“Like what?”
“Anything. Your voice…it helps.”
“Okay.” I settle into the chair Nadia brings me, and press my palm flat against the glass. “The mountain. Do you remember the bird?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I caught you whistling when it sang. Listening to the music.”
He nods.
“And the water. You heard it before I did. I couldn’t hear anything; my wolf’s been dormant too long. You had to lead me to it.”
“You couldn’t hear the stream.” He nods again, his expression softening.
“Not until we were practically standing in it. My ears are shot.”
A rough sound through the speaker that might be a laugh. “Your ears aren’t shot. They’re just…out of practice.”
“That’s a polite way to say it.”
Silence. His breathing through the intercom. Then: “The crevice. Your hands.”
“Healing. They’re fine.”
“You fell. I couldn’t—” The shift distorts his voice for a second. He breathes through it. “I couldn’t reach you fast enough.”
“You reached me. That’s what mattered.”
“I said something. After.”
“You said I saved you.” My throat tightens. “I said you saved me.”
“Both true.”
The monitors behind me tick. His heart rate has dropped below ninety. The shift cycling has slowed.
“This room,” he says. “The wards. They pulse every eight seconds.”
“You can feel that?”
“I can feel everything in this building. The walls carry the vibration. There’s a junction thirty feet down the corridor. Two floors up, the construction is lighter…more traffic. Offices, maybe.”
“You’ve been mapping the building.”
“Sound bounces. Off walls. Floors.”
“Like you did in the mountains. You could feel inside them. Where there were tunnels and caves.”
“Yeah.” His hand shifts against the glass. “This room doesn’t breathe.”
“I know.” I swallow hard. “I’m going to get you out,” I say again. I can’t stop myself.
“You said you can’t promise.”
“I’m not promising. I’m telling you what I’m going to do.”
On the monitors, his heart rate has dropped to eighty-four, the wolf barely surfacing. Not stable. But close.
