The return to the Nightingale Hospital felt like descending into a tomb that had been robbed and then repurposed. The storm followed us south, the rain turning into a sleet that coated the asphalt in a treacherous, glass-like sheen. Julian drove in a silence so thick it felt like a third passenger, his knuckles white on the wheel, while I sat in the passenger seat, my fingers curled around the vial of liquid silver in my pocket.
The hospital didn't look like a sanctuary anymore. It looked like a fortress. The white stone was bathed in the flickering red of perimeter alarms, and the high-end security drones—the "Vesper" iterations—hovered in the sleet like mechanical vultures.
"I’ll draw them toward the loading docks," Julian said, his voice a jagged rasp. "I have enough of our father’s o
