Chapter 32 · Don't Close the Gate

The rift sits in the air like a wound somebody carved with a dull knife. Ragged edges, shimmering sick-green light, and on the other side—home.

Noah can see the subway tunnel. The fluorescent strips running along the ceiling, half of them dead. The scuff marks on the platform tile where someone dragged a stretcher. He can even smell it, that mix of brake dust and piss and burnt coffee that every underground station in the city wears like cologne.

His chest pulls so hard it hurts.

"Don't," Mira says behind him.

He doesn't turn. If he turns, he's going to have to look at her, and right now he can't afford that. The gate's maybe ten feet across, hovering three feet off the scorched ground in the middle of what used to be the Vey courtyard. The stones are black and cracked in a perfect circle, like someone dropped a star and let it burn.

Cassian's kneeling just outside the blast ring, one hand pressed to his ribs. Blood's leaking between his fingers, but his eyes are sharp. "How long do we have?"

"Minutes," Mira says. Her voice is flat, the kind of flat that means she's holding something down.