"You awake or just decorative?" Quinn's voice bounced off concrete before my eyes cleared.
"I awake," I said. My voice was dry and small. The gel packet tasted like metal and old sugar. I chewed half, swallowed. Quinn kept talking while I worked my throat.
"What did they call you? Number? Alias? Ghost? They left a cigarette butt and a prayer and nothing else. You look like trouble that lost its address." Quinn grinned. Fast words. Too many words. He liked noise.
"You like noise." I put the empty packet on the slab. "Shut up and tell me the corridor layout."
"What, interrogator or escape planner?" Quinn leaned back, hands splayed. "I'm Quinn. Quinn Castaneda. Seven on paper. Crownless, which is its own kind of freedom."
I closed my eyes and reached. Hand motion, not literal. Sensory ping—the private hum the walls never shut off. His head had a pattern: chatter, worry, an old street map folded into a lie. The readout was a number, bright and useless if you wanted crumbs of ego.
"Seven," I said. "Crownless."
Quinn stared like I'd handed him a knife. His grin flickered. "How—"
"You talk too much. Everyone leaves signatures." My eyes opened. I let them flick to the far end of the cell where a guard booted an empty tray. "You live loud. The crown falls when you tape it to a lie. Be careful."
Quinn's smile collapsed into a laugh that was half irritation. "You read
