Mercer Asterion came through the jump on his knees, and the bridge came with him broken. Smoke curled from the pilot's station. The command ring around him should have hummed. It ticked instead, like cooling metal. Cracked glass panels blinked red where they should have glowed blue. He was a surveyor from a civilization that crossed universes the way other people crossed rivers. He had crossed one river too many. The route home ran through this ship, and this ship was dying under his hands. He pulled the hood of his travel cloak over his head out of habit, though no one was watching. Then he stood. The main console was the worst of it. The maintenance bay hung open. Inside, circuitry crackled around a scorched titanium frame. Violet arcs jumped between contacts that should have been sealed. He recognized the failure before he finished counting the burns. A cascade through the primary regulator. The console had eaten itself to protect the core. Mercer flexed his cybernetic right hand and reached into the bay. The arm's insulation held. He traced the damage with two fingers, following heat scars to their source. The jump module sat in its cradle, still seated, still whole on the outside. He drew it free. It was heavier than he remembered, or he was more tired than he wanted to admit. Fire-colored fractures ran along its edges. At the center, the blue crystal processor still pulsed. Alive. Damaged, but alive. That was the answer, then. The ship was scrap. The module could be saved. He set it on the deck and ran a diagnostic through his palm. The readout was short and bad. Three components were fried. Two he could improvise around. The third was a resonance capacitor grown from a lattice this world had never heard of. He would have to build a replacement out of whatever this place offered, one crude part at a time. A sound reached him through the hull breach. Not machinery. Voices. A wooden cart wheel. A goat's bleat. Someone shouting a price. Mercer went to the crack in the hull and looked out. Stalls. Canvas awnings. A satyr tuning a lute. Two horned traders arguing over a crate of jars. A market, sprawling and loud, pressed right up against the wreck of his ship as if it had always been there. No one had noticed him yet. That would not last. He looked down at himself. Silver composite armor. Blue seams glowing faintly through synthetic fabric. Boots that had never touched dirt like this. He pulled the cloak tighter and tucked the cybernetic hand into its folds. He wrapped the jump module in a strip of insulation and slid it into his satchel. He took one last look at the dead bridge. Then he stepped through the breach into the noise. The plan was simple. Become forgettable. Find the parts. Get home. He made it four steps before a shadow fell across him and a small voice said "Hi there!"

The shadow belonged to a girl. She stood in the gap where the market ended and his ruined ship began, one hand hooked in the strap of a canvas satchel. Braids. Freckles. Boots that had walked this dirt a long time. She looked at the wreck behind him the way other people looked at a stubborn goat: mild curiosity, no alarm. Mercer kept his cybernetic hand inside his cloak and tried to look like a man who belonged to a road. "Hi there," she said again. "You dropped something big." He glanced back through the breach. The bridge was dark, but the gateway platform on the lower deck still bled soft light through cracks in the hull. Rings of blue and orange spun slow inside it, throwing colored bars across the dirt. Anyone who came around the corner would see. Any scavenger with a pry bar would strip the ring in an hour. The jump module in his satchel was useless without a platform to stand on. "I was hoping no one had noticed," Mercer said. "I notice most things." She tilted her head. "You want it hid?" He measured her. Fifteen, maybe. No merchant behind her. No parent calling. She waited the way market children waited, patient as a cat. "I do," he said. "Quickly." She pointed past his shoulder. Twenty paces off, half-swallowed by weeds, stood a collapsed lean-to. Rotted beams. A tin of nails spilled in the mud. Firewood stacked and forgotten. "Nobody's touched that pile in years," she said. "Merchants call it the eyesore. Guards don't walk past it because the roof drops rocks." Mercer looked at the wreck, then the lean-to, then her. "The platform is heavy. And it glows." "Cover the glow first." He pulled a tarp of insulation from the breach and threw it over the platform. The light dimmed to a dull ember. Then he braced his shoulder against the base and pushed. His arm did the real work under the cloak. The platform ground across the deck plates and out onto the dirt, gouging a track. The girl grabbed a broken plank and swept dust behind him, erasing the drag marks as they moved. They rolled it into the lean-to's belly. He kicked firewood down around it. She dragged a rotted door across the front and tipped a bucket of nails over the threshold so nothing looked disturbed. The insulation held the light. From three steps away, it was garbage. Mercer exhaled. He was filthy. His cloak had torn at the hem. Nothing in the market seemed to have looked up. "Mercer," he said, offering the name carefully. "Mouse." She wiped her hand on her skirt. "You've got parts to buy, don't you? I saw the list in your face." He hadn't shown her a list. He nodded anyway. The wreck was hidden. The module was safe against his ribs. Now he needed a guide, and one had walked up to him uninvited.

