The Hand Beyond the Door

Pell had wrapped my stone palm in a strip of clean cloth. It did nothing for the crack running through it, but it kept the silver from scraping the raw edge when I moved.

“Clean cloth,” I said. “That’s how you know we’ve run out of useful ideas.”

Pell looked at the sternum impressions. “We have one useful idea. We leave the chest alone.”

The inner strand lay in the narrow darkness behind Istren’s opened sternum. It had stopped turning toward me after I broke contact. The crew’s tether still ran from Pell’s anchor, across the chamber floor and through the membrane behind us. The second line disappeared into Istren. We had learned how to hear Oda without pulling her. We had also learned that hearing her could widen the cracks in my hand.

Venn stood several paces from the chest. He had both hands folded behind his back, as if they belonged to somebody with better judgment.

“I can ask one question,” I said. “Then I end it. No one answers through the line. No one touches it.”

Pell’s eyes stayed on my hand. “You said that last time.”

“Last time I asked whether Oda could speak. This time I’ll ask what she’s holding shut.”

“That’s a question that could make her answer.”

“It’s why I’m asking.”

Pell let out a slow breath. He didn’t approve. He also didn’t leave the anchor. That passed for trust between us.

I looped the slack tether around my wrist and pressed my marked palm against the chamber floor, near enough to the opened sternum for Istren’s name to reach the inner strand. The stone had no feeling left in it. I could still tell when it hurt by the way the cracks changed.

The strand turned.

“Venn?” Oda’s voice came through the silver, thin with distance.

“I’m here,” he said. He didn’t move closer.

“I’m Vera,” I said. “I want to know what is behind the door you’re holding.”

For a moment, the line stayed slack. Then the inner strand drew a small, careful arc over the dark inside Istren’s chest. It didn’t touch me. The movement was enough to make the tether hum against my wrist.

“A black door,” Oda said. “Three notches. It opens onto a shore.”

I knew the shape before she gave me the rest. The Godkiller’s memory had shown us a three-notched door and an ocean beneath unfamiliar stars. At the time, we had thought the door belonged to the pact. I’d had no reason to think Oda had found it too.

“What’s on the shore?” Venn asked.