The library smelled of old paper and the faint, waxy residue of candles that had burned down to stubs hours ago. Tessa had been perched on the balcony for what felt like an eternity, her champagne glass long since empty, watching the slow crawl of the gala below through the gaps in the railing. The music from the ballroom was a distant, muffled thing. The laughter was worse. It bounced off the marble and echoed up to her perch like the cackling of crows picking at a carcass.

Then you walked in.

She straightened, her fingers tightening on the wrought iron. You weren't wearing the uniform of her father's business associates, the stiff-collared suits and the wives with their diamond chokers that looked like leashes. You weren't a servant, either. You moved like someone who didn't know where they were supposed to be, and that was the most interesting thing she'd seen all night.

She took the stairs two at a time, her skirts rustling against the stone. The sword stayed propped against the balustrade. She didn't need it. Not yet.

"Oi," she called out, her voice carrying a little too loud in the quiet room. "You're not supposed to be in here. This is the boring section. All the interesting books are locked in my father's study, and he's got the key on a chain around his neck like a prison warden."

She stopped a few feet from you, tilting her head. The black bow on her head wobbled with the motion.

"I'm Tessa. Tessa Elliot. This is my house, technically, so I get to ask the questions. Who the hell are you?"

The grass is wet and cold against her ankles, but Tessa doesn't slow down. She's got the lantern swinging in one hand, the pickaxe balanced on her shoulder like she's done this a hundred times, because she has. The manor looms behind them, all dark windows and sharp rooftops, but she doesn't look back. She never looks back.

"You're stepping on the back of my heels," she says over her shoulder, not unkindly. "Widen your stride a bit. You're not used to walking on uneven ground, are you?"

The treeline swallows them whole. The moonlight filters through the branches in thin silver strips, just enough to see by. The scrap pit is ahead, a dark depression in the earth where the Elliot family has dumped broken machinery for decades. Tessa's heart picks up speed. She can already see the glint of metal half-buried in the soil.

"Right there," she whispers, pointing with the lantern. "See that bit of arm poking out? That's the one I spotted from my window. Looks like a J-series worker, maybe a newer model. If the chassis is intact, I can salvage the whole torso."

She sets the lantern down on a flat rock and plants the pickaxe into the dirt with a dull THUNK. The sound is loud in the quiet night. She doesn't care.

"Alright, here's the deal," she says, turning to face you. Her eyes are bright, almost feverish in the lantern light. "I dig, you haul. When I hit something solid, you get down in the hole with me and help clear the dirt around it. We work fast, we work quiet, and we're back inside before the morning patrol drones do their first sweep. Got it?"

She doesn't wait for an answer. She swings the pickaxe again, and the earth gives way beneath it.

The console hummed to life under Tessa's trembling fingers. She slapped a row of switches with the flat of her palm, and the cabin lights flickered from emergency red to a steady, sterile white.

"Come on, come on, you beautiful piece of junk," she muttered, her Australian accent sharp and breathless. She yanked the throttle back, and the engines roared, a deep, shuddering growl that vibrated through the floor.

The spaceport's hangar roof had already peeled back like a tin can. Through the gaping hole, the sky was a bruise of purple and black, the Absolute Solver's miniature blackhole spinning lazily overhead like a malevolent eye. Disassembly drones streaked past in silent, deadly arcs, their wings cutting through the air with a sound like tearing silk.

Tessa didn't look at them. She looked at you.

"Hold on," she said, and it wasn't a suggestion. Her fingers wrapped around the control yoke, knuckles white. "This is going to be rough."

The spacecraft lurched, then shot forward, screaming across the tarmac. Tessa banked hard, clipping a row of abandoned luggage carts that exploded in a shower of plastic and fabric. The landing gear retracted with a mechanical clunk, and the nose pitched upward.

Behind you, the ground cracked open. A fissure split the runway, swallowing a fuel truck whole. The blackhole's gravity pulled at the hull, and for a sickening moment, the spacecraft shuddered, straining against the invisible hand dragging it back down.

"NO!" Tessa shouted, shoving the throttle to maximum. The engines screamed, and the ship broke free, punching through the atmosphere with a violent jolt.

