Chapter Text
The lights in the nursery had been left dimmed.
It wasn't dark — Lyra had never been able to force herself to black the room out completely — but the light had softened into a warm amber glow that washed the walls in tired gold. Plastic stars still clung to the ceiling in their old constellations, the ones she and Alister had argued about for an entire afternoon before giving up and inventing their own. Their cheap phosphorescence refused to fade entirely even after all these months, blinking down at the empty room with the same dim patience as ever. Above the cot, a mobile of carved metal planets turned in slow, uneven circles, creaking every few rotations on a hinge that had needed oiling for years.
That sound made her chest ache.
Lyra stood beside the cot, gripping the railing so tightly her palms hurt. Her light blond fur caught the amber glow, dulled almost to grey in the half-light, and her arctic blue eyes — usually so sharp that strangers found them unsettling — were rimmed red and unfocused. She stared down at the folded blankets as though looking long enough might somehow breathe life back into them.
Arya's blanket.
After the Exodus, she'd washed it three times because it still smelled of smoke. Three times, in scalding water, with her hands shaking too badly to wring it properly. The smell had finally faded around the third wash, and she had hated herself for an entire week afterwards, as if she had scrubbed away the last physical proof her daughter had ever existed.
Now it smelled of soap, dust, and a house that no longer felt like home.
She held her breath. Pressed a hand to her mouth, but it did nothing to stop the sound that escaped her throat. Grief hit her violently tonight — without warning, without mercy. One moment she'd only meant to tidy the room. The next she'd collapsed against the cot, shoulders trembling, tears dripping onto the mattress below in slow, fat drops that darkened the fabric where they fell.
"Arya…"
The name broke apart halfway through.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Tiny claws wrapping around her fingers. Little ears twitching whenever music played — even the bad music, the staticky transmissions that bled through the old kitchen radio when the weather turned. The way Arya kicked her legs whenever Alister picked her up.
She remembered laughter. Warmth. The specific, irreplaceable weight of a sleeping infant in her arms — heavier than people thought, lighter than mattered.
And then fire.
Sirens.
Screams.
Somewhere inside that nightmare, her daughter vanished.
Afterwards, everyone kept saying the same things. There had been too much destruction. Too many casualties. No child that young could have survived alone.
They never said dead immediately. Not at first. People preferred softer language.
Missing.
Gone.
Didn't survive.
But eventually the word came anyway, brought to her doorstep by officials who could no longer meet her eyes.
Dead.
Lyra hated them for it. Hated their clipboards, their carefully neutral voices, the way they'd folded their hands in front of them as though that small gesture of respect would somehow soften the verdict. She had wanted to claw their faces. She had instead thanked them for their time and closed the door.
A quiet knock sounded at the door.
She didn't answer.
The door opened anyway.
A lombax slightly older than her stepped inside with measured caution, as though approaching an injured animal. Despite the late hour, he still wore dark ceremonial robes — perfectly composed, immaculate, not a single hair out of place. The robes' deep colour only made his coat seem brighter, ghostly almost: that same impossible white Alister had worn in life, the white she'd run her fingers through a thousand times, here turned cold and unfamiliar in the wrong man's frame. His crimson eyes, sharper and steadier than his brother's had ever been, softened a fraction when he saw her.
"Lyra," he said quietly.
She wiped at her face sharply and turned away. "Go away."
"I only wanted to see how you were."
"Well, you've seen." Her voice cracked. "You can leave now."
Instead of retreating, he remained in the doorway.
"You haven't attended the council sessions for weeks. People are concerned."
Lyra let out a hollow laugh. "Concerned. That's generous of you."
"You shouldn't isolate yourself."
"I'm not in the mood for this tonight."
He took a step closer, his gaze briefly lingering on the cot before returning to her. For a fraction of a second, something almost genuine crossed his face. Perhaps sympathy.
Or a convincing imitation of it.
"I know this room is painful for you."
"No," Lyra whispered. "You know nothing."
