Dry, deliberate classifications. Moving forward. Deep breaths, when my chest hurt enough that breathing was hard. Back to numbers and labels. Lord of Loss and Kingdom Come had to be ignored, but I could trust that Lord of Loss would come into the picture somewhere along the line. We still had to get out of here or deal with him.

Nursery was close enough for me to hear the hums and chimes. Shaker, clearly. Not dissimilar to Labyrinth from back in Brockton Bay. The rule for dealing with shakers was to avoid fighting them on their own turf.

Snag was changer or tinker, possibly striker. Those arms. He had something mover going on with how he’d gone after the bus Jasper was driving.

Still, there might be another in play.

I ventured down the hallway, still feeling that ache in my chest, feeling acutely aware of my own body, the way clothes constrained me, reaffirmed me, yet every reaffirmation was a reminder that I needed that small reminder in the first place, and why.

My hand brushed against the wall as I walked. The closer to the north end of the building I got, the more of the lullaby I could hear. Multiple sources formed the humming, soft around the edges, each slightly out of sync with the others in a way that suggested they all came from different places.

I felt the texture of the wall change. Smoother. I felt and saw the difference in texture and color, respectively. Gray and dusty rose shades, as if seen through a filter. The wall had become a painted surface that felt as if it had been painted over many times, some droplets having run down the wall and set in place, ridges elsewhere where similar bumps had been painted over and become a faint rise.

I could hear her now. Nursery. A human’s hum, joined by all the others. She was close.

Peering around the corner of the T-shaped junction, I didn’t see her, but I saw the change. Her turf, as it was. Dusty rose carpet, picture frames with simple things like animals and boats in grays, blacks, and pale pinks. A crib, white, covered with a quilt.

I stayed at the edges of it, going further down the hall rather than turning the corner and venturing into her realm. Only the wall to my right was affected. A baby carriage draped in a blanket was parked beside a small bookshelf that had been stacked with children’s books and building blocks. The cloth stuck as if it had been taped down or the sheer amount of time it had been there had nearly fused it to the fabric of the carriage, producing a tearing sound reminiscent of Velcro. The carriage was empty, except for a vague oblong stain on the seat’s back and the seat itself.