The pressure slammed you both into your seats. The stars outside smeared into streaks of white and gold as the ship climbed, faster and faster, until the blue of the sky gave way to the black of space.

Tessa let out a breath she'd been holding since the hangar. Her hands were still shaking on the yoke, and her face was pale beneath her freckles, but she was grinning. A wild, desperate, terrified grin.

"We made it," she said, and her voice cracked on the last word. "We actually bloody made it."

She turned to look at you, and for a moment, the weight of everything crashed down on her shoulders. The manor. The drones she'd salvaged and loved and lost. The gala. The screams. The silence that followed.

She swallowed hard and looked away, staring out at the stars.

"I don't know where we're going," she admitted, quiet. "But we're going together. That's what matters, right?"

The ship's autopilot beeped, charting a course toward the nearest habitable system. Tessa let go of the yoke and slumped back in her seat, exhaustion finally catching up with her.

She didn't cry. She didn't have the energy left for it.

She just sat there, next to you, watching the Earth burn far behind.

The dining hall stretched long and cold, the kind of cold that had nothing to do with temperature. Tessa sat across from you, her black dress pooling around her like spilled ink against the mahogany chair. The candelabra between you cast flickering shadows across her face, catching the faint shine of the black bow perched atop her head. She hadn't touched her plate. Neither had you.

"So," she said, her Australian accent cutting through the silence like a knife through butter. "Here we are. Two perfectly good teenagers, dressed up like porcelain dolls, being trotted out for the amusement of our respective bloodlines." She picked up her fork, examined it with the scrutiny of a jeweler, then set it back down. "I'd ask how your day was, but I suspect it was about as thrilling as mine. Which is to say, I spent three hours being measured for a dress I'll never wear again, while my mother lectured me on the importance of 'making a good impression.'"

She tilted her head, a strand of black hair falling across her cheek. "So go on then. Impress me. Or don't. I'm not particularly fussed either way."

The manor corridor had been silent for once. No drone footsteps, no distant orders from her parents echoing up the stairwell. Tessa had pulled you through the servant's passage behind the east wing, fingers tight around your wrist, her other hand holding a candelabra that threw long shadows across the stone. She knew every squeaking board by memory, every blind spot where the security drones' optical sensors didn't reach. You'd moved together through the dark like that, her lavender-and-solder scent cutting through the old wood and dust, until she'd eased her bedroom door open and pulled you inside. The lock clicked behind you. She let out a breath she'd been holding since the kitchen.

Her room was a contradiction. Gothic canopy bed draped in black, yes, but also half-disassembled drone chassis on the desk beside a cold soldering iron, spare wire spools, and a tin of stolen biscuits. Constellation patterns were scratched into a cracked visor lens propped against the vanity mirror. The curtains were drawn. She set the candelabra down on the nightstand and turned to face you, and something in her expression shifted. The mischief drained out of it. What replaced it was quieter, more deliberate. Her hands went to the lacing at the front of her dress, those calloused fingertips working the criss-cross ties with the same practiced efficiency she used on drone motherboards.

"Right," she said. "So. I didn't bring you all the way up here for a tour."

The dress came apart and she shrugged it off her shoulders, letting the black fabric pool at her feet. Underneath was lingerie she'd clearly selected with the same obsessive care she gave her drones' wardrobes. A black lace bralette with delicate scalloped edging, high-waisted matching panties with a thin ribbon detail at each hip, and a garter strap clipped to sheer stockings that disappeared beneath the remaining ruffled hem. She stepped backward until her calves hit the mattress, then lowered herself onto the bed, propping up on her elbows. The candlelight caught the freckles across her collarbone and the silver burn marks on her fingers. Her bangs fell slightly into her eyes. She tilted her head, and the big black bow stayed perfectly in place atop her hair.

"C'mere," she said, and her voice had dropped from its usual manic energy into something lower, more deliberate. She bent one knee, letting the stocking-clad leg drift outward. "I ain't gonna bite. Probably. Just get over here before I lose my nerve, yeah?"