The tank cracked from inside.
Hairline at first, thin as a white feather, running from where the six-fingered hand pressed glass, red liquid seeping, hissing where it hit the concrete floor of B7 that already swam with red from broken tanks. The hum that had lived in Maeve's tank, that had lived in all tanks, rose higher, wet, happy, almost excited.
Kieran didn't look at the crack. He looked at the elevator that had no shaft, that had opened sideways onto snow falling up, at Lyra standing there alone.
She was four. Bare feet, borrowed sweatpants from the penthouse that swallowed her, hair tangled, mark on her chest dimmed to faint silver, eyes blue, not white, for the first time since she howled glass out of Wolfe Tower. In one hand, a white feather that glowed, same feather Elara had
