Tessa stopped beside the supply tent.
A stack of folded blankets had been placed under the awning, sheltered from the dust falling across the street. A woman in a volunteer vest was sorting them into piles. When she saw Martin approach with Tessa and Eli, she gathered her things and moved to the other end of the tent without being asked.
Tessa kept her hand in her jacket pocket. “Did you find him?”
“Yes,” Eli said. “The responder got him down from the landing. He died before they reached the exit.”
Tessa looked at Martin. “Who are you?”
“I coordinate the recovery team. My name’s Martin.” He held up the pad, then lowered it without consulting the notes. “The responder confirmed your father’s name and where he found him. His body has been brought out. We’ll arrange identification when you’re ready.”
Tessa’s gaze moved back to Eli. “You said he was hurt.”
“He was. I didn’t know whether he was still alive after I left.”
“How badly was he hurt?”
Eli described the wound. He kept his voice level, not because he felt calm but because she deserved words she could understand. The creature had struck Darius in the side. Eli had applied pressure and wrapped the injury. Darius had tried to stand and could not.
Tessa listened without interrupting. When he finished, she asked, “Was he alone?”
“No. I was with him, and then a responder came up. I helped put him on a carry sheet. The responder stayed when I went upstairs.”
“He sent you to me.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know he was dying?”
Eli remembered Darius asking whether Eli could lift him. He remembered the failed attempt, the blood on the wall, Darius’s hand pushing the badge away.
“I think he understood how serious it was,” Eli said. “He told me he couldn’t get to you himself. I can’t tell you everything he knew.”
Tessa took the badge from her pocket. Its metal face was scratched, and the cord had been twisted around it. She held it by the edges, as though it might be hot.
“He wore this whenever he volunteered,” she said. “I told him it was too heavy for that cord.”
Eli had nothing useful to say. He watched her straighten the cord with her thumb.
“Did he suffer?”
“He was in pain. I tried to keep pressure on the wound. The responder stayed with him, and I don’t know what happened after I left.”
“You don’t know if he was conscious at the end.”
“No.”
Tessa closed her hand around the badge. For a moment she seemed to be listening to the noise beyond the tent: the ambulance doors, voices calling names, the scrape of a stretcher being wheeled over uneven pavement. Then she put the badge back in her pocket.
“Why were you there?”
“The gate opened near the assessment hall. I saw people trying to get out and went into the building.”
She looked at the F on his vest. “You weren’t sent?”
“No.”
“You found him by accident?”
Eli could have said yes. He had entered the building to help strangers and recognized Darius only at the stairwell. He could not explain how he had known the name. He chose the part he could tell without pretending it was complete.
“I knew people were trapped inside. Your father was helping them at the stairwell. We worked together to get them down.”
Tessa studied him. “And when he couldn’t go farther, he sent you to me.”
“He asked me to get you out and tell you he tried to get back to you.”
Her face changed. Not dramatically. Her eyes stayed on his, but the effort of holding them there became visible.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“What words did he use?”
Eli closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered Darius struggling to breathe and the badge against his chest.
“He said, ‘Tell her I didn’t leave.’ He wanted you to know he was trying to reach you.”
Tessa looked down. She pressed her thumb against the badge through the fabric of her pocket. Eli waited. He had delivered the message as Darius had given it; that did not mean he had done enough, or that there was anything more he could do in the same way.
“Could you have carried him?” she asked.
The question struck harder because Eli had asked himself the same thing on every flight up to six and every flight back down.
“I tried to help him stand. His legs gave way, and moving him made the bleeding worse. The responder and I got him onto a carry sheet, but I couldn’t take him down alone while the creature was on the stairs.”
“You could have stayed.”
“Yes.”
He did not add that Darius had told him to go. It was true, but Tessa was asking about a choice Eli had made, not asking him to repeat her father’s instructions until the answer became easier to bear.
“I wanted to stay,” he said. “I was afraid that if I went upstairs, I’d be leaving him. I was also afraid you and the others wouldn’t get out in time. The responder was with him when I left.”
Tessa’s eyes filled. She turned toward the folded blankets, not looking at either man. Eli saw her shoulders rise as she drew a breath, then fail to settle.
Martin stepped back. “I’ll be just outside the tent. There’s no rush.”
Tessa did not answer. He left them in the small space under the awning.
Eli remembered meeting her years later through Aegis, after her father had died. On an exhausting raid she had sat beside a frightened porter until help arrived. He had not understood then how much she had already lost.
Tessa had been inside the building. She had treated the injured and sent them out. She had just learned of her father’s death from a man she had met less than an hour ago.
“What do you need?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I can get someone you know.”
Another shake. Tessa bent forward, bracing her hands on her knees. Eli moved toward her, then stopped himself. He did not know whether she wanted him close.
The volunteer sorting blankets quietly left a folded one on the nearest crate. Tessa noticed it and sat down. She held the badge in both hands.
“He went in after me,” she said.
“He was helping people on the stairs.”
“He went in because I went up.”
Eli could not deny that Darius had come looking for her. Nor could he tell her that her father’s decisions were unrelated to the work she had chosen to do. He remembered Darius pushing Eli aside to protect the residents and asking after the older man from six-fourteen. He had been trying to save more than one person.
“He told me about the neighbors,” Eli said. “He asked whether the man from six-fourteen got out. He cared about them too.”
Tessa rubbed at a spot on the badge with her thumb. “He knew I would stay if anyone needed help.”
“Yes.”
“He told you that.”
“He did.”
She drew a breath that broke halfway through. “He could have stayed outside.”
