He was waiting in the place where stone forgot its name.
The ruins beneath the eastern wing of the Institute — once a chapel, long since caved in, half-swallowed by vines and silence.
It was a place where nothing watched, and everything listened.
Aarav stood alone.
Until he wasn't.
Maya emerged from the dark like a memory he wasn't sure he could trust.
No mask.
No weapons.
Just her — raw, exhausted, and wearing an expression that flickered between warning and regret.
They didn't speak at first.
Words felt too fragile for what hung between them now.
Fire.
Betrayal.
Whatever still lived beneath the ash.
Finally, she said it.
"They sent me to kill you."
Aarav didn't flinch. He already knew.
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know yet," she said. "I thought I was. Until I remembered who I used to be."
He met her eyes.
"Then why are you here?"
Maya hesitated. Then opened her coat.
Inside was a map. A partial schematic of the Order's internal transport tunnels, vault locations, and known "failure" zones.
"Because I think I want to be free," she said.
"And because if you fall, they'll erase you from the inside out. Not just you. Every trace of you."
Aarav took the map. Studied it. Memorized the shape.
Then he said it:
"I'm not just planning to fall."
"I'm planning to pull the whole tower down with me."
She laughed, just once. A tired, broken sound. And to Aarav, it sounded like the first real thing in days.
Later that night, Maya met the Fragments.
She didn't speak at first.
She just watched them — the misfits, the almost-erased, the dreamers who had been marked and manipulated and left to rot in silence. And something inside her shifted.
For the first time in years, she saw the Order not as a structure to climb…
But a lie to burn.
That night, Aarav and Maya stood together in the ruins. No masks. No oaths.
Just a plan.
Just a fire waiting for a match.
Tomorrow, the Order would call for a demonstration. And Aarav would give them one they'd never forget.