Chapter 6: The Seam Station — First Contact

The station arrived before she did.

That was how it felt — Lira stepped through the fracture-line the map had drawn in the sapphire's seventh resonance layer, one foot in Varenthal's specific dark and the next foot in somewhere that had no specific dark of its own, only borrowed versions cycling through in waves, and the station was already there, already present in the way of things that have been waiting so long they have achieved a kind of aggressive patience.

She took stock the way she always took stock: quickly, in layers, starting with exits.