"The order is for the Magistrate's daughter," Mira said softly.

"Courier," the captain grunted, holding out a gloved hand. "The Magistrate is waiting. Give me the cylinder."

Elias turned his head toward the window. The sky was the color of a fresh bruise. In their world, words didn't travel through the air anymore; the atmosphere was too choked with ionic interference. If the Central Spire wanted to command the border colonies, they didn't send a signal. They sent a runner. They sent Elias.

"What's that?" Elias asked, tightening his grip on the cylinder.

The captain stared at him for a long, agonizing second. Then he looked past Elias at the locked cylinder still clutched in Elias's left hand. The red standby light was blinking steadily. It was perfectly intact.

"They don't accept 'barely made it,' Mira. You know the rule of the line."

The static on the radio was the first thing to die, swallowed by a silence so thick it pressed against Elias’s eardrums. He sat in the belly of the armored courier rig, his fingers tracing the cold seals of the cylinder locked to his thigh.