The safe house was a jagged shard of cedar and glass anchored into the granite side of the Cascade Mountains. It was a "ghost property," one of the many assets Lyra had scrubbed from the official Thorne records during her years as the Auditor. Here, the air didn't smell like city exhaust or the antiseptic scent of Thorne Tower; it smelled of damp pine needles and the cold, oncoming snoww.Inside, the floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a valley swallowed by mist. Lyra watched Leo—no longer the "Master" but the man beneath—as he stood by the glass. He was still wearing the charcoal suit from the boardroom, but it looked like a costume on him now, the shoulders too broad for the slumped, uncertain posture of a man who had lost his anchor."The stars are different here," Leo whispered, his forehead pressing against the cold pane. "In the city, they look like they're trapped. Here, they look like they’re falling."Lyra stepped up behind him, hesitant to touch him. The "Hard Reset" ha
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