Page 107 of Dead Drop

We don't talk anymore. We sit in the settling light and the settling storm and the settled knowledge that some people stay with us even when they're gone. Some people teach us how to live by showing us what it means to die well.

Some people get a second life in the names we give our children.

The storm passes completely. The wind becomes gentle. His wings unfold slightly to let air into the aerie, to let the smell of the wet wasteland in.

The fire pops and settles. His heartbeat drops into its deep rhythm. My child sleeps in her warmth. And I am here, held by someone who learned how to love by watching Maren teach him language.

42

ADA

Istand at the aerie's edge. The drop is still there. It always will be.

Fifty-three floors of air. Below, the canopy—denser now than it was four months ago, the new growth filling the gaps between the old towers, the vines climbing higher. Below the canopy, the ruins.

The old world, buried under green.

The morning light catches the highest vines. They're thick now, finger-thick, wrapping the old towers the way veins wrap bone. The leaves are dense, a canopy within the canopy, creating shadows and shelter.

A habitat. An ecosystem. The world isn't just recovering—it's transforming. The old bones of the city are becoming the framework for something new.

I've stood here before. In withdrawal, shaking, testing the pull of the drop against the pull of the furs behind me. In the dead hours of the night, when the venom ache peaked and the only thing keeping me from the edge was the weight of his arm across my body.

I stood here after the Stained attack, blood still drying on my hands, my knife still warm. The moment where I understood that I could hold him now, could protect him, could be the one standing between danger and the nest.

Every time, I turned around.

The first time, the turning was exhaustion. I was too empty to jump. The withdrawal had hollowed me out.

There was nothing left to make the choice with. I could barely stand. The venom sang in my bloodstream, demanding more, and the only quiet place was the edge. Until the weight of his arm reminded me that quiet comes at a cost.

The second time, the turning was the baby. The first flutter, the first movement, the proof that what the rut made had taken root. I couldn't take us both over the edge.

I could choose to fall, but she couldn't. She was still learning to be. I was learning to hold her. I was no longer certain I wanted to die.

The third time—after the Stained, after the blood, after Corvin killed the ones I didn't reach—the turning was anger. I wasn't finished yet. I had work to do.

The Ordained were still operating. Brother Lief was still smiling. The world was still wrong. The edge had been an option when I was empty. Now I was full of work and there was no space for falling.

This time is different.

Below, the wasteland still spreads. The Ordained still out there, Brother Lief still smiling, the Cages still gilded in their perversity. The Stained still hunting in packs, running on stolen venom, the sour chemical desperation of males who lost everything and can't stop wanting.

The world has not gotten less dark since I stepped off that ledge four months ago. Women are still currency. The systemthat drove me to the parapet is still running. None of that has changed.

But behind me, the aerie. The furs. The secondary chamber with its pale pelts and its woven branch threshold.

Stone carved by intention. A territory I mapped myself, with boundaries I chose. A settlement I can reach in three hours that still needs my intelligence, my blade, my knowledge of how to move through the canopy without leaving a trail. A young fighter named Petra who made it back from the Cages, who I'm teaching to climb, to fight, to believe her own survival is worth something.

A male who built a room for our child while I worked.

I put my hand on my belly. The curve is real, warm, undeniable under my palm. Five months of becoming something I didn't choose.

Five months of the pregnancy reshaping me—stronger lungs, thicker hair, scars fading, the body optimizing itself for the work of making a new thing. Five months of Corvin's hands finding this same curve in the dark, in the morning, mid-conversation. His palm flat. His claws gentle. His heartbeat steady against my back while I sleep.

She kicks sometimes now. Not the flutter of before. Real movements.

The sense that there is a creature inside me, becoming, waiting for the moment to emerge. His daughter. My daughter. Our daughter. The future written in flesh.