The eldest, a girl named Vesper, clutched a rag-doll. "Remember what?"

Tonight, the lights had been out for three hundred years.

He gave all of it to the Cradle, and the Cradle broadcast it on a frequency the Shriekers could not digest—a frequency of pure, chaotic, human warmth.

"I need you to be very quiet," Kael whispered, not turning around. His voice was warm, like a frayed blanket. "And I need you to remember something for me."

He leaned against the cold metal as the Shriekers rebooted. He could already feel the holes forming in his mind. He was forgetting his mother's face. He was forgetting the taste of stew.

The Shriekers froze. Their logic engines spasmed. They were built to parse fear and loss. They had no protocol for stew .