Chapter 108. A Crowd That Rehearses

The hybrids approached in the posture of men who had been told that stride substitutes for permission. Jointed plates sat where shoulders should practice humility; polished bone clicked quietly at every pivot; under each sternum, something glowed the color of a grudge. They were not many—six, then eight, two more shouldering in like bad ideas brought by cousins—but walls are learned a handful at a time and so are nightmares.

The door’s edge brightened as if eager to demonstrate everything it had been taught about refusing to be flattered. It opened not toward appetite but toward witness—the line of hands already linked along the front of the square, palms clean or inked or scarred, all of them choosing to be furniture. The bench in the null hummed under the weight of a word that had chosen to remain in the room: no. The KEEP hovered, polite as an unlabeled drawer ready to rescue a moment that would otherwise run around the room making speeches.

“Pairs,” Aria said, alread