Eli sat on the ground a short distance from her. He did not say that Darius had made his choice, or that she should not feel guilty. Those words might be true in some form; they would not change the fact that her father was dead and she had been in the building he entered.
Tessa held the badge against her forehead. After a while she lowered it and asked, “Is his body here?”
“Martin said it was brought out for identification. He can tell you where.”
“Can I see him?”
“He said family would have a chance.”
She stood too quickly and caught herself on the crate. Eli rose, but did not touch her. She waited until the dizziness passed, then looked toward the street.
A neighbor approached the tent carrying a paper cup. It was Leah, moving slowly with a fresh bandage on her leg. Her husband walked beside her, one hand under her elbow.
“I’m sorry,” Leah said. “They told me you were here. I was trying to find out where they took Mrs. Larkin. I haven’t been able to reach her son Daniel, and my sister knows her.”
Tessa opened her mouth. For a moment she said nothing. Eli could see her searching for the answer: the stretcher, the ambulance, Daniel walking beside it. The details were familiar, but she could not make them into a useful sentence.
Leah noticed her face. “What’s happened?”
Eli stepped toward the edge of the tent. Martin was speaking to a medic nearby.
“Could someone help Leah find the transport list?” Eli asked. “Mrs. Larkin went with her son Daniel.”
The medic came over and asked Leah for the name. Leah looked between Eli and Tessa, then put the paper cup on the crate.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, this time to Tessa. “We can ask them.”
Tessa nodded. Leah and her husband followed the medic toward the tables.
Eli picked up the cup. It contained water, untouched. “Would you like this?”
Tessa took it. Her hands shook enough that some spilled onto the ground. She drank a little, then set the cup beside her.
“I should tell Mrs. Larkin,” she said. “She knew him.”
“You can tell her when you’re ready.”
“She’ll ask.”
“Then someone can tell her you’ve had bad news and need time. You don’t have to answer everyone now.”
Tessa looked toward the ambulance. “I’ve been answering people since the gate opened.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.” Her voice was sharper than before. “You saw part of it. You don’t know what it was like when the floor moved and the doors wouldn’t open and people kept coming to me because I had a bag.”
“No,” Eli said. “I don’t.”
She looked away. He did not defend himself. He had seen her work under pressure for years in the other timeline, but that was not the experience she had just described. He had not been beside her when the building first moved.
After a while, she said, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize.”
“Don’t tell me what I need.”
“All right.”
The answer left a silence between them. It was awkward and honest. Eli could bear it.
Tessa took the badge out again. A drop of water had landed on the metal. She wiped it with her sleeve, then looked at Martin, who waited beyond the awning without watching them.
“I want to see him,” she said.
Eli called Martin over. He explained where Darius had been taken and offered to walk with her. There were procedures to identify the body and record the family’s contact information. Tessa asked whether anyone would make her answer questions about the incident immediately.
“No,” Martin said. “We can arrange a statement later. You can have someone with you, or go with the staff alone.”
Tessa looked at Eli. “Will you wait here?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “I may have more questions.”
“I’ll answer what I can.”
Martin led her toward a separate vehicle farther down the street. Eli remained by the tent. He watched Tessa walk past the ambulance, past the responders carrying equipment, past people who did not know what she had just heard. She kept the badge in her hand.
A line of text appeared at the edge of his vision.
[Final wish fulfilled.]
He blinked. The street remained in front of him. The message did not disappear.
[Darius Vale: Bring my daughter safely out. Tell her I tried to return.]
[Inheritance available: Weak-Point Sight.]
Eli stared at the words. Darius had made the request freely, with no knowledge that Eli’s talent could offer anything in return. Tessa was out of the building and had received the news. The system had waited until both parts were complete.
A smaller line appeared below the offer.
[Accept / Decline]
Eli did not move his hand. The Heir notice had given him a name and no explanation. Now its new message spoke of a fulfilled wish and an inheritance. Now the rule had a name, a bloodstained landing, and a daughter walking toward a vehicle to identify her father.
What was being offered? A copy of a talent? Something Darius had left behind? Eli had no explanation for the difference. The notice did not say whether accepting it would touch the dead man or merely give Eli access to an imprint. It did not say whether the memories attached to a talent could be separated from the person who had carried them.
He could decline. The option was plainly visible.
He looked at the building. Responders were assessing the broken entrance from behind the barrier. One pointed toward a wall that had begun to lean over the service court. Another was carrying equipment toward the same area.
Weak-Point Sight might help. In his first life, Eli had seen hunters with similar abilities identify fractures and vulnerable points that ordinary sight missed. They were not infallible, and a talent did not substitute for an engineer, but an early warning could give a crew time to move.
It was a practical reason to accept. It did not answer the question of what acceptance meant for Darius.
Eli dismissed neither option. The notice remained in the corner of his vision as he waited for Tessa.
When she returned, Martin walked beside her. Her face was pale, and her eyes were red, but she carried herself steadily. She had the badge in her jacket pocket again.
“The clinic is taking the people from the building,” she said. “Mara asked if I would check on Ben once they’ve seen him.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” Tessa looked toward the ambulance. “I want to make sure they have the treatment notes.”
She had already given the medic those notes. Eli could have reminded her. He understood that the small task gave her somewhere to go and a reason to put one foot in front of the other.
“Will you come?” she asked. “I may need to ask about the stairwell again.”
“Yes.”
She started toward the temporary clinic. Eli followed, the unaccepted offer still visible beside the damaged building. A responder shouted for the crew near the leaning wall to move back, but the instruction was lost in the noise of an arriving engine.
Eli looked from the wall to the waiting notice.