“You’ve been stabbed, Finch,” he thought he heard her say. Her face way up near the ceiling, looking down. Her arms impossibly long.

A coughing laugh. “Have I?” A kind of lurching dislocation.

Rathven was wrapping something around his side. Gauze? Urging him onto his feet.

“You’re going into shock. I need to get you somewhere I can help you,” she said.

“I deserve better.” A dry laugh. Everybody deserved better.

Lurched up, almost falling forward onto his face. Leaned into her.

Glints and glimmers in a dark pool. Past the battered, weathered book stacks. Past her little kitchen. Past her bedroom. A glimpse of green and purple. The brightness of a single bulb. Like a sentry.

A rough-hewn doorway. Water on the floor. Curved walls. Moisture. A cockleshell of a boat. Strange pale-blue eyes of mudskippers in the shallows. Glowing in the light from a lantern.

She said something to him he didn’t understand. Took his arm. Guided him until he was lying with his back against the prow, legs out in front like useless matchsticks. She took off the oars, began to row.

Glimpses of roots, brick, and wood in the ceiling. His mangled hand trailing through the water. The wound in his side like a rip in a stuffed animal. All the sawdust coming out. Lulling him to sleep. Closed his eyes. She shook him awake. Nodded at her as if she’d said something he agreed with. But there was nothing left to say.

A thud as the boat knocked against something.

“We’re here,” she said.

Opened his eyes. Saw her tying a rope to a lock embedded in old stone steps. Beyond, a worn archway.

She forced him to his feet. Helped him up the steps.

A single large room at the top, dark except for Rathven’s swinging lantern. Caught a glimpse of books, a table.

She led him to a cot at the far end. Fell heavily onto it. She asked him a question. Didn’t hear her. Fuzziness around the words. Drifted. Curious about the dryness in his mouth. The way his vision kept blurring.

Said, “The towers are changing. Need to get to the roof.”

Rathven saying “No,” forcing him back down onto the cot.

Blinks of light and time.

Fading and coming back.

A few hours later. Awake on the cot. Looking out through his good eye. She’d cut his clothes off. Washed him. Bandaged his side. Could feel the edge of the wound like a mouth as he lay there with a towel around his waist.

He was at the back of a large room, looking toward the front and the doors. The archway. Rich, burgundy carpet and rugs worn but clean. The walls covered from top to bottom in bookcases. Every shelf was filled with books. Perfectly preserved. In neat rows. On the floor, more books. In careful piles. Beside boxes and boxes of black market supplies.