The drum spun free under my hands, and I knew before I looked.
I had held Arthur's line for two hours and eleven minutes, learning its small pulls: the long, even drag of him walking, the shiver when he cut, the twice-and-once we had agreed on. You still with us? Still me. I had felt him answer four times.
Then the line went taut enough to sing. The monitor on my wrist flared red, the tone in the cord turned sour, the way a voice does when someone else is speaking through it, and something on the far side began drawing it in. I set my heels against the anchor ring and hauled back, as I had promised him I would.
It gave. The rope came back to me. All of it, very fast, very light.
It slid out of the seam and pooled at my boots in loose silver coils. Behind me, someone gasped. Rachel was already moving. I put my arm out without turning my head, and she stopped against it.
"No," I said.
"Reika, the monitor—"
