They left the center of the basin before night could test the new edge. Coren walked with them, still adjusting to the continuous existence of his own feet. The dust now accepted footprints. The air carried sound without delay. When Cal sang a short piece of the canal song, the notes remained in the correct order and did not attempt to forget themselves midway.
At the rim of the basin they paused and looked back. The upright slab stood with its spiral clearly visible. The Place That Was Removed had reappeared on the landscape as a quiet, gray, and no longer hungry absence. Nima inked it onto every map she carried with deliberate satisfaction.
“Six,” Tallen said. “Six limited wounds. The College is going to need a new classification system.”
Ysara checked Coren’s pulse as if the remnant
