The transition from the scorched, tectonic fractures of the African Rift to the emerald-choked ruins of London was a descent into a Gothic fever dream. As the *Hesperus* limped over the English Channel, the *smell of the Roman rain* was no longer a grounding memory; it was a cloying, metallic vapor that clung to the brass-work of the gondola. This wasn't the rain of a city; it was the "Bio-Mist" of the City-Trees, a thick, silver-green fog that tasted of ancient sap and liquid mercury. Below, the Thames had been replaced by a river of black-glass roots, and the skeleton of the Big Ben clock tower was encased in a pulsing, violet-veined mangrove that reached for the amber sky.
Lila stood at the shattered window of the observation deck, her hair matted with the saline condensation of the cr
