Page 149 of As You Wake, Break the Shell

I need you to open to me.

I’m open to you.

More. As we do when we are fetching ice.

I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I need to be able to respond to Signy if she needs something. I can’t speak as humans normally speak when you and I are flowing fully.

But I need you to understand. I need you to understand completely.

Can it not wait? We’ll be making a run in just a few days.

Now, Cora. Please. Please, or I will not be able to. It has been so very long since we flew together.

All right. But we need to keep it brief.

This will not take long.

* * *

The window was small, but the view beyond was immense. Fortune was just a ball out there—and wasn’t that strange? Just a ball in the middle of nothing, with everybody she’d ever known clinging to it like spores spreading white on an orange peel. What a precious thing. What an absolute mess.

Colibri’s sail sliced away a portion of Signy’s view, but she didn’t mind. That, too, was worth looking at. The membranes between the quill-like supports glistened with reflected sunlight, and Signy remembered the curious thing Cora had told her once: we don’t know how they can fly.

* * *

There should’ve been a

better why in sending us out

here. More is not a why. Or, it

is, but it’s a terrible one,

and I think it always leads to

terrible hows.

Are you saying you think