The second hideout was worse than the first.
Lower ceiling. Rot in the beams. A smell like old soup and damp stone. The kind of place rats would move out of if they had standards.
Kaiden liked it better.
Less window. Less sky. Less chance of seeing the wrong world when he blinked.
Rein had found it before dawn — an abandoned storage loft above a shuttered shop, one staircase up and one rotten ladder down into a back alley. No one had used it in months. Maybe years. The dust didn't bother Kaiden. He'd been buried in worse.
Mara spread her sketches out again like a gambler laying down losing cards and pretending she could bluff the world.
"Anchor line A can be patched from the north side," she muttered, drawing with the butt of a stolen nail. "We splice in the scrap there, let it carry load until we can reinforce. The circle won't like it, but it'll hold for one jump if we're lucky."
"If we're lucky, nothing explodes," Jex said.
"If we're lucky, we get to leave," Rein rumbled.
Sylen sat near the narrow window, one knee up, eyes on the street. She wasn't talking. That was the loudest part.
Kaiden stood in the center of the room, hands by his sides, trying to remember how to exist without thinking about it. Every time he focused on his own body, he could feel the gaps.
Motion. Blank. Result.
He was a chain of missing links.
"I'll need someone with steady hands on the ring," Mara said. "When we start laying conduits. I can guide, but I can't be everywhere at once. Sylen?"
Sylen shook her head once. "If humans tighten patrols after last night, someone needs to watch their rotations. That's me."
"Rein?" Mara tried.
He flexed fingers like fractured steel rods. "You want these on precision work?"
"Point," she conceded.
Her gaze slid reluctantly to Kaiden.
"I don't need steady," he said before she could ask. "I need obedient."
"And you're… not?" Jex ventured.
Kaiden ignored him.
"Walk me through what you need," he told Mara. "Step by step. If I have a script, maybe I won't improvise a massacre."
Mara swallowed.
"Fine," she said quietly.
She began talking — not just about what to do, but why.
"This segment routes power from your interface point into the outer ring," she said, tapping a curve. "If you push too hard, it'll melt. If you hesitate too long, it'll stall and dump residual mana back into you."
"Like breathing with someone else's lungs," Kaiden said.
"Exactly," she said. "Except if you mismatch the rhythm, one of you bursts."
He nodded.
He understood that.
They spent hours walking through it.
Lay conduit. Anchor here. Feed power until she said stop. Not when his Core wanted. Not when the circle pulsed. When she said.
"Logic overrides instinct," Mara said. "If you feel the urge to push harder, that's exactly when you don't."
"My instincts aren't the problem," he muttered. "My instincts at least belong to me."
Her mouth tightened. "Then override the other ones."
By midday, Kaiden's head felt worse than his Core.
Lucid, though.
Sharp.
Every line, every rune, every potential failure point was a nail in his thoughts. It hurt — because it was his pain. His work. His fault if it went wrong.
Lucidity always hurt more.
It meant he had to watch.
"This might almost be fun," Mara said at one point, voice dry. "If it weren't hanging over a pit filled with dead bodies and political consequences."
"We'll make it fun," Rein said. "If we survive, you can punch Kaiden in the face for every time he scared you."
"Not sure there's enough Core shielding for that," Jex murmured.
They almost laughed.
Almost.
By late afternoon, Sylen returned from her rooftop circuit with a new shadow.
A human.
He wore plain clothes that didn't quite fit his posture, like armor had been stripped from him recently. His hair was cropped short, dark eyes sharp despite the exhaustion hanging under them. He moved like someone who knew how to walk in places he shouldn't.
Jex reached for his weapon on instinct.
Rein's hand slid toward his hammer.
Mara froze mid-gesture, every line on the floor suddenly feeling like a confession.
"You brought a guest," Kaiden said.
Sylen shoved the man forward with two fingers between his shoulder blades.
"He was watching the gate from a rooftop two streets over," she said. "Alone. Didn't act like a bored sentry. Acted like someone counting patterns."
The human's gaze flicked around the room, cataloguing faces, exits, the scrap on the floor. His eyes lingered on Kaiden's metal side for a heartbeat too long.
"Spy," Rein said.
"Observer," the man corrected. His accent marked him clearly human-empire. "And I was doing a poor job of it if I let you catch me."
Kaiden studied him.
Not a boy. Not old. Somewhere in that stubborn middle where you thought you had enough years left to make a difference and enough scars to think you understood the cost.
"Name," Kaiden said.
The man's jaw tightened. "Taren."
"Rank."
"No longer relevant," Taren said. "My unit got torn apart last month. I stayed when the others retreated. Someone had to watch the gate."
"Why?" Mara asked before she could stop herself.
Taren's eyes flicked to her, then back to Kaiden.
"Because whatever wakes that thing up next," he said, nodding toward the square beyond their walls, "decides who owns this town."
Kaiden's Core hummed.
"Smart," he admitted.
"Smart gets you killed slower here," Taren replied.
