Slate was airborne before Rill had both boots in the saddle.
His stolen homebell scraped from inside the cloud, using the sound Rill had made only moments earlier. Slate followed it with his wounded side low and his neck stretched toward a piece of copper that knew where he used to turn.
Rill caught the front rail. "Slate, I changed it."
Copper under the cloud gave back Rill's scrape.
Rill struck his boot with the hook handle.
Slate heard the living answer. His head shifted toward Rill, then swung back when the bell called again from Widow's Needle.
He wanted both voices to be real.
Jiang understood that better than he wanted to.
He left the cold ledge at a waddle that became a run only when gravity helped. The first bridge sloped toward the Needle. His injured leg tried to turn him sideways, and every third step knocked the shoulder against his ribs.
