“It’s following the blood.”
“Yes.”
“Then put me down.”
“No.”
“If I walk, less contact.”
“No.”
“That was a command-shaped no.”
“Yes.”
She turns her face just enough to glare at my jaw. “We discussed this.”
“You cannot walk fast enough.”
“I can fall stylishly.”
“No.”
“You have become less charming since I fell.”
“I was charming before?”
“No. But hope is important.”
The sound that escapes me is closer to a laugh than madness. Good. Hold that. Hold her. Do not hold too tight.
A crack opens ahead with a sharp report. The floor sags left. I shift right. A channel seam flashes under my foot, then dims. The system is testing paths. Or opening them. Or both.
“Stop,” Sera says suddenly.
I stop. Her eyes are half-closed, not from weakness. Listening. No. Feeling.
“What?”
“The floor ahead.”
I look. Broken stone. Dust. One fallen brace. A shallow slope. No obvious danger. But her bandage glows softly.
“I felt it pull,” she says. “Not down. Sideways.”
I crouch and lower one claw toward the slope without touching. There. A hollow beneath. Thin roof. Bad stone. If I had stepped there with her weight, we would have fallen again.
My throat tightens.
“You saw it,” I say.
“Felt it. Unfortunately.”
Useful. Horrifying. She is a map the system can read. Or she can read it back. Both. Everything is both now.
I turn sideways, searching for another path. The passage wall to the right has an old maintenance ledge, narrow and high, half-buried under dust. I can climb it with her, if my wing does not catch.
“It will hurt,” I say.
