Dawn came in gray and wet, the kind of light that made the bone towers look unfinished.
Sable had the route marked before I finished a cup. Old service stair. Two turns that did not share a wall with the inner stone. A cloth over the arm. A cloth ready for the mouth. Vale in front. Sael behind. Elizabeth at the door of the room with her gaze down, as she had promised. I was not allowed to touch the woman. I was not allowed to stay behind either. The thread sat on her arm like a hand on a leash, and if I left the passage it pulled hard enough to make my teeth ache.
Shen Yuelan stood when they cut the floor ring.
She had slept in the chair, or pretended to. House white was creased. The vein under the cloth was a warm line I could feel through three paces of air. When Vale took her elbow, the line brightened, and the iron they had just freed gave one soft note that died against Elizabeth's palm on the doorframe.
"Down," Elizabeth said.
We went down.
