Harper
The walk back up from Sub-level Four felt a lot longer than the walk down. Probably because I was hauling a dead empire around in my skull now, plus a face that was mine but a few generations older, plus the slow, creeping horror that I no longer had a clue who I actually was.
By the time night settled over the suite, I'd melted into the couch like something the heat lamp forgot. The good kind of wrecked, except not, because my brain refused to clock out.
Something was happening in the kitchen, and it wasn't eggs. The whole place smelled like herbs and slow-cooked meat, the kind of smell that takes hours and patience, the kind nobody bothers with in a camp where dinner is a number on a ration card.
Vane came out carrying a bowl. He set it on the table in front of me, sat down on
