Chapter 27 · Let the Future Break

The chamber had no floor.

Evan felt that first—not the heat, not the alarms, not the woman standing beyond the sealed armor glass with Sera’s face reflected in a thousand fractured panels. His boots were planted on black metal, but the metal trembled beneath him like the skin of something alive.

Below the transparent grating, white fire poured through the heart of the Dusk Crown. It moved without fuel or flame, a river of compressed possibilities twisting around a hollow center.

Sera stood inside that hollow.

Her body flickered from shoulder to hip. One second she wore the battered command jacket Evan remembered, its collar stained with blood and engine grease. The next, she was only a lattice of blue light, ribs and cheekbones assembled from streaming symbols. Her hand pressed against the inside of the core chamber.

The glass between them pulsed.

“Don’t touch it,” she said.

Evan’s palm was already against the armor barrier.

The impact sent cold through his bones. For one breath, he saw her—