Kresnik Vodyan’s voice dissolved into the suite’s ventilation hum, leaving the warm air of the Celestial Apex tasting faintly of ozone. Ljeska remained still, her hand hovering just above Stribor’s massive head, the lullaby’s last notes fading from her lips. The shifter lay curled against the floor, ribs hitching rhythmically beneath the collar on his thick neck. Its red pulse matched the crimson streaks sliding behind the unbreakable glass panes. She knelt, the expensive fabric of her borrowed trousers whispering against the polished plasteel floor. Stribor’s flank, where he had slammed against the glass with such ferocity, was scraped raw, a glistening track of dark blood marring his obsidian fur. She extended a hand, her fingers trembling ever so slightly, not from fear, but from the unaccustomed delicacy of the movement. Her healing power required measured restraint here, reduced to a cautious trickle. She placed her palm flat against the torn flesh. A spasm of raw rejection rippled through Stribor’s dense frame. His heavy lids flew back, the pupils swallowing his irises whole. A low, guttural rumble vibrated through his chest, a sound like grinding stone, and he lurched away from her, pulling his flank back with surprising speed for such a massive creature. He didn't bare his teeth, didn't threaten, but the retreat was absolute, a profound refusal of her touch. His crimson collar flared, momentarily brighter. Ljeska held her palm suspended over the empty floor tiles. Across five years mending ruptured organs and shattered limbs in Kresnik's sublevels, patients had wept or gone slack under her skin. None had ever recoiled as if scalded. Either the heavy metal band around his throat resisted outside magic, or his altered biology registered cellular repair as a direct threat. She withdrew her hand slowly, watching him. Stribor watched her back, his large head cocked slightly, a faint whine escaping him, a sound of confusion rather than aggression. Dark fluid continued to seep down his coat. Direct repair had failed, confirming Kresnik had tuned either the room or the creature to test the limits of her gift. Her eyes scanned the pristine, impossibly smooth walls of the Celestial Apex. No hidden cameras she could physically spot, no obvious listening devices. But the faint crimson lines beneath the glass, the collar’s pulse, Kresnik’s disembodied voice – this place hummed with hidden surveillance. She needed to contact Pipo. Now. Straightening up from the floor, Ljeska crossed the room to the primary terminal, a brushed plasteel slab running low-power displays. It controlled everything from environmental conditions to media. She disabled the internal comms, a quick series of taps, then accessed a sub-frequency channel, a backdoor Pipo had taught her years ago. It was archaic, full of static, but theoretically untraceable by standard Guild tech. “Took you long enough, Nightingale,” a reedy voice crackled, overlaid with the distant wail of a Novy Cheran siren. “Thought you’d forgotten your poor Pipo, lounging in your gilded cage. How’s the caviar? They got those little tiny spoons, right? Don’t want you choking on your luxury.” Pipo. His voice, despite the distortion, was a familiar anchor, an infuriating, welcome sound. “Less caviar, more monster-sized dog, Pipo. And the cage is more gilded than you know.” She kept her voice low, a near whisper. “Kresnik’s playing a deeper game than just observation. The beast, Stribor, he’s… augmented. And he reacted negatively to my magic.” “Augmented, huh?” Pipo’s tone shifted, the levity draining, replaced by a focused, rapid-fire urgency. “That tracks. Been digging into Kresnik’s public network. Clean as a newborn’s conscience, that man. But I found a ghost partition, Ljeska. Tucked away, deep in the Guild’s corporate servers. Encrypted six ways to Sunday, but I got a peek at the file names. Lots of administrative nonsense, then… ‘Project Lycanthrope’.” Ljeska’s gaze darted to Stribor, who had settled back into a watchful calm, his dark eyes following her every move. ‘Lycanthrope.’ The name resonated with the primal ferocity of his transformation. “Can you get in? The full files?” “Working on it. It’s a beast, this encryption. Feels… organic. Shifting. But I’m Pipo, aren’t I? Give me a few more cycles. You keep your eyes open, Nightingale. Kresnik doesn't just build luxury prisons for show.” “I know,” she murmured, her fingers tracing the subtle seam of a decorative panel beside the console. The panel was flush, seamless, but her enhanced sight, a legacy of her own Rift-touched nature, perceived a faint difference in the material composition, a micro-fracture of light where there should be none. She pressed a thumb against it, then another, applying specific pressure points based on the faint energy lines she'd noted earlier. A soft click. The panel receded, revealing a narrow compartment. Inside, pressed into a groove of dense foam, sat a matte-black autoinjector. The chamber held a glowing indigo serum that cast thin, distinct shadows across the inner latch. “Pipo,” she began, her voice barely a breath, “I’ve found something. A hidden panel, a syringe with…” “Ljeska! Get out!” Pipo’s voice exploded through the comms, no longer distorted, but raw with terror. “He’s not just watching, he’s listening to everything! The frequencies, the ghost partition… he led me right to it! He’s playing us, Nightingale, playing *you*! Get out!” Static snapped, replaced by dead air. Across the room, the indigo fluid inside the autoinjector cast a slow, rhythmic flare across her knuckles.

The Ghost in the Code