Tomas moved like he had never moved in the warehouse. The Void had burned away all the slowness, all the hesitation, leaving only sharp, hungry rage. His dagger cut through the wind so fast it whistled. Kai ducked the first strike by a hair, the blade nicking his ear. Blood trickled down his neck.They traded blows fast as lightning across the roof. Kai used Quick Step to dart in and out, copying the Void strength in his fists to match Tomas's. Every strike sent shockwaves rippling through the stone under their feet. Cracks spiderwebbed out from where their fists landed. The low wall around the roof crumbled in chunks, falling a hundred floors to the rocks below.Tomas was not alone up there. Every time Kai landed a solid hit, the big Void charm on the man's chest flared purple, and the damage melted away. His skin knit back together, his bones reset, his cuts closed like they had never been there. He did not tire. He did not slow down. He just kept coming, laughing that same cruel la

Twenty seven days had passed since the roof of the Hollow Spire. Kai stood in the backyard of a small blue house on the west side of the city, the neighborhood he and Kim had grown up in. A new family lived there now. Their laundry hung on a line strung between two oak trees, a radio played old pop songs through an open kitchen window. In the far corner, half hidden by overgrown ivy, sat the rusted frame of a boy's bicycle.He had bought it with his first ever paycheck from the Association, when he was sixteen. His dad had spent three nights after work putting it together in the living room, his fingers covered in grease, yelling when he lost a small screw under the couch. Kai had ridden it up and down the street until the sun came up, Kim running behind him screaming for a turn.He stepped over the low wooden fence, ignoring the bark of the family's small dog behind the porch. He knelt down and ran a finger over the rusted handlebars. The memory hit him all at once, not the blurry fa