Chapter 109. The Dome of Questions

The chain at the top of the post snapped with the weary honesty of metal admitting it had been good long enough. The gate sagged and then flung itself wide, as if embarrassed to be seen failing slowly. Air lurched. Torchlight flattened. The plate-crowned thing came through on shoulders that should have belonged to an argument with mountains, jaw built to quarrel with furniture, chest glowing where a law would sit if someone had taught it manners.

“On witness. On pairs. On names answered. Shut,” Aria said, the sentence shaped to hold as much room as the square could give it. Hands answered: Cassandra’s left on Aria’s elbow, Jules on her wrist, the vessel steady at her back, fifty more palms linked along the line. The moving hinge leaned with the relief of a tool finally allowed to be its favorite shape. The edge slid; not forward, not back—sideways—turning appetite into a bad angle instead of a tragedy. The bench in the null hummed, the sound of refusal deciding to be comfortab