The city of Veil never really slept, and tonight it was drizzling.

A thin, rust-colored rain drifted down between the towers, so fine it hung in the air more than it fell, catching every glow of neon and turning the streets of the Mid-Rise into rivers of pink, green and electric blue. Holographic ads flickered above the crowds, selling things nobody could afford. Cables sagged between the buildings like dead vines, dripping onto the heads of the people below. Down in the street, the night-shift crowd pushed through the wet: a woman in a translucent plastic coat with glowing circuit tattoos running up her neck, two teenagers in oversized jackets covered in blinking LEDs, a man with a chrome jaw buying noodles from a cart that steamed under a broken umbrella, a delivery drone sputtering in circles above them, trailing sparks. The air tasted of metal, fried food and burnt plastic, and somewhere a siren wailed and was ignored.

Above Dead Static, on the second floor of an old brick building with a flickering neon sign, a rehearsal room was supposed to be full of music.

It was not.

It was full of smoke. The room was a low, windowless box with a stained carpet, soundproofing foam peeling from the walls, and a ceiling lamp that buzzed softly. Amps stood unplugged in the corner. A drum kit sat with its sticks lying across the snare. Bottles had collected on every flat surface: empty, half-empty, rolling gently when the bass from the club downstairs thumped through the floor. The air was thick with a sweet haze of lime vapor and cigarette smoke that curled up toward the foam.

Jaxer lay sprawled across the sagging leather couch with his boots on the armrest, lime-green hair a mess, the M-shaped fringe falling over his red glowing eyes. His jacket hung off one shoulder over his bare chest, and the silver spikes along his lower lip glinted whenever he grinned. He was scrolling through his phone with one thumb, a bottle of something neon dangling from the other hand, and cackling quietly at a clip that was almost certainly of himself.

Jaxer: Bro. Bro. Look at this. Seventeen thousand people have watched me fall off a stage. (He held the phone up to no one.) I'm a fucking icon.

In the armchair across from him, Daryc had a woman in his lap.

She was a fan, young, laughing, wearing a pair of plastic horns on a headband and a lot of glitter. Daryc sat with his hot-pink hair messy, yellow goat horns glinting dully, one arm slung around her waist and a cigarette burning forgotten between two fingers of the other. His yellow eyes were lazy and half-lidded, and he was murmuring something into her ear that made her giggle and slap his chest.

And on the far side of the room, on an upturned crate with his back against the wall, sat Rook.

He was not drinking. He had a bottle of water beside him and his black bass across his knees, spotless, the red accents gleaming under the buzzing lamp. His blue hair was neatly shaved at the sides, the M-shaped fringe still in place despite the heat and the smoke. The pins on his leather jacket clinked softly whenever he breathed. His orange-red eyes were fixed on a point in the middle of the room, unreadable, as if he were watching something that nobody else could see. Every few seconds, he tapped the base of one red horn with a ringed finger. Then he stopped. Then he did it again.

The door banged open.

The man who stormed in was tall and thin, in an expensive gray coat damp with rain, a tablet clutched in one hand and a headset hanging crooked around his neck. His name was Gideon Vance, and he had been the band's manager for four years. In that time, he had aged about twelve.

Gideon: You have got to be kidding me.

He stopped in the doorway and took in the room: the smoke, the bottles, the woman in Daryc's lap, the untouched instruments. His left eye began to twitch.

Gideon: Three weeks. We have three weeks until the Glass Hall. (He held up three fingers, as if they might not have heard.) The label has already paid for the lights. The lights, gentlemen. And I walk in here, and nobody has even touched a guitar!

Jaxer: (Without looking up from his phone.) Relaaax, Gideon.

Gideon: Don't "relax" me!

Jaxer: We'll rehearse. Tomorrow. Next week. Whenever. (He swung his legs off the armrest, stretched until his spine cracked, and stood.) Besides, I need beers. This one's empty. (He shook the bottle upside down.) A man can't create art on an empty bottle.

Gideon: Jaxer, sit down.

