Mio understood then why she had never felt lonely in her white cell. Because she had never been alone. The cold pulse from below had been holding her steady, balancing her fire with his ice, keeping her alive when all others failed.

“We learn to be human,” she said.

“You are 454,” he said. “The first light anchor to survive. The others burned because they tried to hold the warmth alone. But you didn’t. You let it move.”

Above them, alarms began to scream. Dr. Ibuki’s voice crackled over the intercom: “Code Black. Subject 454 has breached containment. Subject 001—confirm status.”

The Ghost smiled—a terrible, beautiful expression on a face that had forgotten how. “Now we open the bridge. And then we walk out the front door.”

What Mio never told him was that the warmth had started spreading. First her palm, then her wrist, then up her forearm like a river of honey under her skin. By the time she was fifteen, she could make small objects tremble just by concentrating. By sixteen, she could lift a pen from across the room. By seventeen, she could hear the electric whispers of the facility’s security system—not words, but intentions.