Mouse led him through the market at a pace that said she expected to be paid. She hadn't said so yet. Mercer could feel it in the way she glanced back at his cloak, sizing up the shape of his satchel. She had helped him hide the platform. She had walked him past three rows of stalls. The debt was building, and he had nothing in his pocket that anyone here would recognize as money. She stopped him in front of a booth built from twisted wood and hung with red cloth. A wooden sign above it read Copperpocket's Currency Exchange. A second sign on an easel spelled the rates: a hundred copper twigs made a silver acorn, a hundred silver acorns made a golden pinecone. Behind the counter stood a green goblin in round spectacles and a red scarf, polishing a small scale with a rag. "He takes anything shiny," Mouse said. "He'll cheat you. Everyone knows. He still gives the best rate." Mercer set his drawstring pouch on the counter. The goblin's ears twitched at the fabric, which did not crease the way leather creased. Mouse noticed too. She said nothing. Mercer loosened the string and tipped out a careful handful. Not all of it. Gold discs stamped with letters no one here could read. A silver round with a numeral one. A copper piece marked with a spray of unfamiliar leaves. He kept the rest of the hoard closed inside the pouch against his palm. The goblin lifted a gold disc to the light. He bit it. He set it on the scale. He frowned, then smiled, then frowned again in the practiced order of a man about to lie. "Curious metals," the goblin said. "Foreign. Hard to move. Six silver acorns for the lot." Mercer did not blink. He knew what he had. The gold alone weighed more than the whole offer. "The gold disc is nine grams," Mercer said. "Test it. Twelve acorns for that piece alone." The goblin's smile thinned. He tested it. He weighed each coin, one by one, muttering. Mouse leaned on the counter and watched his hands the way a cat watches a bird. "Eight," the goblin said. "Eleven." "Nine, and I take the silver round at two." "Ten, and the silver round at three." The goblin grunted and counted out the pile. Polished silver acorns and two burnished golden pinecones rolled across the wood. It was a hefty sum. Mercer swept it into his pouch and pulled the string tight. Outside the booth, he pressed ten acorns into Mouse's palm before she could ask. Her eyes went wide. She closed her fingers around it fast. "That's a week," she said. "That's today," Mercer said. "Tomorrow costs more." She grinned, tucked the acorns into her vest, and started walking. He followed. The pouch at his hip was bulkier now, and lighter by exactly ten acorns, and the guide at his side was bought.

