Erebus set three bone ampoules on Kade's steel table and opened a pocket that smelt of cold stone. "No flames," he said. "They like being seen."
"Distil," Kade said, pencil ready.
Erebus cracked the first ampoule. Not liquid—dust that refused to fall. He coaxed it through a narrow bone funnel into a shallow dish, and lines rose in it like breath across frost before settling into a pattern. Not a map. A behaviour.
Rose leaned in. "Echo-seeding. It teaches the belt to remember a touch and want it again."
"Like a song you can't stop humming," Rachel murmured, unhappy.
The second ampoule played with timing—rewarded the lattice when it answered fast, punished it when it didn't.
"Training," Kade said, disgusted. "They're housebreaking our hum."
"Trying," I said.