He exhaled slowly through his nose, the way he always did when he had decided to be patient with her — the way Alister had done too, once, before life had worn that particular habit out of him. The resemblance between the brothers had never been more obvious than in moments like this. Or more obscene.
"That's not fair. Alister's death was a tragedy for all of us."
A sharp light entered her eyes. "And yet somehow you recovered quickly enough to begin collecting signatures."
His ears twitched faintly, though the rest of him remained perfectly still. "This again."
"Yes. This again."
"I've already explained that the transfer of assets is sensible. Alister left behind substantial shares, research rights, holdings in transport corporations—"
"My husband and daughter are dead, and you're conducting an inventory."
"I'm trying to preserve what remains of the family legacy."
"Stop bullshitting me." Lyra's voice rose, rough and unsteady at the edges. "You pretend to be a concerned member of the family when really you're feeding off your brother's death and the supposed death of your niece."
"It is not supposed, Lyra," he replied calmly.
The certainty — the sheer audacity — of the statement stole the breath from her lungs. She stared at him in fury.
The male held her gaze steadily. "I know you are suffering."
"No. You only know what benefits you."
Silence settled between them, brittle as winter glass.
The mobile above the cot creaked softly. One small carved planet ,turned a half-rotation and clicked against its neighbour.
When he spoke again, his voice had grown quieter still. "Lyra… there comes a point where grief stops being remembrance and becomes self-destruction."
She looked at him coldly. "You think I should let her go."
His silence was answer enough.
"She was a child caught in the middle of an interdimensional evacuation during heavy bombardment," he said carefully. "More than two decades have passed. No signals. No survivors. The answer seems obvious to me."
"She is alive."
The certainty in her voice cut through the room like wire.
He studied her for a long moment. Then, quietly: "You cannot keep tearing yourself apart over a dead child."
Lyra's expression hardened instantly. "She has a name, you fucker. Forgotten that already?"
"Lyra—"
"Get out." The words came out venomous, almost a hiss. "Get out before I call security. Legally, the estate belongs to me until Arya is found. You're trespassing."
He hesitated, as though weighing whether to push further. She watched him calculate it — watched the practised political machinery behind his eyes assess the cost-benefit of one more sentence — and then she watched him decide against it.
He gave a small nod.
"I sincerely hope you find peace," he said softly.
The words sounded almost genuine.
Almost.
Then he turned and left the nursery. The door closed behind him with the careful, measured sound of a man who had never slammed a door in his life because he had never needed to.
Lyra remained motionless for several seconds.
Then, slowly, she slid down onto the floor beside the cot and cried until her throat hurt too badly for another sound to escape.
The bar near the southern transit docks was loud enough to blur thought.
Music rattled from old speakers mounted crookedly near the ceiling, competing with bursts of rough laughter and the metallic clatter of glasses. Dockworkers crowded the tables in stained uniforms. Mechanics argued over engine parts in one corner. Somewhere near the back, a cargo pilot was losing badly at cards and growing louder about it.
Lyra sat alone at the counter.
The bartender had stopped asking whether she wanted another drink nearly an hour ago. Now he simply refilled the glass whenever it emptied, his eyes flicking to her face once before returning to the next order. He knew the look. Every bartender in every dock bar in every city knew that look.
Amber liquid swayed near the rim as she turned the glass slowly between her fingers.
Her eyes were red.
Not from the alcohol.
The seat beside her creaked.
"Thought I'd find you here."
The voice was low and familiar.
Lyra glanced sideways.
Round glasses caught the dim gold light above the counter, briefly hiding tired brown eyes behind the glare. The lombax settling onto the neighboring stool looked as though he'd come straight from work. Grease stained the sleeves of his dark jacket, and the striped fur along his arms and cheeks broke into uneven rings of darker colour that made his already scruffy appearance look even more disordered. There was a smudge of something black on the bridge of his nose he hadn't noticed.
"You always know the worst places in the city," he said.
Lyra looked back down at her drink. "Occupational talent."
He hummed quietly and signaled the bartender for something considerably less strong than what she'd been drinking.
For a while neither of them spoke.
