He is in a room too open, with too many people and too much unstable stone. Still, he waits for my call. My instruction. Words matter. Especially now. Especially with my mouth still remembering his.
I jam one metal strip under the rack’s left base. “Penr, shoulder there.”
He moves.
“Lysa, stay back.”
“No—”
“Stay back or I drag you back and waste time.”
She hates me. I see it on her face. Good. Hate me and live.
I set the second wedge near the rack’s right leg, close to the sinking floor. The white-gray line pulses beneath my fingers.
Cold shoots through my injured arm. The bandage flares. I gasp before I can stop it.
Kavor’s head snaps toward me. So do three other people. Damn it. I close my fist around the bandaged arm and force my face to go blank.
“Sera?” Ila asks.
“Later.”
Her eyes narrow. She misses nothing. Terrible woman.
“Kavor,” I say.
He is already ready.
“One hand under the crossbar. Not the side frame. Lift enough to shift weight onto the wedges. No more than that.”
“Yes.”
“Penr, when it lifts, pull Tavi back by the shoulders. Not the leg. Ila, you take Miri.”
Ila’s face flickers. She knows what Miri’s stillness means. She also knows there is no time to mourn a living child just because she looks dead.
“I have her,” Ila says.
“Kavor, on my count.”
His gaze locks on mine. The chamber disappears for one breath. Not because of romance. Because trust can become a single line in a room full of dust and fear.
“One,” I say.
The floor pulses. White-gray. Wrong. I wait. Not during. After.
“Two.”
The pulse fades. The rack groans.
“Three.”
Kavor lifts. Exactly enough.
Metal shrieks. Penr lunges, dragging Tavi back. The boy screams as his leg comes free, a high, raw sound that makes half the room flinch. Good. Screaming means air.
Ila reaches under the rack for Miri. The floor shifts. The right wedge slips.
