Yren dreamed of the fox before he dreamed of falling.

  He stood on its back, small and steady, as if he had always belonged there. The city was above him this time, distant and fragile, lights flickering like something that could be blown out.

  His mother held his hand.

  She looked almost right. Her face shifted occasionally, like a reflection disturbed by water, but her grip was firm. Real.

  “I thought you were gone,” Yren said.

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  “I was processed,” she replied. “That’s not the same.”

  They walked along the fox’s spine. Beneath their feet, grooves glowed faintly—names etched into stone, layered over one another until they formed a language Yren almost understood.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked.

  The fox’s skin rippled, a slow shudder passing through it.

  “Yes,” his mother said honestly. “But it remembers why.”

  They stopped at a place where the stone thinned, where light pulsed beneath the surface like a buried sun.

  “This is where the city forgets things,” she said. “And where they go instead.”

  The fox opened an eye.

  Not a physical eye—something deeper. A recognition.

  Yren felt it see him. Not judge. Know.

  When he woke, his pillow was warm.

  And somewhere far above him, the city tilted just enough to be afraid.