Moonsong wanted to ask Scribe to send her over anyway. But she couldn’t say not to catch people out of the air. If they kept falling straight down, they’d land in the crater. The wind wasn’t enough to push them off course.

She watched as Sveta talked to Tristan. A back and forth.

The dull cracking became sharper, louder.

The gap was fifty feet across. She couldn’t initiate a good gravity well while airborne and moving. Not since the civilian squads had detonated the crystal and screwed up the powers. It was why she hadn’t been able to juggle Tristan’s rocks. Her wells were stronger, but slower to manifest, less flexible if she was moving around.

She backed up, created her well, and then she took the leap, over the chasm, the fighting going on below.

Civilians had died. Her father had been through the portal, but he was also the kind of person to come back through and try to usher people through.

The wind whipped past her hair and her jacket. In the moment, she could only wince at the air resistance that her jacket and knee-length dress were providing.

All she could do was remain focused on the maintenance of the well. Going too high up would be just as disastrous as not high enough, and she wasn’t experienced with this new power and its metrics.

The arc of her jump started to carry her down, and she wasn’t halfway.

“Sveta!”

Sveta looked away from her conversation with Tristan, as Tristan looked down at the wounded civilians and ongoing fighting.

The cracking roared through the air, and she saw it slice through the sky.

Sveta reached out, and Moonsong gripped the tendril.

She was hauled to the far side of the chasm. She landed on hands and knees, huffing.

Looking up, the first thing she saw was that Tribute was dead.

The second thing, was Tristan.

“I’m a demon after all,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“You called me a demon,” he said. He huffed out a laugh. “Fuck. I murdered Tribute.”

The words brought the reality home for her. She looked down at Tribute’s body.

“Not you,” she said.

“Nah,” he said. “It’s me. That’s on me.”

“Tristan,” Sveta said. “Refocus. Use your power. Because that cracking—”

Tristan backed away from the ledge.

Cracks that were forming in the air turned, homing in toward him.

“Use your power!” Sveta called out. “Like the research Victoria mentioned!”

He did, creating red lights.

“I didn’t call you a demon,” Moonsong said.

“You implied—you said you wanted your demons dead and behind you, and—fuck, you might actually get that. Fuck.”

As the cracks drew close, Tristan used his power. A manifestation of buildings and concrete, thrown up there like he thought it would be a wall against the cracking.

It seemed to work, surprising her.