Milo Ashley pushed his mop down the corridor of the space station, and every criminal he passed pressed against the wall to let him through. They knew his name. He kept his eyes down and his shoulders stooped, a janitor in stained grey coveralls. But tonight he was not cleaning. He carried a letter in his pocket, folded eight times, addressed to the man who built Voidsphere. Milo had loved him for years and never said a word. Tonight he would. He stopped outside the towering mansion at the station's edge. Its dark spires rose into stone arches, but glowing blue panels ran up the walls like veins of light. This was where the creator lived. Milo had scrubbed these floors a hundred times. He had never once knocked on the door. A small pink dog trotted out to meet him. It had gills along its neck and a long fish tail that swept the floor. The creator's pet. It circled Milo's boots and looked up, waiting. Milo knelt and scratched its ears with a shaking hand. "He's inside," a voice said. Milo stood. The creator stood in the doorway. He was older than Milo remembered, silver-haired, still handsome, the way an actor stays handsome. He had watched Milo work for years and never spoken. "I read your letters," the man said. "All of them. You leave one under the door every week." Milo's face went hot. He had thought no one noticed him. That was the whole point of being a janitor. "You never signed them," the creator said. "But I know your handwriting. I know how you clean the west stairs first. I know you feed her when you think I'm asleep." He looked at the little dog. "I've been waiting for you to knock." Milo dropped the mop. It clattered on the stone. He crossed the doorway and threw his arms around the older man, all his years of silence breaking at once. The creator held him back, tight, and did not let go. They were married two weeks later. It was small. The pink dog wore a ribbon. The dangerous men who feared Milo's name sent gifts and did not dare attend. For the first time, Milo signed his name where everyone could read it. But the night after the wedding, Milo woke alone. The bed beside him was cold. He found the creator in his study, staring at a screen full of red warnings. Voidsphere's systems were failing, line by line. The man who built the whole station had not told his new husband one thing. "I made this place," the creator said quietly. "And now something is unmaking it. I didn't want to marry you into a dying station." Milo picked up his mop. "Then show me what's broken," he said.