Chapter 40 · Over the Abyss

The ground quit on me.

One second I was on my knees in the snow with my wrists cut open and Vane's mouth at my arm. The next, the whole ridge dropped like a trapdoor. Rock and ice rained down around me, and I fell with it.

I didn't scream. There wasn't any air.

Something clamped around my wrist, hard enough to grind bone.

My shoulder nearly tore out of its socket. I swung out over nothing, boots kicking, and looked up.

Vane.

He was flat on his stomach at the broken edge. One arm was hooked through a frozen rope line, and the other stretched down to me. A silver spike jutted from his shoulder, black blood crawling around it. His eyes flickered gold, then gray, then gold again, like someone flicking a switch.

"Don't let go," I said. Stupid. He was the one holding.

"Not letting go." His voice scraped like gravel. "Not ever again. You hear me?"

Below my boots, the chasm breathed up cold wind that stank of old stone and burnt powder. Rocks were still falling somewhere down there. I counted. I never heard them land.

"The spike," I said. "Vane, the spike—"

"I know."