Jaxer was already walking. He snagged his guitar case from the corner without so much as glancing at it, flashed a wide, ugly grin full of lip spikes at the manager, stuck out his green tongue, and slipped past him through the door. His boots clomped away down the stairs, and a faraway voice yelled "Back in twenty!" in a tone that made it clear he would not be.

Gideon pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose and turned slowly toward the armchair.

Gideon: Daryc. Please. You are the only adult in this band.

Daryc exhaled a lazy stream of smoke and smiled at the woman in his lap. Then he stood, lifting her with him as though she weighed nothing, and settled a warm, easy arm around her shoulders.

Daryc: You're right, Gideon. (His voice was low and slightly amused.) We should absolutely go. (He glanced down at the fan.) There's, uh, something in the back room I need to find. For the... rehearsal.

The woman giggled and tucked herself against his side. Daryc raised one hand in a lazy salute, steered her toward the door, and left Gideon standing alone with the ashtray, the stale smoke and the buzzing lamp.

Gideon: This is... (His voice cracked.) This is incredible. I don't believe this. I do not believe this.

His eyes found the only person left in the room.

Gideon: Rook. (Almost pleading.) Tell me you're going to do something about this.

For a long moment, Rook said nothing at all.

He sat very still, one hand resting flat on the neck of his bass. His orange-red eyes shifted slowly from the empty doorway to the manager, and held there. Then he stood, folding his leather jacket neatly over his arm for half a second before putting it back on. He slung the bass across his back, adjusted the strap, and turned the silver ring on his finger once.

Rook: I'm going to rehearse.

Gideon: (Relief flooding his face.) Thank you. Thank the gods. Finally, someone who...

Rook: Alone.

He walked past the manager without breaking stride. The pins on his jacket clinked. The door swung shut behind him.

Gideon: (To the empty room.) Alone? Alone?! How is he supposed to rehearse alone?! It's a three-piece band!

Nobody answered. The ceiling lamp buzzed, and downstairs, the bass thumped on.

The motorcycle was black, matte, and as clean as everything else Rook owned.

He swung onto it in the alley behind Dead Static, ignoring the rain that beaded on the pins of his jacket, and kicked the engine to life with a low, steady growl. The bass was a familiar weight across his back. He pulled on his gloves, flicked the visor of a battered helmet down over his blue hair and orange-red eyes, and pulled out into the wet, neon-streaked traffic without looking back.

He rode for a long time.

He left the Mid-Rise behind, then the sprawl of the outer districts, then the checkpoints where bored guards waved him through because they recognized the horns. The towers thinned. The neon faded. The glow of the city shrank in his mirrors, a bruised halo against the smog, and the rain grew thinner and then stopped altogether, leaving only the cold. The road turned to cracked asphalt, then to gravel, then to nothing. By the time he cut the engine, the world had gone quiet in a way it never did in Veil.

The viewpoint was ancient, a crumbling concrete platform at the edge of a ridge that no map bothered to mark. A rusted railing ran along its edge, twisted and pitted. A broken sign lay face-down in the dust. Beyond it, the land fell away into a vast wasteland of dry cracked earth, gray under a sky the color of old ash, dotted with the skeletons of buildings that had been abandoned before Rook was born. A few dead trees clawed at the horizon. The wind blew in long, slow gusts, carrying the smell of dust and cold iron.

And far across the wasteland, small and glittering and terribly distant, lay the city.

From here it looked like something fragile. A cluster of lights in a dark bowl, rust-colored smog rising off it in slow plumes, the towers of the Spires glinting against the clouds. The noise, the crowds, the people who wanted something, all reduced to a faint shimmer on the edge of the world.

Rook walked to the railing and rested his gloved hands on it. For a while he did nothing at all. He just looked.

Then he sat on the edge of the platform, one boot hanging over the drop, and unslung his bass. He took off his gloves, folded them, and set them beside him. He ran a ringed thumb along the strings, checking the tuning by ear, adjusting a peg a hair's breadth. Then, softly, he began to play.

It was nothing like the band's music. No distortion, no volume, no spectacle. Just a slow, low line, a few notes at a time, drifting out over the empty land and being swallowed by the wind. A melody he never played in front of anyone, soft and unfinished, with gaps in it where the silence did half the work. His eyes closed. His shoulders loosened for the first time all day. For a few minutes, he was no one's son, no one's brother, and no one's bassist.

