The rope went into the Bellmother after Tovar.
Aylin caught it before Dema followed.
"He keeps the cradle upright," Dema said. "I keep him."
Kesta translated from the half-flooded roof, but Dema's grip needed no shared language. Both hands had closed around the line. The little shell wyvern remained trapped beneath one wrist.
Aylin looped the rope around a chain bracket. "Then keep him from here until we open a way out."
Behind them, Neris's awning shifted beneath a broken nursery roof.
Beras drove one shoulder under the beam from below. Neris cut a slit through the trapped cloth, pushed two coughing residents into the nearest air pocket, then crawled out with blood washing from her mouth. Only after the others surfaced did she let Beras lift the roof off her leg.
No bone showed. She could bend the knee, but she could not put her full weight on it.
"I can hold a rope," Neris said.
Dema gave her one.
