Chapter 8: What Solenne Took from Each of Them

The reality-weather arrived without announcement, the way the worst things do.

One moment the sixth exit was void and the other five were worlds, and the next moment all six were the same bruised color — not any reality's color, but the color between realities, the shade of something that had not yet decided what it was. Jax's device lit with a cascade of notifications he could not dismiss because they kept generating faster than dismissal was possible. Maren moved away from the second seam with the unhurried precision of someone who had learned the difference between situations requiring speed and situations requiring stillness. Lira kept the sapphire pressed against the first seam and said nothing, because the sapphire had gone from humming satisfaction to something that was not distress exactly but was attentiveness — the quality of a person who has just heard their name spoken in the next room.

"Transit lockdown," Jax said, not to anyone, reading from his device. "Estimate six to fourteen hours."