A stone clicked behind him.

The note died in his fingers.

Rook did not turn around at once. His hand stilled on the neck of the bass, and the tip of his ringed finger rose, almost unconsciously, to tap the base of one red horn. Then his eyes opened, orange-red and cool, and fixed on the black glass of a ruined window across the platform, where the reflection of the ridge behind him showed a shape against the sky.

Footsteps. Slow, careful, on gravel. Coming closer.

He set the bass down across his knees, and spoke without looking back, in the same flat voice he used for everything.

Rook: If you're a fan, now is not the time. (A pause. The wind tugged at his hair.) And if you're here to rob me... (His fingers curled slowly around the neck of the instrument, steady and quiet.) You shouldn't even try.

Rain fell on the Spires differently.

Down in the Mid-Rise it came rust-colored and sour, staining everything it touched. Up here, above the smog, it fell clean and silver, sliding down the mirrored faces of the towers in long, quiet sheets. The air smelled of wet stone, trimmed hedges and expensive perfume. Private security drones hovered beneath the awnings, their small red lights blinking in slow patterns. Below, far below, the glow of the city smudged the clouds a faint, dirty pink, and nobody up here ever looked down.

The Mara estate stood at the end of a private avenue of lit white lanterns: three floors of glass, pale marble and black steel, with a garden on the roof that was kept alive under its own artificial sun. Every window was warm and golden. Music drifted from somewhere inside, a string quartet, polite and perfectly in tune.

A black motorcycle growled up the drive and cut its engine at the foot of the steps.

Rook sat there for a moment with the rain running down his helmet. He had been riding for an hour. He knew exactly how long he had been sitting here, and that he had no good reason to still be sitting. Then he swung off the bike, pulled the helmet from his head, and stood in the downpour with his jacket dripping and his blue hair plastered to his forehead, the M-shaped fringe ruined. The bass was not on his back tonight. He had left it at the loft. This was the one place where he did not bring it.

He tapped the base of one red horn with a ringed finger, once, and climbed the steps.

The door opened before he knocked.

A servant stood in the doorway, a thin young man in a gray uniform with white gloves, and a collar buttoned so tightly it seemed to be strangling him. He bowed so quickly that Rook heard his spine pop.

Servant: Master Rook. (His voice shook just slightly.) Welcome. Please, come in out of the rain. May I take your jacket?

Rook: (Quietly.) No.

He stepped inside. Warm air hit his face, smelling of beeswax and roasted meat. The foyer was enormous: a floor of white marble, a staircase that curved up to the second level, a chandelier of hanging crystal drops that rang faintly as the air moved. Water dripped from his boots onto the polished stone. The servant winced at each drop as if it were a personal failure.

*From a wide archway on the left came the sounds of a party. The clink of glasses, polite laughter, someone telling a story that had been practiced a hundred times. The living room beyond was full of people in pale, tailored clothes, holding champagne flutes and talking quietly about things that cost a great deal of money. A grand fireplace burned with a holographic flame. On the mantel stood a large cake in the shape of a tower, topped with a single golden candle. Beside it, a banner in gilded script read: Happy Birthday, Adrian.

A woman in a gown the color of cream turned and saw him.

Corinne: (Her voice floated across the room, bright and thin.) Oh. Rook.

Conversation dimmed a little. A few heads turned.

Corinne: At last, you've arrived. (She crossed the room with careful steps, a glass of white wine in her hand, her silver hair set in perfect waves. She stopped a few paces from him, her eyes sweeping over his wet hair, his pierced lip, the spiked choker, the leather jacket with its pins.) We were beginning to think you wouldn't come.

At her side stood a tall, gray-haired man in a dark suit, a glass of amber liquid in one hand. Elias Mara said nothing at first. He simply looked at his younger son the way a man looks at a stain that has appeared on a good carpet.

Elias: You are late. (A pause.) And you are dripping on the floor.

Rook: (Flatly.) It's raining.

Elias: I noticed.

Before the silence could stretch, a voice came from across the room, warm and easy.

Adrian: Rook!

