By dawn, the fire lay dead. Rain washed the last glow from the timbers, yet the air stayed metallic cold, each breath a bite of wet iron. The crowd had thinned, and the reporters had drifted away, all except Youwei, who kept talking into his drone until water drowned the microphone.
Lin Kai stayed long after he should have, not from duty but from inertia. Every movement dragged; the fabric of his coat had turned to sodden lead, and blood seeped again where the bandage under his collar loosened.
There was almost nothing to save. A few warped metal frames where his bookshelves once stood, a ceramic bowl split clean down the centre that had belonged to his grandmother. He did not attempt to lift it.
A wiry firefighter with soot on her cheek approached, clipboard in hand."We will file it as Category Three, grid-origin ignition. You were fortunate it did not jump to the neighbours.""Fortunate," Kai echoed.
The firefighter hesitated, then produced a small first-aid pouch from her coat. "Paramedics left this for you. Clean dressings, heat pack, pain tabs. Use them tonight, Mayor." She pressed it into his palm. The canvas felt absurdly warm against his chilled fingers.
She offered him a ride. He declined.
The journey back to the administrative district was long and wet inside; a rear window would not close, and rain dripped from the roof above his left brow. Cold air funnelled through the gap, needling his soaked shirt until a tremor lodged in his spine. The driver kept silent. Headlines were already forming. Half the city would wake to The Night the Mayor Burned.
Garden City did not drizzle; it leaked, as though the sky had grown tired of holding itself together. Streets stood half-flooded, and lamps flickered in erratic patterns. They passed a boarded convenience store tagged with graffiti:
No one saves this place.
Kai said nothing.
The government dormitory emerged from fog like an abandoned idea, six storeys of prefab concrete and steel. A single exit sign glowed sickly green above the door, casting nervous shadows over puddles that crept across the lobby tiles. Staff lodged here when rent was impossible or when sleep had become optional.
He ignored the lift that groaned like a coffin; instead, he climbed, favouring his good leg, ribs pulsing in a dull, constant ache. Each step left a wet footprint that steamed in the corridor chill. Rainwater ran from his hairline, under the collar, down the line of his spine. He shivered hard enough for the stair rail to rattle.
Fourth floor. Keypad, reluctant beep, door ajar. Inside waited a narrow rectangle: a single bed, a metal desk, one lamp. No windows. No colour. The air smelled of old bleach and hidden mildew; somewhere above, a pipe dripped with the slow insistence of a clock.
Not a home. Not even a memory.
He lingered in the doorway, rain dripping from his coat and pooling at his feet, smoke clinging to him like a second skin. Loss had its own odour.
Only when the corridor light blinked out did he step forward. He left the lamp dark, sat on the edge of the bed and bent over, hands loose in his lap. Cold seeped up through the mattress. He remembered the pouch, tore it open, fumbled fresh gauze around his shoulder; adhesive would not stick to damp skin, so he tied the strip in a rough knot, fingers stiff with chill. The chemical heat pack cracked, warmed, then cooled too quickly in the draft.
Silence pressed against his ears. From deeper in the building, a door chain slid into place; someone coughed twice and turned a lock.
The city still burned, one circuit, one roof, one soul at a time. He had promised to mend it. Now, ankle-deep in his own ash, he was no longer certain he believed himself.
He lowered his face into his palms and breathed, not like a man plotting, but like a man enduring.