better to be. Jace Arden sat on the curb outside an abandoned liquor store, elbows on his knees, staring at a brick wall that no longer breathed.The mural was still there. Painted figures frozen mid-motion. Color intact. No whispers. No pulse. Just art. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or hollow.Nora stood a few steps away, phone pressed to her ear, voice low but fierce. “No, listen to me. This isn’t a riot. It’s exposure. Cities don’t collapse because of truth, they collapse because of lies.” She paused, jaw tightening. “Run it. Or I will.”She hung up and exhaled, then turned to Jace. “They’re scrambling. Every outlet. Lumen’s data is everywhere. You broke the dam.”Jace nodded slowly. His head still rang, like a room after the music stopped. “Doesn’t feel like breaking. Feels like… surviving.”She crossed to him, sat besi