The inside of the membrane was cold.
Not the cold of the In Between, which was a neutral temperature, the cold of something that had been suspended between states for too long and had taken on the ambient temperature of nowhere. I pushed my hands through and felt Kael’s hands find mine immediately, the grip of someone who had been holding on alone for three days after an indeterminate time of not knowing there was anything to hold on to.
“I have you,” I said. Through the membrane, muffled, but audible.
The grip tightened.
“Pull,” Caelan said, from beside me.
I pulled.
The membrane did not want to release what it held, not because it was malicious but because suspended states have their own inertia, the tendency of things between conditions to stay between conditions rather than resol
