The Grey folded space like paper and let us through. One step, and the living room's soft light became knife-clear mountain air. The world smelled of snow and pine and old stone warmed by the sun. Wind tugged at Stella's hair; she squinted into it, grinning the way she does when a problem has an elegant answer.
Mount Hua's spines rose in ranks to the horizon, hard and blue-white. Sect banners flickered along a lower ridge, their colours bright as sweets against the rock. The sect had already cleared a corridor for us; I'd sent word ten minutes earlier, and polite figures in white had answered with a clear path and silence.
