wood and brushed steel, writhed and sagged. The people atop it were oblivious to the movement, and their own colors—a bright orange coat, a teal-blue beret, a forest-green parka—faded to gray.
I bit my tongue until I tasted blood.
Eliot squeezed my hand, but I didn’t pull away. The world around us flickered and faded as I stood fast.
One by one, the people on the bridge disappeared, bursts of colorless static around them like ghostly fireworks. The curves of the pavilion drooped above our heads.
“Head toward the exit pivot,” my father said. “It gets easier as you go—the tension in the lines becomes more manageable, and you get into a routine. Cut and loop and weave and move,” he chanted as we crossed the plaza surrounding the Bean, a jelly-bean-shaped sculpture and the main attraction of Millennium Park. The skyline, already distorted in its mirrored surface, twisted in on itself like a Möbius strip—but when I looked up, it was the buildings themselves sinking into the ground, spreading like lava.
We crossed Michigan Avenue, pacing ourselves so that the team’s movements, their careful steps and precise gestures, never ceased. We were like an amoeba, a shifting mass that left behind a smeared, ugly trail.
We reached the stairwell, and my dad jerked his head toward the pivot, his hands still in motion. “Once we’ve sealed the strings of the pivot, this world will finish unraveling on its own. Based on the strength of the signal and the stability of the Echo, it should take longer than usual for it to cleave—I’d estimate a week before it’s gone.”
I straightened. A week. We might be able to come back and save this world in seven days, if I could find the Free Walkers.
“In a minute, I’ll send you all back through, and wrap up here with my team. We’ll rejoin you for the last few steps on the stable side of the pivot, to finish it off properly. We want to make sure that the cut site is reinforced against any sort of inversions or instability.”
“What if one of you had gotten sick?” Callie asked, with a sidelong glance at me. “Do you really need three people?”
“In an emergency, a cleaving can be handled safely by one person,” Shaw said. “That’s part of why the Consort expects you all to learn. If you Walk somewhere critically unstable, you need to be able to act, regardless of where you’re apprenticed. But it’s preferable to have a three-pronged team, plus a navigator and medic on the other side. Speaking of medics, Del, Callie, Eliot—I want you three through the pivot first. The rest of you follow at regular intervals. Go!”
Eliot didn’t waste any time. Gripping my hand, he led me through the pivot, letting the air shift and part around us, humming the Key World frequency. The world sighed, settled, and welcomed us back.
“Sit,” Callie ordered, helping me down the stairs. “You are the whitest white girl I’ve ever seen right now. You look like a freaking vampire.”
She handed me a chocolate bar from her backpack, but I waved it away. Sugar could reverse frequency poisoning; I wanted to reverse time. I stood up, and she shoved me back down, hands on shoulders. Eliot paced and scowled, lips moving silently.
“You really aren’t cut out for this, are you?” Callie asked.
I drew my hand across my mouth, battling back nausea. “Guess not.”
“She got sick,” Eliot called. “Frequency poisoning or food poisoning or the flu.”
Callie scoffed. “Bullshit. Come up with a better story than that, because Shaw’s going to want to know what’s going on in about three minutes.” She shook her head. “What the hell is wrong with you two? We were good together. Then Del gets booted, then she comes back, then she’s off the leaderboard, then you two aren’t speaking, and then you have some sort of . . . what? Episode? Breakdown? Whatever the problem is, figure it out, because if I’m going to cleave with you, I need to be sure you’re not going to get us all killed.”
She stood up and pointed a finger at me. “Playtime’s over.”
I leaned my head against the cold metal handrail. “No kidding.”
Shaw ordered us back to CCM before my dad and his team were finished. Callie and Eliot stuck close, saying little for the entire return trip. But when we arrived in the lobby, no amount of evasion was going to save me. Lattimer approached us, his face a mask of concern.