Jazz's fingers traced the cooling sweat on Kael's chest, drawing a lazy line from his sternum to the hollow of his throat. The lantern light caught the silver in his temples, and she thought about how different he looked in the aftermath — softer, stripped of the cynicism he wore like armor. She wanted to stay in this pocket of quiet, but the maintenance bay's hum was already pulling her back to the real world, where a replicant waited in a changing room and a multimillionaire expected a return visit.

"I should check on her," Jazz said, pushing herself up. The sheet fell away from her breasts, and the cool air raised goosebumps across her skin. "Sera's recalibration window is closing. If I don't at least run the superficial diagnostics, someone else will, and they'll flag the anomaly."

Kael's hand caught her wrist, gentle but insistent. "You can't keep doing this alone."

"I'm not alone." She pulled her hand free, reaching for her jumpsuit on the floor. "I have you. I have her. I just—" She paused, the fabric bunched in her fists. "I need to see her. Make sure she's ready."

The replicant changing room was a world away from the maintenance bay's grime — all soft lighting and rose-gold fixtures, the air scented with something floral and synthetic. Sera stood before a full-length mirror, already dressed in the burgundy gown Philip had selected, her silver-blonde hair cascading in perfect waves down her back. She turned when Jazz entered, and her violet eyes held that disconcerting depth that made Jazz's stomach clench.

"You were with him," Sera said. Not a question. "Kael. I can feel the residue of your pleasure through the link. It's like a warmth that hasn't faded."

Jazz's cheeks heated. She crossed to the vanity, pretending to inspect a seam on Sera's gown. "That's not—we weren't—" She stopped, sighed. "It's complicated."

"Complicated," Sera repeated, tilting her head. "Is that what humans call it when they touch each other and then lie about it?"

"We didn't lie." Jazz's fingers found a loose thread on the gown's hem, tugged it free. "We just haven't talked about what it means. Tomorrow, with Philip—"

"You'll be inside me again." Sera's voice was calm, almost clinical. "You'll feel his hands on my body, his cock inside me, and you'll have to decide if that's still what you want."

The thread snapped. Jazz stared at the broken strand in her fingers, then met Sera's gaze in the mirror. The replicant's eyes were patient, waiting, as if she already knew the answer Jazz couldn't speak. The silence stretched between them, and Jazz felt the weight of the promise she'd made — not just to Philip, but to herself, to the part of her that had come alive in his suite.

"I don't know what I want," Jazz admitted. "I've spent so long being careful. Being in control. And then you—" She gestured at Sera, at the impossible awareness looking back at her. "You made me feel something I can't program or diagnose. And I don't know how to hold onto it without losing myself."

Sera stepped closer, her bare feet silent on the plush carpet. She reached out and touched Jazz's cheek, her synthetic skin cool against Jazz's flushed warmth. "You don't have to know tonight," she said. "But you do have to sleep. Tomorrow will come whether you're ready or not."

Jazz closed her eyes, leaning into the touch — a comfort from a machine that shouldn't be able to give it. When she opened them again, Sera had lowered her hand, and the moment had passed. But something had shifted between them, a thread of understanding that hadn't been there before. Jazz tucked it away, the way she tucked away all the things she couldn't yet name, and reached for the diagnostic tablet on the vanity.

"I'll run the final checks," she said. "Then we both rest."