Harper
Vane didn't say a word the whole way up.
We took two corridors I'd never walked, then a service elevator that smelled like old machine oil. He kept exactly half a step behind me the entire time, matched to my pace, hand floating at sling height like he'd rigged a tether between his palm and my elbow without telling either of us.
At the third checkpoint, he slid a card across the scanner. The guard glanced once, sat back, didn't ask.
I waited until we were past. "What clearance was that."
"High enough."
"You can't just say high enough."
"I just did."
I'd have argued the point if the elevator hadn't stopped.
He pushed open a rust-spotted door at the top and stepped aside.
The wind hit me first. Cold, clean, the kind that hasn't been breathed by three hundred people on its wa
