Later, Lily told me how Skyfall City survived that night.
The dome went dark, the pumps stopped, and the healing seals lost their shared rhythm. No one took the Crown's place.
On the wall, every section chose someone to lead until dawn. At the eastern gate, people raised it alongside beasts that had chosen to stay and help. In the infirmaries, Mira switched the doctors to manual circuits. Taya flooded the dye-house warehouses to stop the fire from the tower reaching the homes. Lenny opened the academy stores without the rector's permission, and the rector entered the name of the person responsible in the ledger.
Lily stayed on the air and did not say everything was under control. She broadcast the addresses of fires, the number of available beds and the names of streets where beasts had agreed to work.
In the first hours, the reports contradicted one another. The north wanted all the water for the wall, the infirmary district demanded that the pumps keep running, and the dyers warned that one more release would wash out the lower street. Under the Crown, the argument would have ended with a single command.
Taya went on the air standing in the water.
"Until dawn, we hold two lines out of three. The north gets pressure in an hour, the hospitals get it now. Evacuate the lower street."
People in her district shouted that they would never get their belongings out in time. Taya did not cut the channel or hide behind my name. She listed the houses that would go under and headed there first with a rope.
Mira did not promise to save every patient. She divided the healing beasts into short shifts and stationed someone beside each one to make sure no doctor tried to restore the old command. Two operations had to be stopped. One patient was moved to a workshop, where dyers turned a generator by hand all night.
Lenny broke into the academy store and discovered that half the healing crystals were registered to the Li family. He carried them into the courtyard. When the rector asked who had authorised it, Lenny held out the ledger.
"Write down my name."
The rector did.
Rem sat at the entrance to the living archive with one arm burnt. He could not lift stones, so he checked the tags of rescued beasts and sent people to the cages where survivors remained. He put his own seal on every door they had checked. This time, his signature meant someone had already searched inside.
The city moved more slowly than the Crown. People argued, made mistakes and lost time. But one person's fall no longer brought an entire district to a halt.
The swarm captains began searching the ruins for Styx on their own.
Cole learnt that Kane was heading for the western gate. He could have sent every fighter after him, but then the search for people beneath the tower would have stopped.
He took four.
The rest kept clearing the rubble.
Before they left, a city lieutenant asked on whose orders they were pursuing the former guild head.
Cole showed her the charred warrant for my second arrest.
"Under this document, Kane intended to place every witness in his own custody. Now any one of them can demand his arrest."
The lieutenant became the sixth.
By dawn, Skyfall City was still standing.
At the western gate, Kane was trying to force a transport beast to carry him out of the city. It strained against its chains and refused to take a step.
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