Sylen leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"He saw us moving scrap," she said. "Tracking routes. Watching the circle like we wanted it for something other than a grave marker."
"And you didn't shoot him," Rein noted.
Sylen's look was sharp. "If I wanted him dead, we wouldn't be talking."
Kaiden stepped closer to Taren.
"And now you are talking," he said. "Why?"
Taren held his gaze.
"Because I don't know what you are," he said. "You move like a demon construct, but you protect your people like a human officer. You spared a scavenger yesterday. And you're clearly insane enough to touch the gate."
"That last part isn't exclusive to me," Kaiden said.
"True," Taren conceded. "But you're the first one I've seen approach it with a plan instead of a prayer."
Mara's fingers twitched.
"You were close enough to hear us?" she asked.
"Close enough to see you care about not blowing your own squad up," Taren said. "That's unusual behaviour for demon assets."
Rein grunted. "You've met our superiors, then."
"Shut up," Sylen said.
Kaiden considered his options.
Kill the spy. Clean. Expected. Obedient.
Keep the spy. Dangerous. Informative. Disobedient.
His mind laid out both paths like parallel lines.
His Core twitched toward the first.
His stomach turned toward the second.
"You know how it works?" Kaiden asked. "The gate."
Taren hesitated.
"Some," he said. "I'm not a circle-mage. But I know what it was built for. Reinforcement waves. Rapid redeployment. Evacuations if needed."
"Evacuations," Mara repeated softly.
Kaiden glanced at her.
"Don't start planning happy endings," he said.
She glared. "I'm not that naive. But options matter."
Taren watched all of them.
"You're not here to secure it for the humans," he said. "And the rebels don't trust you. So who are you securing it for?"
Kaiden smiled without humour.
"Does it matter?" he asked.
"It matters to the people trapped here," Taren said. "To the kids counting artillery impacts so they can guess where the next hole in the wall will be. To the rebels who are about five minutes from stabbing human officers in the back if food runs any thinner."
Sylen's ears twitched under her hood.
"You think your leaders will reclaim you?" she asked. "Push the demons back, ride in on shining spells, fix the gate, and pat you on the head?"
"No," Taren said. "I think they'll write us off as acceptable losses unless someone makes this town impossible to ignore."
Kaiden liked him.
Not as a person.
As a problem.
"What do you want?" Kaiden asked.
"Information," Taren said. "Who you are. What you're doing. Whether I should help you or slit your throat and pretend it was a demon patrol."
Rein's knuckles cracked.
Kaiden spread his hands slightly.
"Help us," he said, "and maybe your town survives what's coming."
"Maybe," Taren echoed. "Not exactly comforting."
"Comfort is in short supply," Kaiden said. "But you're right about one thing: whoever wakes the gate decides who owns this place."
"Is that you?" Taren asked.
Kaiden thought about Zarkus. About the Demon Lord behind him. About Arvan watching from the edges of circles like a scientist tipping an ant farm.
"No," Kaiden said. "I'm just the voltage."
Taren frowned. "The what?"
"Power," Mara translated. "He means he's the idiot we plug into the circle so it does anything at all."
Taren stared.
"You're going to use a demon core as the primary feed," he said slowly. "Into a human mass-transport array. That's…"
"Insane," Jex offered.
"Blasphemy," Rein added.
"Elegant," Mara said under her breath.
"Possible," Kaiden finished.
Taren was quiet for a long moment.
Then he laughed once, sharp.
"You know," he said, "if I were a tactician sitting far away from this mess, I'd say that's exactly the kind of insanity that might work."
Sylen eyed him. "Is that agreement?"
"That's me not stabbing you yet," Taren said. "Which, considering my options, is generous."
Kaiden stepped back.
"Fine," he said. "Watch. Learn. Decide who we are when you have enough data to hate us properly."
"You're really just going to let him go?" Jex blurted.
"For now," Kaiden said.
He turned to Taren.
"You talk," he said, voice low. "You point an arrow in our direction, you whisper to the wrong rebel, you even look like you're thinking about betraying us, and my Core won't need any gaps to decide. Do you understand?"
Taren met his gaze.
"Do you?" he countered. "Because from what I've seen, your Core decides plenty without waiting on you."
That landed like a slap.
Kaiden didn't react outwardly.
Inside, something twisted.
"You weren't meant to be here," Arvan's voice whispered from nowhere.
Kaiden blinked.
The room warped.
For a second, Taren's face shifted — became Arvan's, calm and annoyed, then his manager's smug pity, then the dead boy's horrified courage. The walls turned to glass, to stone, to station tiles. The floor fell away.
He grabbed the nearest solid thing.
It happened to be Taren's shoulder.
The human's eyes widened as Kaiden's grip tightened, metal fingers denting fabric and flesh.
"Kaiden," Sylen snapped. "Let go."
He forced his hand open.
The world snapped back.
Taren staggered away, rubbing his shoulder, eyes narrowed.
"Right," he said hoarsely. "That answers some questions."
"You still alive?" Rein asked.
