Chapter 15 · The Other Side of Her Bed

Noah made the choice before Mira could stop him.

He pressed his palm flat against the ledger's surface, felt the bone hum under his skin, and thought of Emma. The hospital room. The machines that beeped her heart into measured lines. He didn't ask permission. Didn't wait for the shimmer in the air to steady. The Ninefold pulled at his ribs like it wanted to drag him back, but he pushed through anyway.

The crossing hurt worse than the first time.

Pain hooked through his sternum and squeezed. His knees hit linoleum instead of stone, and the fluorescent lights overhead burned white and clean and wrong. He sucked in air that tasted like disinfectant and recycled oxygen. No incense. No blood. Just the low hum of a hospital at 3 a.m. and the rhythmic beep of a heart monitor two feet away.

Emma.

She was still in the bed. Still pale. Still breathing through a tube that snaked down her throat like something planted there. Her hair had been brushed back from her face, and someone had tucked the blanket up under her chin.