The walk back to Lenard’s hidden workshop felt longer than before. Every shift of the Myrden suit, every brush of the wig against Vernon’s neck, was a screaming reminder of the armor he now wore. The crude, predatory gazes from the market seemed to cling to him like a film. He just wanted to be back in the dim, sterile safety of the underground room.

He triggered the concealed door panel, the hatch hissing open to reveal the familiar glow of surgical lamps and humming machinery. He stepped inside, the door sealing behind him with a definitive thud.

And froze.

Across the workshop, standing near the body-molder unit, was a woman.

She was dressed in the same kind of practical, worn Mar-Shada trousers and tunic that Vernon wore. Her hair was a short, practical brown bob. She had her back to him, examining something on a workbench. A cold jolt went through Vernon. Lenard had another client? Now? The secrecy of this place was their only protection.

Then the woman turned.

Vernon’s breath hitched. The face… it was familiar in a way that made his heart stutter. There was a resemblance to his mother, Freiga, in the set of the eyes and the line of the jaw. But as he stared, the recognition twisted, turning inward. It wasn’t his mother.

It was him.

Or rather, it was a feminine version of his own features, aged by perhaps two decades. The high cheekbones, the shape of the lips, the arch of the brows—all were echoes of the face he’d seen in the mirror just hours ago, but softer, lined with a pragmatic weariness. It was like looking at a ghost of Lauren Kerigan, grown into a woman in her forties.

The woman’s gaze settled on him. She smiled, a small, tight expression.

“Back so soon?” she asked.

The voice was pitched higher than normal, but the cadence, the slight gravel underneath the tone—Vernon knew it instantly. His mind recoiled even as his ears confirmed it.

“Marius?” The name fell from Vernon’s lips, a stunned whisper.

“I asked if you completed the refueling and resupplying,” the woman—Marius—said, the voice modulator at her neck glowing faintly with each word.

Vernon’s own modulator translated his shock into a feminine stutter. “I… yes. The supplies. And the fuel. The merchant said a courier will deliver the canisters to the Whisper.”

He took a …