“Not like that one back there,” Dastion said. “This is something different. That crevasse is deeper than it ever should be. When I found it, I threw rocks in and never heard them hit bottom, but I’ve done nothing since. I’m worried I’ll disturb whatever might be down there. But this place I’ve brought you to is more of an edge than a crack. An end.”

“Of the world?” Vince asked.

“Of this world. You’ve tried walking out of the valley, I’m sure.”

“Countless times,” Vince said. “I get turned around without feeling it. A weird sensation. As if I’ve rebounded from a wall, but there’s no wall there and no sense of changing direction.”

“I’ve tried down here, too,” Dastion said. “I’ve mined in a straight line for weeks on end, and eventually end up back in the cavern where I began. Here, I’ve found the edge of the Fold, and it’s visible. It’s dark, like infinity. Like nothing.”

“What good is that?” Shashahanna asked. “You’ve brought us all the way down here to see a wall?”

“I think the edge might be open,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Vince asked.

“Grace has formed one opening out of the Fold.”

“And you think it might be mirrored down here?”

“We’ve come down here on a supposition?” Shashahanna asked.

“I know the ground,” Dastion said. “I know the rocks and the soils, the cracks between rocks, and the way it all holds together. There’s a poetry to it, and a form. I haven’t been living the life I was meant to for very long, but it’s been a part of me forever. I think this is a place she forgot about, or maybe never knew about in the first place. And now that she’s formed her portal up there, this down here might be another way out of the Fold.”

“So let’s go and see,” Vince said. He nodded past Dastion and the dwarf turned and led the way.

The tunnel ahead of Dastion suddenly opened up wide, swallowing torchlight and giving nothing back. The blackness was deeper than any Vince had ever seen, a thick, physical presence rather than an absence, and he experienced a moment of dread that prickled sweat across his skin and shrivelled his balls. The tunnel was narrow, but this consuming darkness was suddenly wide, stretching across his whole field of vision.

“You didn’t say how fucking scary it was,” Vince said.

“Yeah.”

Shashahanna crept forward and approached the endless darkness, reaching out her hand. “It’s like the depths I’ve always sought,” she said.

“I’ve tried touching it,” Dastion said. “Took a while to pluck up the courage, but when I eventually did my hand just—”

Shashahanna reached forward and her hand pressed into the black wall. She exhaled softly, as if from pleasure, and pressed in deeper.