Page 160 of Zenith Court

“Now,” Astra said.

Caspian and Hale ignored her together. It was the cleanest cooperation they had managed all night.

Delphine crouched in front of Astra. “The stairs are clear as far as I can hear. The guards outside the chamber have withdrawn. That does not mean the Court above us has become friendly.”

Astra nodded. “Tormund?”

The woman stood across the broken basin with water dripping from her sleeves. Nothing about the room moved when she did. No guard came to her side.

Tormund lifted her head. “The rite-guards will wait for an order.”

“From you?” Delphine asked.

Tormund looked toward the empty channel where the water had carried the last light away. “They will discover the answer shortly.”

One of the guards nearest her pulled the silver cord from his wrist. He turned it over once, then laid it on the flooded walkway. Another guard watched him and kept hers on. Neither looked to Tormund for permission.

A shout came down through the stairwell. Another voice answered from farther above. Neither sounded like an order. Soon the noise became too large to separate: people calling names, doors striking walls, someone crying, someone laughing, feet running in both directions.

Hundreds of people above us had felt the suppression fail. Some would feel nothing beyond its absence. Others would wake to pain, or to connections they had spent years believing dead. The running feet and shouted names told us the change had already reached every floor.

Hale looked toward the stair. “We need a room with a door, clean water, and bandages.”

“An exit,” Delphine added.

“That too.”

Caspian examined the scrape along Astra’s collarbone, then the blood on her palms. “Can you feel your legs?”

She drew one knee up and set her boot flat. “Yes.”

“Dizzy?”

“Yes.”

“Nauseated?”

“No.”

“Lying?”

“A little.”

I laughed once before I could stop it. The sound came out wrong in the ruined chamber, but Astra’s eyes found mine and stayed there. Caspian exhaled through his nose. Hale’s mouth shifted at one corner.

Something loosened in Astra’s face. Caspian saw it and checked the scrape at her collarbone again without touching. Hale listened to her next breath.

Caspian wiped his bloody palm against his trousers before offering it to her. Hale rose on her other side and offered his forearm, giving her a steadier grip. I moved behind her, close enough to catch what the other two missed.

Hale touched two fingers to her sleeve. “Hand at your ribs when you rise.”

Astra nodded.

Caspian waited with his palm open until she chose it. We had spent months moving at the first change in the chord, often before she had to ask.

“Slowly,” Caspian said.

Astra took both grips and stood.