They had walked three more rows when Mouse elbowed him hard in the ribs. Mercer looked down. His cloak had slipped off his right shoulder again. The polished plates of his cybernetic arm caught the lantern light in a thin blue line from wrist to elbow. He pulled the cloth back into place without hurrying. Hurry drew eyes. Too late. A woman at a nearby stall had already stopped rearranging her jars. She stared at the seam of his sleeve, head tilted, the way a person looks at a coin she suspects is fake. Her mouth opened. "Walk," Mouse said under her breath. She caught his good hand and pulled. "You stand out like a sore thumb. We fix it now." She cut through two aisles and stopped him in front of a stall hung with azure drapes and brass-tipped posts. A carved sign read Deepwood Designs. Behind the counter stood a tall elven woman in a layered blue dress, sorting swatches with slow, exact hands. She did not look up when they arrived. She finished her stack first. "Luna," Mouse said. "He needs everything. Today." Luna Draper lifted her eyes to Mercer. They moved from his hood to his boots and back. She said nothing for a long moment. "Off the rack won't fit you," she said. "Your shoulders are wrong for the cuts I keep hung." "I need something now," Mercer said. "And something later." She nodded once, as if he had passed a small test. She pulled a cream linen shirt from a shelf and laid it on the counter. "Three acorns. It will cover the arm. It will not fit well." She set beside it a folded tunic with a deep red waistcoat and a worn belt threaded through the loops. "That one is a wayfarer's cut. I keep one made up for travelers who can't wait. Twelve acorns. Long sleeves. High collar. It hides more than it shows." Mercer counted fifteen silver acorns onto the wood. "The real garment takes three days," Luna said. She lifted a slim measuring tape marked in pale elven numerals. "Charcoal, to match what you came in wearing. Stand straight." He let the cloak fall open. She saw the arm. Her hand paused on the tape for one breath, then continued. She measured his shoulders, his chest, the length from wrist joint to elbow. She wrote nothing down. "I've measured stranger," she said, quiet. "Once. Come back on the third day." Mercer stepped behind the drape and changed. The linen shirt swallowed the silver of his arm. The waistcoat pulled the silhouette into something a merchant might pass without a second glance. When he stepped out, Mouse looked him over and nodded like a foreman signing off on work. The woman with the jars was gone from her stall when they passed it again. Mercer kept his hood down anyway. He had three days to stay unseen, and a tailor who now knew exactly what he was hiding.

They left the tailor's stall and turned onto a track that ran out past the last row of stalls. Two wagon ruts cut the grass, worn deep from years of carts. Mercer walked in one rut and Mouse walked in the other. The market noise fell behind them until he could hear his own boots on the packed dirt. "Where are we going?" Mercer asked. "I need a place to sleep. A door I can lock. Somewhere I can work without anyone watching." "I know a place," Mouse said. She did not slow down. "Nobody goes there. You'll like it." His stomach tightened and made a sound loud enough that she heard it. He pressed a hand to his side. He tried to remember his last meal and could not. Before the jump, maybe. Before the ship broke. "I haven't eaten," he said. It came out surprised, like he'd only just noticed. "Not since I got here." Mouse looked up at him. "That's stupid." "I know." "Cheese and bread after," she said. "Poppy's still baking. We settle first. Then food." The track climbed a low rise. At the top, a stone building sat alone in the grass. It was small and square, with two cracked columns holding up a peaked roof. Ivy pulled at the walls. A carved symbol above the door had lost most of its shape. The double doors were shut, but one hinge hung loose. "A tomb," Mercer said. "Nobody's in it," Mouse said. "I checked. Years ago." She walked up the broken steps and pushed the door. It scraped open on the loose hinge. "It's mine. I let you use it because you paid." Inside, the air was dry and cool. Slabs of stone lined the walls, empty. Mouse had set up a corner. A folded blanket. A tin cup. A wooden crate turned on its side to hold three books and a candle stub. A second crate held a coil of rope and a knife. Mercer set his satchel down on a clean slab. He opened it and laid out what mattered. The jump module. The two components he already had. The empty slot where the resonance capacitor should sit. In here, out of the wind, out of sight, he could finally work. "This will do," he said. "Three days here. Maybe four." "Rules," Mouse said. "No fire inside. No light after dark that shows through the door. You don't tell anyone about this place. Not the tailor. Not the goblin. Nobody." "Agreed." She nodded once. "Then we go get the cheese and bread. I'm hungry too." Mercer closed the satchel and pulled his hood up. He had a roof, a lock of sorts, and a girl who knew the rules of hiding better than he did. The capacitor was still missing. But now he had a place to build one.

