The interior of the Directorate transit liner did not smell of wet pine or pack borders. It carried the cold, sterile scent of pressurized oxygen, synthetic leather, and high-grade coolant.Kaela sat on a sleek, carbon-fibre bench in the secondary command pod, her hands wrapped tightly around a warm porcelain cylinder of black coffee that Voss had handed her. Her long wool coat was draped over her shoulders, the three salvaged vellum sheets and the dampened iron transmission key resting securely in an inner zip compartment. On her wrists, the permanent silver-blue luminescence had faded back to a quiet, deep network of faint veins beneath her translucent skin, pulsing in perfect, rhythmic alignment with her resting heart."We just cleared the upper barometric line," Adrian Wolfe said, stepping into the pod through a silent, pneumatic sliding door.The resurrected Eastern heir had traded his torn velvet vest for a tailored, charcoal-grey tactical tunic provided by the liner's automated
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