The unfinished building at the edge of Strength City had no walls on two sides and no roof at all, just a skeleton of stone columns and wooden beams that somebody had started and clearly abandoned at some point. The floor was dusty and uneven, and the wind came through from every direction, but it had been dark when they found it and dark was all they had needed.
Roman and Arnold had spent the night on the bare floor with their backs against the one solid wall and said very little to each other.
In the morning, the city woke up around them.
They could hear it before they could see it properly, the gradual build of movement and voices and the particular hum of a large, functioning city starting its day. Light came in through the open sides of the building and spread across the dusty floor, and Roman sat up and looked out at the street below them and thought about what came next.
The honest answer was that he had no idea.