They walked back down the wagon track and into the market. Mouse led him past the a few stalls and around a row of carts until the smell of yeast and butter cut through the dust. The bakery sat under a curled roof framed with ivy, its shelves stacked with loaves. Mercer's stomach twisted so hard he had to stop walking for a second. A hobbit woman came out from behind the shelves, wiping her hands on a floured apron. Her cheeks were pink from the ovens. She smiled at Mouse first, real and easy, then looked sideways at Mercer. Her eyes moved once over his cloak and boots and did not linger. She had already decided something. "Mornin', Poppy," Mouse said. "Any chance you've got any...." "I have," Poppy said, before mouse could finish her sentence. She did not reach for the shelf. "Do a run for me first. Fair trade." Mouse's mouth opened. Poppy kept going before Mouse could argue. "Pie's cooling on the table. Elderberry. The art studio ordered it for a still life class this afternoon. My boy's out with a fever and I can't leave the ovens." She looked at Mercer again. "Two of you can carry one pie between you. Misfit loaves'll be waiting when you're back." "How far?" Mercer asked. "Not far. Mouse knows." Mouse nodded once, tight. Mercer understood the shape of it. No bread without the errand. He was too hungry to argue and too visible to insist. "We'll take it," he said. Poppy went back behind the shelves and returned with the pie in a black pan. The crust was golden and crimped, the lattice dark with purple filling. She set it in a wicker basket, folded a green-and-cream checkered cloth over the top, and tucked the corners in with quick fingers. "Warm still," she said. "Don't tip it. Don't let anyone lift the cloth. They paid for a whole pie." Mercer took the basket with his left hand. The handle was worn smooth. Poppy held his eye a beat longer than was comfortable, then let it go. "Go on," she said. "I'll pull the misfits from the second batch. You'll like them warm." They stepped back into the lane. Mouse walked ahead, scanning. Mercer kept the basket level against his hip. Half a dozen steps from the stall, he felt something at his heel. He looked down. A scruffy dog with mismatched ears and shaggy fur walked at his boot, nose lifted toward the basket. It did not beg. It just walked with him, like it had made a decision. "Mouse," Mercer said quietly. She glanced back. Her face did not change. "He's not mine," she said. "He picks his people." The dog kept pace. The pie was warm against Mercer's ribs. The studio was somewhere ahead, and now they were three.

The lane opened under a carved wooden arch woven with vines and yellow flowers. The sign above read Golden Talon Studio and Supplies. Beyond the arch, a griffin stood at a table under the open sky, arranging props. Paint spattered his leather apron in bright, dried streaks. He looked up as they approached, then lowered his head to see past his small round spectacles. "Pie from Poppy," Mouse said. "For the still life." "Set it there," the griffin said. He pointed a talon at the table. A copper mug already sat on the green cloth. Beside it stood a stone vase with cut flowers, and a white plate with a single fork. Mercer lifted the basket onto the table. He drew back the checkered cloth. The crust caught the light. The griffin studied it the way a jeweler studies a stone. "Good," the griffin said. "That'll hold the eye." He shifted the mug an inch, set the pie between the vase and the plate, and stepped back. "Aeris Feathermane. Thank you for the carry." "Mercer." He kept his cybernetic hand inside the cloak. Aeris looked at the dog. The dog had settled beside the table leg, chin on paws, eyes on the pie. "He always shows up when there's food," Aeris said. "He won't touch it. Knows the rules." "He's with us today," Mercer said. "He's with whoever's carrying," Aeris said. He reached into his apron pocket and drew out a small cloth pouch. He set it on the corner of the table. "Poppy's payment. Half for the pie. Half is hers to split with the runners." He looked at Mouse. "She'll know the count." Mouse took the pouch and tucked it into her satchel. "She always does." Aeris turned back to the table and squinted at the arrangement. He moved the fork a hair to the left. Then he stopped and looked at Mercer again, longer this time. "You're new," Aeris said. It wasn't a question. "Passing through," Mercer said. Aeris nodded once. He didn't press. "If you're around tomorrow, I need a hand hauling frames. Two silver acorns, an hour's work." Mercer felt the offer land. Steady coin. A reason to be in one place. A griffin who asked and moved on. "I'll think on it," he said. "Fair," Aeris said. He returned to the still life. Mouse tugged Mercer's sleeve. They stepped back under the arch. The dog rose, stretched, and followed at Mercer's heel. "He gave you the pouch," Mercer said, low. "He gave us the pouch," Mouse said. "Poppy'll open it in front of us. That's how she keeps everyone honest." "And the bread?" "Bread's ours the moment she sees the count." Mercer shifted the empty basket to his other hand. The pie was delivered. The payment was in Mouse's bag. Now they only had to walk it back before Poppy pulled the misfits from the oven.

