The submersible bobbed in the wake of the imploded spire, a tiny speck of metal amidst the hundreds of white sails. Alessandro didn't head for the harbor of Porto Vento. Instead, he steered the vessel south, away from the confused chatter of the fishing fleet and the golden coordinates still shimmering in the sky.
"The world is going to want answers," Alessandro said, his hands tight on the controls. "The 'White Knight' liquidity, the vanishing debt, the sudden silence of the Syndicate... they’ll be looking for a face to blame or a god to thank. We can't be either."
Giulia sat in the cramped cabin, her fingers intertwined with Matteo’s. The salt from the substrate was still drying on her skin, itching like a shed layer of a past life. She looked out the porthole at the fading lights of P