The silence between them was old and familiar rather than uncomfortable — the kind of silence that came of knowing someone long enough that you'd already said most things at least once.
Finally Lyra exhaled shakily. "Amon came by the house."
One of Mags' ears twitched. "That so?"
"He tried to be gentle about it this time."
"That's new."
"He said I need to let go."
The bartender slid a fresh drink toward him. He thanked him absently before resting his arms against the counter. "And what did you tell him?"
Lyra laughed once under her breath. "I told him to get out."
"Good."
That almost pulled a smile from her.
Almost.
The music in the bar changed tracks — something softer beneath the noise of conversation, an old song she half-recognized from before the Exodus, before everything.
Lyra stared into her glass.
"She was so small," she whispered suddenly.
He stayed quiet.
"Barely a few months old." Her voice wavered. "She couldn't even say words yet. Alister kept insisting she recognized his voice anyway. He'd walk into the room and suddenly she'd start kicking and squealing like she knew exactly who he was."
A painful little smile flickered across her face. "She had his ears."
He smiled faintly at that. "Poor kid never had a chance, then."
Lyra let out a weak snort.
Then her expression crumpled again. "She can't just be gone."
The words came out small. Lost.
Mags hated hearing that tone in her voice. He'd known Lyra since they were both children running through the academy halls, both of them sharper-tongued than their tutors liked, both of them constantly in trouble for the same reasons. She'd never sounded small before. Not once. Not even at Alister's symbolic funeral, when she'd stood straight-backed in front of half the council and refused to weep in public.
"I know everybody thinks I'm delusional," she continued quietly. "Maybe I should be by now. But every time someone says she's dead…" She swallowed hard. "Something in me refuses to believe it."
He turned the untouched glass slowly in his hands. "You know," he said after a moment, "you're not the only one."
Lyra frowned slightly and looked over at him.
He kept his gaze lowered. "I've been thinking about Kaden and Tara too."
At the mention of their names, something heavier settled over the conversation. Kaden had been Mags' best friend since their apprentice years — the only person Mags ever willingly took advice from. Tara had been Kaden's wife and Lyra's closest friend besides Alister. Their family and Lyra's had been so deeply intertwined that for years their two homes had blurred into one continuous household. Two sets of parents, two children. One disaster.
"And Kiran." His jaw tightened. "I keep wondering if…" He trailed off, letting out a heavy sigh. "If it was even possible."
Lyra watched him closely. "Do you think he survived too?"
"I don't even know what to think anymore." A defeated laugh slipped out of him. "All I know is that when the worst disaster in our species' history hit, we lost so many. Worlds collapsed. The archives were destroyed. Families were torn apart.”
He finally looked at her directly. "And none of us actually saw those kids die."
The noise of the bar seemed to recede.
Lyra's eyes filled again. "Sometimes I feel like I'm losing my mind."
"You're grieving," he corrected gently.
"No." She shook her head. "It's more than grief. It's…" Her voice trembled. "I feel like she's still out there somewhere. Like if I stop believing it, then she'll really be gone. Like my believing is the only thing holding her to the world."
He stayed silent for a long moment.
Then he reached up, slipping off his glasses to rub his tired eyes before settling them back on his nose. "I keep thinking about that lately."
His voice had gone quieter. "What if those kids survived somewhere? What if they grew up alone? Wondering why nobody came for them?"
Lyra covered her mouth with trembling fingers. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why?"
"Because I want to believe it too badly."
He looked at her. "Maybe there's a reason you do."
For a moment, neither of them said a word. The bar swelled around them again — laughter, a glass shattering somewhere, the pilot at the back finally throwing his cards down with a curse that drew applause from the next table over.
Then, for the first time that night, she whispered his name. "Mags…"
Desperation bled through it.
Before she could speak again, he already knew what he was about to hear.
"I know I have no right to ask this of you."
"You don't need my permission."
"But if there's even the slightest chance—"
"There is."
Tears streamed freely down her cheeks now. "Mags… please. Find her."
The words almost choked her at the end.
He looked away for a second, jaw clenching so hard the fur on his cheeks twitched.
