The heartseed took Maelin's place without knowing how she had stood.
Red fibers pulled the founder ribs shut. Hard and eager, the wounded wing drove toward the Armada lantern. The sound wing fought the turn, and between them the guildhall began to roll.
Jiang clung to the infected joint with both feet.
Pain had left the new scar along his keel and become something worse. It admitted the cold without argument. Each time his belly lifted from the warm red tissue, the road-current reached through his feathers and took whatever heat Aylin's coat had left him.
Starcurrent Keel did nothing. He had made his one crossing, and the locked adaptation remained as useful as a door painted on a wall.
Kessa's severance blade struck through the far wall of the moving pocket.
Mothglass entered behind Jiang, where she had cut a path after the fleeing core. Red tissue tightened around the blade and shoved it back. Kessa caught the hilt before it spun into open dark.
