The screaming of the iron saw chewing through the doorframe of Room 412 carried a high, vibrating pitch that threatened to crack the porcelain teeth in my jaw. White hot sparks sprayed through the shattered view panel like an angry nest of hornets, illuminating the absolute darkness of the room in short, violent bursts of blinding silver light. But inside that blinding storm of metal and ash, something else had completely shifted. For the first time in two bitter years, the invisible wall of ice between Silas and me had shattered into dust.
"Listen to the teeth, Elena," a low, gravelly whisper hissed from the square utility hatch beneath the mechanical bed. The voice was identical to Silas’s, but it lacked the shattered, ragged wheeze of his torn lung. It was smoother, colder, and carried
