Rumi's voice reached Nari through the surviving vent, too close to the stone for its usual careless brightness.
"I've got three prepared now."
Nari lifted her head from the shelter of her shoulder.
"Your fourth?"
"Yes."
She smiled before the dark strand beneath her right claw pulled hard enough to hurt.
"Show me later."
"I'm trying to show you now, there's a piece of the old mark under my hand."
Nari looked back at the crushed sliver beneath the fallen block.
The place Rumi had touched was broken through its middle, its remaining line ending in a scatter of pale grit.
"Don't open to it."
"I can feel the scar."
"The endpoint is gone."
Silence followed, broken by the scrape of a stone being lifted from the outside fall.
Nari drew her left knee closer to her body, making room for the aching arm that held the second strand.
"You'd reach broken stone," she said, "I'm behind it on a floor you haven't touched."
"Nari..."
"I know."