They walked the pouch back through the market. Mouse kept one hand on her satchel. The dog trotted at Mercer's heel. The empty basket knocked against his leg with every step. Poppy's stand sat under its curled roof, vines trailing down the posts. She was pulling a tray from the lower shelf when they turned in. She straightened, wiped flour on her apron, and smiled. "You're back before the misfits cooled," she said. "Good." Mouse set the pouch on the counter. Poppy loosened the drawstring and tipped the contents onto the wood. Golden pinecones rolled first. Then two silver acorns. Then a small bundle of copper twigs. She sorted them with a baker's care, one finger nudging each piece into its group. "Full count," she said. "He's honest, that one." She looked up at Mouse. "Same as last time." "Same as last time," Mouse said. Poppy pushed two copper twigs and a silver acorn back across the counter. "Runners' share. Split how you like." Mouse took the coin and tucked it into her belt pouch. She slid one copper twig toward Mercer without looking at him. He picked it up. It was heavier than it looked. Poppy reached under the counter and lifted a folded linen cloth. Four loaves sat on it. One was cracked down the seam. One leaned to the side. One was smaller than the others. One had split its crust in a pale grin. "Oddbatch," she said. "Wrong shape for the rack. Right shape for eating." She wrapped the corners of the linen and pressed the bundle into Mercer's hands. "Go on. Before I put them back and change my mind." Mercer felt the warmth through the cloth. "Thank you." "Thank the oven," Poppy said. She was already turning to the next tray. They stepped back into the lane. Mouse breathed out slow, like a job just closed. "That's yours," she said, nodding at the bread. "Tomb's the other way. Come on. I'll show you the clubhouse. I sleep there sometimes when the market's loud." They cut past the awnings. The lane thinned. Stone showed through the dirt track that led to the mausoleum. The dog ranged ahead, then circled back. A voice called from behind them. Soft. Sweet. Familiar. "Mouse. There you are." Mouse stopped walking. She didn't turn right away. Mercer watched her shoulders. They lifted, then set. Her hand drifted to the strap of her satchel and stayed there. "You know that voice," Mercer said, low. "I do," Mouse said. She still hadn't turned. The bread was warm against Mercer's chest. The copper twig was warm in his palm. The share was paid. The obstacle was closed. A new one had just called Mouse's name.

