Chapter 5
KRISTI
Inever skip work.
Not once, not even during the Centuries War Memorial Week when the air around the archives felt thick with smoke that wasn’t really there.
I’ve dragged myself in with fever, migraines, one foot wrapped in a pressure brace.
The Archives are the one place where the rules don’t shift underneath my boots.
Dust and order. Silence and truth. But today, I can’t stand the thought of being surrounded by ghosts and paper.
So I don’t go.
I lie to the system. Tap in sick leave like it doesn’t taste foul on my tongue. My supervisor sends an automated response and that’s it. I’m free.
It terrifies me.
And liberates me.
The city outside the central Human District pulses in ways I’ve never let myself see.
Bright, wild things. Air tinged with incense and steam.
The Alien Quarter has its own heartbeat, its own scent—metal and spice, charred wood and something floral that doesn’t come from any Terran garden.
For the first time, I don’t walk through it like a ghost. I let it touch me.
There’s a Fratvoyan couple on a shaded bench. She’s pressing candied silk between his palms with reverent care, their long fingers brushing. He giggles. Grown adult, just giggling like a fool in love. I look away quickly, like I’ve seen something private.
Farther down, a Pi’Rell monk hovers in that meditative float, his tendrils swaying like they’re caught in a slow current.
He’s planted beneath a grafted shade tree that spills light and shadow in equal parts.
I pause, watch him breathe without lungs, settle without words.
I have nothing to say about it. No judgment. Just… witness.
I don't believe… I'm not na?ve. I’ve seen what the wars did. What they do still.
But I’m not sure anymore that they’re all the enemy.
And that—more than anything—shakes me.
I turn onto a side street and suddenly, I’m in front of the restaurant.
Again.
I tell myself it’s coincidence. Proximity. Something small and logical and rooted in reason.
It’s a lie.
I step inside before I can change my mind.
The scent wallops me. Smoke. Sugar. Burnt citrus and seared marrow. It’s home now, in a strange way. My shoulders drop the second the door seals behind me. The clatter of utensils, the shout of kitchen calls, the sizzle of something hot on iron—this is music.
Kenron isn’t at the front today. One of his line cooks—tall and ink-streaked—nods at me but says nothing. I make my way to the corner booth, and no one stops me. No one asks what I’m doing.
Like I belong.
What a damn concept.
I sit. Don’t touch the menu. Don’t need to.
A few minutes pass before I see him—Kenron—emerging from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag that’s already seen too much work. His eyes find me fast. Like maybe he’s been checking. Waiting.
He doesn’t grin. Doesn’t smirk.
Just nods. Then disappears back behind the line.
Good.
I don’t want him to know what this means.
I’m still not sure I do. But things have changed. Why?
He brings me a drink this time.
Doesn’t ask if I want it. Just places it on the table beside my elbow like it belongs there. The glass is smooth, faceted like cut crystal but warm to the touch. Inside, something golden bubbles slow and soft, like lazy lightning. I glance up at him. He shrugs.
“Try it.”
I narrow my eyes but lift it. He watches me too closely, that smug tilt to his mouth just daring me to hate it.
I sip.
It’s sweet. Not cloying, not syrupy, just...bright. The fizz clings to my tongue, delicate as spun sugar, and then it blooms—complex, sharp, a little wild. Like crushed fruit soaked in sunlight and old secrets.
“Vakutan nectar?” I ask, because I’ve heard the term but never tasted it.
Kenron leans a hip against the edge of the booth. “Close. This one’s fermented on-world, though. Grown in reclaimed soil from the war zone north of Trenni Ridge.”
I blink. “You’re giving me trauma fruit?”
He grins. “Only the best for our repeat customers.”
I laugh. I don’t mean to. It slips out and sits there between us, daring me to take it back.
Instead, I sip again.
We don’t talk politics. Not culture. Not war.
None of the landmine topics I usually maneuver around like a professional bomb tech.
We talk about flavor. Spice profiles. What sweetness does when you bury it in char.
He describes roasting roots like it’s poetry—low fire, damp cloth, patience like religion.
I nod. Ask the kind of questions I’d normally scoff at myself for asking.
It’s nothing.
It’s everything.
By the time I leave, the glass is empty and my chest feels too full. I don’t remember saying goodbye. I just remember the way he looked at me—open. Not soft. Just... real.
That stays with me all the way home.
The door to my place hisses open, and I know something’s wrong before I even step inside.
The lights are too low. The air feels too still.
And Dennis is there.
Sitting on my couch like he owns it, sipping whiskey from the decanter I keep for guests I never invite. His posture is perfect, one leg crossed, expression warm and unreadable.
“Kristi,” he says, like a prayer and a warning. “You missed work.”
I freeze halfway through unbuttoning my jacket. “Didn’t realize you monitored my attendance now.”
“I monitor a lot of things,” he says, voice smooth as the whiskey he swirls. “Including where you’ve been spending your evenings.”
I don’t respond. Not at first. I move slowly, hang up the coat. The silence stretches.
He doesn’t let it break.
“Alien Quarter’s an interesting choice. Bit of a risk, politically speaking.”
“Didn’t realize I was running for office,” I mutter, crossing the room to grab a glass of water I suddenly don’t want.
Dennis watches me. Always watching.
“I understand curiosity,” he says. “I do. It’s natural. But there’s a difference between curiosity and... sympathizing.”
My spine goes cold.
“That what this is now?” I snap. “I have dinner and suddenly I’m a sympathizer?”
“I’m saying,” he says carefully, “that people are watching. And you represent more than yourself.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
He sips. “You represent me.”
That stings more than I expect.
“You’re not my father.”
“No,” he agrees. “But I’m the reason you have a job. A home. Security. All the things you’d lose if the wrong people thought you were cozying up to the enemy.”
Enemy.
The word hangs heavy.
I clench my jaw. “They’re not the enemy. Not all of them.”
Dennis tilts his head. “That’s not what you used to say.”
I flinch.
People change.
I’ve changed.
I don’t say that out loud. I don’t trust him with it.
He sets the glass down with a clink. Stands.
“I’m telling you this for your own good. Stay away from that place. From him.”
And then he’s gone.
Door hissing shut behind him like a final breath.
I stand in my quiet living room, heart slamming like fists on glass, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath for ten minutes.
That night, I lie in bed with my hands fisted in the blankets.
Everything inside me feels off-kilter, sliding.
And I can’t tell if it’s fear or freedom.