"For now," Taren said. He looked at Kaiden, something like pity flickering behind the suspicion. "I'll watch. I'll tell no one. Not yet."
He moved toward the ladder.
"Where are you going?" Jex asked.
"Back to my rooftop," Taren said. "Where I pretend I still have a job."
He paused at the hatch.
"Just so you know," he added, looking back at Kaiden, "if you manage to get that gate working… and you point it at a slaughter… I'll be the first one trying to put an arrow through your Core."
Kaiden nodded once.
"That seems fair," he said.
Taren vanished.
The room felt smaller after he left.
Mara let out a long breath.
"Well," she said. "That could have gone worse."
"He's going to betray us," Rein said.
"Maybe," Kaiden said. "Maybe not. Right now he's the only one with a functioning moral compass within ten miles. That can be useful."
Sylen snorted. "You say that like you still believe in moral compasses."
"I believe in predictable ones," Kaiden said. "His points toward 'save the town' and 'hate demons.' As long as we aim one way and fake the other, we can work with it."
Jex swallowed. "And if your… gaps happen again?"
Everyone looked at him.
Kaiden closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, he forced his voice to stay level.
"You don't let me take point on talking," he said. "You don't let me make promises. You let me lift, twist, and burn things on command. If I start looking at any of you like you're a problem instead of a person…"
"We put you down," Rein said quietly.
The fact that he didn't hesitate said more than the words.
Sylen's jaw clenched.
"Try everything else first," she said. "But… yes."
Mara's hands shook just enough to make the chalk squeak on the floor.
"You're all very casual about killing the only thing that can power this damn circle," she muttered.
"I'm not casual," Sylen snapped. "I'm practical. We need him. We keep him. We fix him if we can. But if the only way this ends is a hole in his chest instead of four thousand in the ground, we choose the smaller disaster."
Four thousand.
The number hung in the air like a future already written.
Kaiden didn't ask where she'd got it.
He just sat down heavily and stared at his own hands again.
Some time later, when the day bled into grey and the square outside began to glow with evening lamps, he slipped out alone.
Sylen didn't stop him.
She watched from the window, though.
He knew.
He walked the alleys like a ghost, coat pulled tight, hood shadowing his face. The slums breathed around him — cooking smoke, tired laughter, occasional sharp shouts. Life clinging to a battlefield.
He passed the shop where he'd spared the scavenger. The old man sat in the same spot behind the counter, staring at nothing. Their eyes met for a heartbeat.
Kaiden looked away first.
He wasn't sure if that was mercy or cowardice.
Near the outer wall, he felt it.
Eyes.
He turned a corner and almost walked into a patrol.
Two human guards, talking quietly. They looked up, hands moving toward weapons.
"Sorry," Kaiden said reflexively, stepping back.
They frowned.
"Didn't mean to—"
The world skipped.
His Core surged.
THUM-THUM-THUM—
Colour drained. Sound dulled. The alley stretched long and thin like a corridor in a nightmare.
Then—
He was standing behind them.
Both men lay on the ground, throats crushed, eyes staring in different directions.
His hands were wet.
He hadn't heard them scream.
He hadn't heard himself move.
He stared at the bodies, at the broken wall where one head had hit stone hard enough to crack plaster.
Lucidity snapped back like someone letting go of a rubber band.
"No," he whispered.
No decision. No threat assessment. No calculus of risk.
Just stimulus and aftermath.
He wiped his hands on a ruined cloak hanging from a peg. It didn't help. He could still feel the shape of their necks under his palms.
Footsteps scraped behind him.
He turned, already braced for Sylen, for Rein, for Taren with a drawn blade.
It was a boy.
Ten, maybe. Human. Clutching a bundle of firewood to his chest. Eyes huge.
He stared at the bodies. At Kaiden. At the blood.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Kaiden raised one finger to his lips.
"Go home," he said softly. "Now."
The boy shook.
Then he bolted, dropping half the wood.
Kaiden didn't chase him.
He leaned against the wall and laughed once.
It sounded wrong in the alley. Too loud. Too tired.
Lucid. Blackout. Lucid.
Mercy when he was awake enough to hate himself.
Murder when the Core ran on whatever script Zarkus had burned into it.
By the time he returned to the hideout, his hands were clean.
They still shook.
Sylen met him at the door.
Her nose flared once. Her eyes narrowed.
"You smell like blood," she said.
"I passed a butcher," he lied.
"Funny," she said. "I thought all the butchers here wore uniforms."
He didn't answer.
Her jaw tightened.
"Kaiden," she said, voice very quiet now. "If you keep lying to me, I can't help you. If I can't help you, I have to stop you. Do you understand?"
He looked at her.
In her eyes, he saw the last thin line between ally and executioner.
"I understand," he said.
He didn't stop.
He didn't know how.
Later that night, he woke with his hand around his own throat, fingers digging into the plating like he was trying to crush the Core out of his chest.
He pried them off with his other hand and stared at both palms in the dark.
He didn't know whether he was trying to kill the monster…
…or keep it from killing someone else