Chapter 935 - 935: Everyone Falls Toward A Different Sky

Jade fell sideways with Ty's skull against her ribs and saw five ways he died.

Her left eye found broken shelves, chains, and people turning through the open road. The damaged eye forced itself open beneath the cheek patch. Color left the storehouse. Every dead rail shone white, and each piece of Ty ended inside a different hard edge.

Through the damaged eye, teeth beneath the west opening closed around Ty's right hand, three loose ribs broke against a roof moving east, and the skull in Jade's coat reached a black hook below her. Farther away, his left hand stayed with Tovan's breathing cup until a closing freight wall crushed both.

The eye showed only the point where each current pull finished hurting; every destination beyond that stayed blank.

Jade caught Kestra's numbered chain with her living hand.

"Keep the three carriers fixed to your post because their shared line continues beyond my sight."

Kestra spun with both boots hooked beneath one strap. Tovan, Dessel, and the unnamed carrier remained spaced along the post. Ty's left hand held the white cup against Tovan's mouth while the post drifted toward an opening filled with stacked freight doors.

"Your sight offers no warranty I would sell."

"It is the only route around them without a closed edge."

Tovan's next breath moved the cup. Ty's fingers corrected it.

The skull pressed against Jade's coat.

"Leave my hand there until Tovan breathes alone."

"Your hand may end up several worlds away from the rest of you."

"Then I will owe it a longer walk after Tovan survives."

Kestra pulled the numbered post closer to her body. The unnamed carrier held his own strap and put one foot beneath Tovan's heel so the breathing tube stopped folding.

The freight opening took all four of them. Ty's left hand disappeared last, fingers still around the cup.

Jade's damaged eye stayed on the empty route until its white edge continued past the closing doors.

Above her, Cava and Todd were being pulled apart.

Todd hung from the Cross Link fragment with one staff section through his belt. The other section remained caught through Cava's capture hook. Her good foot pressed against the staff, but Griswald's recovery jaw dragged the branded shoulder toward a separate opening shaped by silent bells.

The landing guard and both cutters remained tied to the bell route by their own cords. The line through Cava's torn sleeve had become the only piece forcing her to follow them.

Cava saw Jade's white hand rise.

"Cut above the recovery jaw. The cord owns the pull, the burned crown stays on me, and every guard beyond that knot keeps the route they chose."

Jade's borrowed fingers opened around a thin line extending from the skull piece in her eye. The thread crossed her palm and found the packing cord.

The damaged eye showed Cava's shoulder ending at a metal table while the rest of her kept falling. Todd's route ended later, beyond anything Jade could see.

"The cutters keep their own cords, and I am taking only yours."

The white hand closed.

Packing fiber parted above the jaw. The cut kicked the landing guard toward his bell opening, with both cutters turning after him on their paid lines. Cava dropped away from them. Her capture hook held Todd's staff, and the Cross Link pull caught them as one load.

White pressure pushed deeper beneath Jade's cheek patch. The cloth split near her temple. A drop struck her white wrist and ran toward the elbow because down had moved again.

Todd pulled Cava across his chest and locked both staff sections around her strap.

The severed recovery jaw still hung from Cava's sleeve. She worked it out of the cloth and looped it through her belt before the bell route could reclaim it.

"The order changed when the captain line died, so I am keeping the tool that proves they needed me alive."

Todd tightened one staff section through the jaw handle.

"Your souvenirs continue to have unusually sharp opinions about our survival."

"I believe this reunion would improve greatly with one dependable floor."

Ty's skull shifted against Jade.

"Keep her with you because the fragment knows your route better than ours."

"You remain excellent at assigning work during terrible vacations."

Todd and Cava entered the Cross Link opening together. The cracked fragment went first. Cava kept one hand on the jaw hanging from her sleeve and the other around Todd's belt.

Their white edges continued after the opening folded.

Jade turned toward Nessa.

Between two skies, Nessa followed the recovered field finger with her usable left wrist while her numb right arm drifted toward a gray opening full of prison hooks. The cutter harness across her chest had begun sliding toward that shoulder.

Nessa caught the harness buckle with her teeth and pulled it across the floating arm.

"Fasten the numb arm against my chest before the hooks take the cage inside it."

Jade reached with her living hand.

"I am taking the harness buckle and leaving the cutter under your control."

Nessa offered her left wrist. Jade pulled herself along the chain, tightened the harness around Nessa's numb arm, and returned the buckle to her working hand.

The recovered field finger climbed through an opening below them. Behind it moved a sky crowded by roofs with their tiles facing outward. Ropes ran between chimneys, and an entire row of buildings crossed the opening from left to right.

Jade's damaged eye found three impact edges on the nearest roof. Her own body struck first and rolled. Nessa hit beside her with the numb arm held. Ty's skull and ribs arrived across separate chain links.

The impacts carried pain. None closed into a death edge before the moving roof passed beyond her sight.

Another white line tightened around Ty's ribs.

One broken lip from the prison floor still clung to his chain. It pulled his ribs toward the gray hook opening while his skull remained against Jade.

Her white hand turned toward his throat before she chose another cut.

"Borrowed means release the chain and move one link sideways now."

Ty's right hand opened at once. It moved across one link, caught the far side, and kept every finger away from Jade's wrist.

The borrowed hand stopped short of his jaw.

Jade forced the elbow down while the eye tried to finish the reach.

"You may catch Nessa's chain after I cut the dead lip."

"The next touch belongs to me, and I choose her chain."

Ty's hand waited while Jade turned her white palm toward the prison fragment snagging his ribs. In the damaged eye, the fragment ended inside Ty's open chest; beyond it, the gray hooks carried no living person she could see.

She cut the dead lip.

The second use tore the cheek patch from her face. White blood gathered along the lower lid and lifted in round beads toward the hook opening. The skull piece stayed lodged inside the eye, holding it open around a field of colorless routes.

Ty's right hand crossed the chain only after Jade lowered her palm. Four bone fingers closed around Nessa's link.

Jade pulled her coat belt through Ty's jaw, around two rib links, and back across her waist. The recovered left phalanx remained inside its separate pocket against her hip.

Nessa tightened her left hand on the field finger chain.

"Take my wrist now because the finger is choosing our fall."

Jade closed her living hand around the offered wrist.

The gray prison opening moved away. The Cross Link route folded somewhere above. Kestra's freight doors narrowed to a line with no white ending inside it.

Only the roof filled opening remained wide enough for the three of them.

The field finger pulled Nessa through first.

Jade followed with Ty's skull tied against her ribs. His right hand held Nessa's chain, and the loose ribs struck one another behind them as the opening turned every old direction inside out.

Cold roof tiles hit Jade's shoulder.

Nessa landed on the harnessed arm and rolled across a row of iron stakes driven through the tiles. Ty's skull struck Jade's coat belt, while his right hand caught one stake and stopped the ribs from scattering over the roof edge.

The settlement kept moving beneath them as their weight changed, tipping the roof into a wall before Jade could rise. Nessa slid toward a chimney rope while Ty's ribs punched through boards below the gutter and Jade fell against his chain.

A child shouted from the other side.

"Mama, the ceiling hook came back through the nursery."