JUNO’S STAND
The Memory Den was under siege.
Remy saw it from the edge of the Deep Warrens — the entrance to the tunnels guarded by a dozen black-suited hunters, their faces hidden behind masks, their weapons drawn. The neon signs that had once advertised stolen memories were dark. The bar was silent.
But the Den was not empty.
Juno had barricaded herself inside with a handful of survivors — memory dealers, extraction specialists, the kind of people who knew how to fight dirty. They had taken down three hunters already. Their bodies lay in the tunnel, blood seeping into the dust.
Remy circled around, through a service tunnel she and Juno had used years ago, when they were younger and more reckless. The entrance was hidden behind a collapsed support beam. She squeezed through.
The Den was dark. The only light came from the flickering screens of extraction machines, casting the room in shades of blue and green.
“Juno,” she whispered.
A figure emerged from behind the bar.
Juno’s face was bruised. Her arm was bandaged. But her eyes were sharp.
“Rust. You look like hell.”
“You look worse.”
Juno smiled. It was a tired smile.
“The hunters took the Spire. The oligarch is dead — or fled. No one knows. They’re rounding up anyone who ever sold a memory. Anyone who ever extracted one. Anyone who ever touched the trade.”
“They’re looking for the fragment.”
“They’re looking for you. They’ve been broadcasting your face for hours. There’s a bounty. A big one.”
Remy sat down. Her body was screaming.
“I met the Warden. I saw the prison. I saw my father.”
Juno’s eyes widened. “Cassian?”
“He’s not my father. Not anymore. He’s the Warden’s vessel. Its body. Its hunger.”
Juno was silent for a long moment.
Then she said, “I have a fragment too. Don’t I?”
Remy nodded. “It woke when I entered the prison.”
“I’ve been having dreams. The same dreams you used to have. The field. The tree. The voice.”
“That voice is inside me now. It merged with me. I am the weapon.”
Juno looked at her hands. At the scars. At the blood.
“What do we do?”
“We fight. Together. The way we always have.”
THE SECOND CHOICE
The hunters breached the Den at dawn.
Not through the front — through the walls. They had explosives. They had weapons that could cut through steel. They had numbers.
Remy and Juno and the survivors fought.
It was not a battle. It was a slaughter.
The hunters moved like machines, their shots precise, their movements synchronized. One by one, the survivors fell. Not dead — stunned, bound, dragged away.
Juno fought beside Remy, her weapon blazing, her face twisted in rage.
“We need to fall back!” she shouted.
“There’s nowhere to fall back to!”
“Then we make somewhere!”
She grabbed Remy’s arm and pulled her toward the extraction booths. The last one. The oldest one. The one that had been there since before Remy was born.
“This is a dead end,” Remy said.
“No. It’s a door.”
Juno pressed her palm against the booth’s wall.
The wall shimmered.
A door appeared.
Not a golden door. Not like the one in the prison. A silver door, cold and smooth, with symbols that glowed faintly blue.
“This is the other prison,” Juno said. “The one the Warden didn’t want you to find. The one where the weapon was really made.”
“How do you know about this?”
“Because the fragment showed me. While you were gone. While I was dreaming.”
Remy looked at the door.
“If we go in there, we might not come out.”
“If we stay here, we definitely won’t come out.”
Remy looked back at the Den. At the hunters pouring through the walls. At the survivors being dragged away.
She took Juno’s hand.
They stepped through the door.
Behind them, the hunters screamed.
And the silver door closed.