Kiran sitting on Kaden's shoulders while his father worked under the lift, the boy chattering nonstop about some toy he'd seen at the market. Little Arya nestled in Lyra's arms during one of their evening walks, ears flicking at the sound of every passing voice. Alister's laugh — that rare, startled thing that always seemed to surprise even him. Tara humming half a melody while she cooked. Kaden's hand on Mags' shoulder, heavier than it had any right to be, the last time they'd parted ways at the evacuation gate.
Ghosts.
All of them ghosts now.
Unless they weren't.
Slowly, Mags nodded. "I'll find her."
Lyra shut her eyes tightly.
"And Kiran too," he added, firmer now. "If he's out there, I'll find him too."
She let out a shaking breath that almost sounded like relief.
Despite everything, a soft laugh escaped her.
Mags drained his glass, then groaned as he pushed himself up from the stool, his joints protesting the movement. "Heading home?"
"Finally."
"Try not to outdrink the dockworkers between now and then. You'll embarrass the rest of us."
Lyra wiped her eyes. "I kind of hate you."
"Yeah, yeah."
But his smile vanished the moment he turned away.
He didn't head home.
He needed to get back to his garage. Tonight.
The garage lights flickered on one row at a time as Mags stepped inside, each fluorescent panel coughing to life a half-second behind the last.
The cavernous workshop smelled of hot metal, old wiring, machine oil, and ozone — the layered, lived-in scent of a place that had been a refuge for longer than it had been a workplace. Half-disassembled engines hung from support frames near the ceiling like the carcasses of strange animals. Tools littered nearly every available surface in a kind of organized chaos only he could read. Notebooks lay open on every flat surface, their pages dense with diagrams, half the equations crossed out, the other half circled in red.
At the very center of the room stood the machine.
Incomplete.
Silent.
Massive circular mechanisms surrounded a hollow central core, their metal framework interrupted by exposed wiring and unfinished conduits. Crystalline components rested on nearby tables beside scattered calculations and burnt-out prototypes that no one had bothered to clear away. There was a fine layer of dust on the outermost ring — not much, just enough to mark how long it had been since he'd last allowed himself to touch it.
Mags stopped in the doorway.
For months he'd avoided looking directly at it for too long.
Because building it meant hope.
And hope was dangerous. Hope was the thing that had nearly killed him in the first year after the Exodus, when every night he'd lain awake reconstructing the evacuation in his head, trying to find the place where the math might have allowed for survival. Hope was what he'd had to murder, slowly and deliberately, just to be able to function again. Just to keep showing up. Just to keep being someone Lyra could lean on when her own hope tore her open from the inside.
Now she'd asked him to bring it back.
He could feel it stirring already, somewhere under his ribs, like an animal he'd thought was dead.
Slowly, he walked forward, pushing his glasses higher against the bridge of his nose as he approached the unfinished device.
His reflection stared back faintly from one curved metal surface.
Older than he remembered. More tired too. The grease on his nose, the way his fur had thinned along the temples, the slight stoop in his shoulders that hadn't been there a decade ago. The lombax in the metal was not the one who'd started this project. He wasn't sure that man existed anymore.
"Well," he muttered. "Looks like we're doing this after all."
The machine, of course, offered no opinion.
Mags reached for a toolkit lying abandoned across the workbench and dragged it closer. His expression hardened. He thumbed open one of the notebooks at random and stared at a diagram he'd drawn four years ago and then crossed out in a single frustrated stroke. Beside it, in smaller writing, a single line he'd added later in a calmer hand: the dimensional shear is the problem, not the energy budget.
He still didn't entirely know what he'd meant by that. But he had time, now, to find out.
Somewhere out there was Lyra's daughter. Maybe Kaden and Tara's son too. Maybe others. Who knows.
If there was even the slightest chance of reaching them —
Then he would tear apart every law of physics left standing until he did.
The first ring of the machine hummed when he laid his hand against it, faint and uncertain, like something waking after a long sleep.
Mags exhaled.
Then he got to work.