Mouse turned. The tension left her shoulders in a slow drop. A woman stood a few stalls back, waving from behind a wooden counter draped in vines. Milk bottles lined her shelves. Glass jars glowed faintly with cream. Her red hair caught the light. She held a cloth in one hand and a ladle in the other. "Rae," Mouse said. Her voice went easy. "Sorry. Didn't hear you the first time." "Come here a minute," Rae called. "Sample table's got leftovers. They'll spoil by evening." Mouse looked at Mercer. "Friend," she said. "Dairy stall. She's alright." Mercer followed her back to the counter. The dog sniffed at a basket of butter rounds and thought better of it. Rae watched them come. Her smile was small and steady, the kind that didn't ask anything. "Cheese won't keep in this warmth," Rae said. "Better in you than the pigs." She nodded at a worn wooden bowl on the sample table. Cubes of pale farmhouse cheese. Grapes, purple and green. A few crumbles at the bottom. Mouse pulled a wooden bowl from her satchel and set it on the counter without a word. Rae tipped the cheese and grapes into it. She didn't fuss with the amount. She just filled it. "Thanks," Mouse said. "Thank the cow," Rae said. Mercer's eyes moved past the bowl. On the back shelf sat a small crock of chocolate syrup, dark and fresh, a wooden spoon resting across the rim. Beside it, glass bottles of milk cooled in a shallow tray of well water. Something turned over in his chest. He hadn't thought about his mother in years. She used to stir cocoa into cold milk at the kitchen counter, back before the jumps, before any of it. He could almost taste it. "Two chocolate milks," he said. His voice came out rougher than he meant. "If you'll make them." "Copper apiece," Rae said. "Two for a copper if you drink them here." "Two for a copper, then." She poured. She stirred. She corked two small bottles and tied cream paper labels at the necks with twine. She set them on the counter. Mercer slid a copper twig across the wood. He picked up both bottles and held one out to Mouse. He couldn't find the words for what he wanted to say. Thanks for the guiding. Thanks for not asking. Thanks for the bread errand and the tomb and the pouch count. "For you," he said. "For—" He stopped. "Because of the loaves. And the rest." Mouse took the bottle. She looked at him a second too long. Then she pulled the cork with her teeth and drank. "You're bad at this," she said. "I know." Rae wiped the counter. "Sit if you want. Bench is free." Mercer sat. The bottle was cold in his hand. For the first time since the crash, he wasn't in a hurry.

They finished the chocolate milk on Rae's bench and walked out to the edge of town. The dog trotted ahead. Mouse carried the bread bundle. Mercer carried the cheese bowl in the crook of his cybernetic arm, hidden under the cloak. The tomb sat past the last wagon track, low against a slope of ivy and broken stone. Its columns leaned. Its door hung heavy on old hinges. Mouse pushed it open with her shoulder. Inside was cooler than Mercer remembered. Light fell through a crack in the roof and struck the granite sarcophagus in the middle of the room. The lid had shifted years ago and never been set right. Leaves had gathered in the gap. Ivy climbed one side. Against the far wall lay a patchwork pallet, folded blankets, a flat pillow. Mouse's, clearly. She didn't say so. "Table," Mouse said, nodding at the sarcophagus. Mercer brushed the leaves off the lid. He set the cheese bowl down. Mouse untied the linen and laid out four loaves, each shaped a little wrong. They sat on opposite sides of the stone and ate with their hands. The dog settled by the door with a heel of crust. Mercer chewed slowly and looked around. He hadn't really seen the room before. Now he did. Two ways in. No windows. Thick walls. A dry corner where damp hadn't reached. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the jump module. He set it on the granite beside the bread. "That's the thing," Mouse said. Not a question. "Part of it." He turned it in his hand. The casing was cold. The seams still held. "I have this. I still need one piece I can't make from what I brought. And the platform's in the lean-to." "The glowy floor." "Yes." Mouse tore a loaf in half. "Bring it here." Mercer set the module down. "If someone finds that lean-to before I do, I don't get home. It shouldn't sit out there another night." "Then we move it after dark," Mouse said. "Two of us. Cart if we can borrow one. Blanket over the top." He looked at her across the sarcophagus. She was fifteen and eating bread on a coffin and planning a theft of his own property back from a shack. "Tonight," he said. "Tonight." She wiped her hands on her skirt. "I know who lends a cart and doesn't ask. Costs a copper." "Pay them two." Mouse nodded. She pulled a grape from the bowl and popped it. "Then we still need your missing piece." "One thing at a time." He wrapped the module in cloth and slid it back into the satchel. The tomb was quiet. The dog snored. For the first time since the crash, Mercer had a workshop, a plan for the platform, and someone across the table who knew what the plan meant. The capacitor was still nowhere. But tonight, everything he needed would be under one roof.