Leo kept it in his pocket.
Leo stood in the kitchen, watching Mira make pancakes. She hummed a song that didn’t exist—a melody the GDS had generated from a million random notes. But the way she flipped the spatula, the way she kissed Zoe’s forehead without looking—that wasn’t code. That was real .
The lie tasted like copper. But Viktor’s shoulders slumped. For the first time in a decade, someone remembered his sister.
Leo looked at Mira. She was crying silently, but she nodded. Do it, her eyes said. We were never meant to last.
Viktor gave Leo the key—a string of numbers embedded in a lullaby their “mother” used to sing. Leo transmitted it to Dray.
Leo hesitated. “The ‘wife’—she doesn’t know she’s fake?”
“Work,” Leo said, following the script.