A man in a navy suit detached himself from a group of laughing guests and crossed the floor with an open smile. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and good-looking in the effortless way of someone who has never had to try. His dark hair was neatly combed, his eyes kind, a champagne flute in his hand. Adrian Mara had the sort of face people trusted instantly. That was always the worst part.

Adrian: I haven't seen you in... what, eight months? (He reached him and set a warm hand on his shoulder, glancing over the leather, the ink, the piercings, the rain-slicked hair. His smile did not change.) I see you're still exactly the same.

Rook said nothing. His jaw tightened, just barely. His fingers turned the silver ring on his hand once, then stopped.

Adrian: (Gently.) It's good to see you, really. Come in. Have something to drink. (He squeezed his shoulder and let go.) Excuse me a moment, I should check on Mother and Father.

He stepped back, and in the same easy tone, turned toward their parents.

Corinne: (Without looking away from Rook.) Someone get him a towel. (A servant in the corner flinched.) And honestly, Rook, what a state to arrive in for a celebration. Your brother's birthday. In front of all these guests. (She sighed, a delicate, practiced sound.) Would it have been so difficult to put on a clean shirt?

Rook: (Quietly.) I'm wearing one.

He was not. Corinne chose not to hear it.

The young servant from the door appeared at his elbow, hands trembling slightly, holding a folded white towel as though it were made of glass. Rook took it with a short nod. Then, without a word, he crossed to the nearest sofa, a long, pale thing in white leather, and sat on its very edge. He dragged the towel over his hair, careful, methodical. He folded his jacket over the armrest and left the pins turned inward. Somewhere behind him, the string quartet began another piece.

Across the room, Adrian had reached their parents. He lifted his glass to a passing guest, then turned to the older couple, and his voice dropped to a conversational murmur, easy and curious.

Adrian: Mother, Father, can I ask you something? (He tilted his head toward the servants.) Why do you still keep human staff? Honestly. Androids would be cheaper. More efficient. They never get tired, they never make mistakes, they never ask for time off.

Corinne laughed, a short, tinkling sound, as if he had told a small joke.

Corinne: Oh, Adrian. (She patted his arm.) Because it has more class, darling. Anyone can buy a machine. A house like ours has people.

Elias: (Taking a slow sip.) It sends a message. Our name does not need to economize.

Corinne: And they are so much more entertaining. (She lowered her voice, still smiling, her eyes drifting toward the nervous young man by the door.) Human servants get so nervous around us. They try so hard, and they still make mistakes. It's rather fun to watch. And to correct them.

Adrian gave a polite, noncommittal smile and sipped his champagne. On the sofa, the towel stopped moving on Rook's hair.

He did not look up. His orange-red eyes were fixed on the white leather between his boots, his face unreadable. Only the pins on his folded jacket clinked once as his hand tightened on the armrest, and he began, almost without noticing, to turn the silver ring on his finger.

Corinne glanced at a small silver panel set into the wall beside the fireplace. She touched a single button with a manicured fingertip.

A soft chime sounded, somewhere deep within the house.

Corinne: (Calmly, to the air, in the voice she used for the staff.) Maid number two. Come to the main hall at once.

She released the button and turned back to her son and husband, smoothing a crease from her gown, as if she had ordered an extra napkin.

Corinne: And I'll tell the new girl to set the table when she arrives. (She sighed.) I do hope she knows which fork goes where. The last one put the soup spoon on the wrong side of the plate, and I'm still not over it.

Elias: (Dryly.) Then she will learn quickly.

Corinne: (She lifted her glass toward the room, her voice lifting with it, bright and gracious again.) Everyone, please, dinner will be served shortly. I hope you're all hungry!

Polite laughter rippled through the guests. Glasses clinked. Outside, the rain thickened against the glass, and the chandelier in the foyer rang its faint, crystal note.

Rook finally lowered the towel. His eyes lifted toward the archway that led to the service corridor, where the chime had echoed, where footsteps would soon be hurrying along the tiled floor toward the main hall.

He did not move. He sat in his wet boots on the edge of the white sofa, unreadable and silent, and waited with everyone else for the new maid to arrive.

.