She tried, though, dammit, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her skin charged with the memory of fire.

A stone hand pulled her into a side tunnel. The thunder ate her squawk of protest. She brought her knife around, brilliant in the shadows, before she recognized Shale in stone form—though not the healthy sculpture she remembered. Moonlight bled from deep wounds, from the missing corner of an ear and a hole in his right wing.

Red lightning carved grotesque shadows from the dark. Tara woke her glyphs, more for reassurance than out of faith they’d save her if whatever-it-was in the tunnel struck them.

Lightning jumped between crystal veins in the tunnel wall. Another bolt followed, and a third, and then they came too fast to count, arc after arc crisscrossing fractal dense. Her brain constructed figures from their dance: bison-headed men and goat-legged somersaulting acrobats, artifacts of spark and flame, the roar their laughter.

She did not know until the lightning passed how bright it had been, or loud. Her ears rang. For a long time all she saw was the red that endures when the eye is overwhelmed.

She returned to herself through the silver of Shale’s wounds.

Light seeped from him. His stone felt cool as ever, but the light, when it dripped onto her fingers, was warm. He pulled back from her touch, bared his teeth, snarled; her ears had not recovered yet, but she felt the sound in her bones.

“Thank you,” she said.

She heard his voice as if through a pillow: “One second.” His stone twisted, inverted, melted to skin again. “There.” His voice was not so loud as before, but her hearing had recovered to match.

“I didn’t know it was that bad,” she said.

His grin would have had a different effect were his teeth still long and curved and sharp. “They don’t hurt as much when I’m like this.”

“You should have stayed home. Taken care of yourself.”

“Aev and the others are resting before the battle. I can work in flesh, for a while.”

“How long?”

“Long enough.”

“No macho jerk answers, please. Be honest with me.”

“This stone, unworked as it is, helps a little. I can handle another day. Which is all we need, one way or another.”

She tried her ankle. “Fuck.”

“Lean on me.”

“I’ll use the wall.” If she couldn’t quite walk, at least she could hop. “Slower than I’d like. Let’s move.”

“Down?” As if he hoped she would give up. Not tonight. Not with gods and goddesses and friends counting on her two thousand miles away. Not with so few hours remaining. Her watch lay heavy in her pocket.

“Down,” she said.

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