The transition from the Glass Market to the administrative district was not a crossing of a border, but a folding of space. One moment, the group was stepping through a limestone archway; the next, the air grew heavy with the smell of damp paper and ozone.
They found themselves on a street lined with towering stone buildings that seemed to lean inward, their grey facades oppressive and windowless. Faded directory signs hung from rusted poles, pointing toward "The Ministry of Records," "The Bureau of Urban Planning," and "The Office of Civil Registry." The roads were numbered, but the numbers didn't follow a sequence. They stepped from Road 14 onto Road 67, then suddenly onto Road 3.
The first thing Lin Yue noticed about the new district was that it was trying very hard to appear normal.
"It's like a government district," Wei Ning said. Her voice was flat with assessment rather than comfort. "Filing offices, archives. That sort of thing."
