They didn’t run. They walked away from the Spire like people who had looked down a well and seen the sky at the bottom. The forest took them back cautiously, as if checking their pockets for stolen thunder. Dust fell from the black windows behind them. The hum that had been living in their bones went quiet by degrees, like a fever breaking.
No one spoke for a long time. Lark kept Edda’s litter steady, jaw clenched, the way boys do when they want the world to forget they are young. Kest led them down goat trails and old deer paths, all elbows and narrow shoulders, never once glancing at the crowns that hung low over Lena’s head. Dominic matched Lena’s pace without getting in front of it. Kael kept to the trees, shadows tucking themselves under his ribs like sleeping animals, his bleeding p
