There was no time for elegance, only brute force, raw instinct, and speed. He tore a hole in the crafted world and tumbled through. The other had frozen, shocked by the impossibility of being seized by one of near-identical essence, but soon he was desperately striving to pull free. Chance kept his grip strong, knowing the transition would take no more than a millisecond.

They flashed into sight midair above a busy street in the City. As they struggled, they shifted in a glitter of prismatic light, too fast for most human eyes to notice. One or two, blinking and shaking their heads, surely convinced themselves that they saw the sparkle of an impending migraine. There were two, however, who saw them clearly. Professor Malveaux reacted with fear and shock, unable to understand, much less believe, what was before him. The woman who wore Miranda’s face knew well what she was seeing. The sound of the impact came soon after.

No need to look, Chance thought. There was nothing in him, human or undying, that wanted to see Miranda lying in the road, lifeless. It was done, it was over; he had failed to protect her.

No. It begins here.

With the searing roar of igniting air, Patience manifested, invisible to human sight, overwhelming to undying senses, and terrifying beyond anything Chance had ever experienced. He saw a glimpse of her before he was forced to look away, reminded of a time when he was a small human boy and had done something that had driven his mother beyond mere anger to fury.

This was far worse. Patience blasted them both out of the City and into high open air with a speed and force beyond nature. She was silver cloud and sheet lightning wrapped around them and carrying them to the limit of the sky. She could not be appeased or reasoned with. Submission was the only possible response. Chance opened his hands and let go, unable to do more than try to protect his own integrity as he spun helplessly. He felt the other one disintegrate all around him, felt Patience whirl around and through him like a fine net filtering glass fragments from clear water. The awful buffeting gradually eased as he fell into the eye of her hurricane.

Daring another glimpse, he saw her towering above him, a massive, intimidating figure coldly assessing the debris in her hands. She took the shattered bits and ground them to fine, colorless sand between her fingers until they were nothing more than tiny sparks of translucent fire. Then she threw a handful at Chance. He flinched, a human reflex, but the undying matter only swirled around him, coalesced, and disappeared into his body. The other handful she flung into the wind, where it was carried to earth and to water.