Chapter 34 of 34·5 min read·A few minutes on the shadow-route
The Hand on the Other Side
Sella kept her boot planted on her shadow.
The dark heel pressed forward beneath it again. Her boot slid half an inch, though she had not shifted her weight.
She tightened both hands around the tether. The blue threshold held upright in its square. Across the landing, Tassa stood still, one hand near the dagger at her side. Brannoc’s shield was angled toward Sella. Iven’s head was turned toward her, the black ring around his throat catching the strange light.
“Don’t move,” Sella called.
Brannoc gave a small nod. It came before she finished speaking. Or the sound did. She couldn’t tell from here.
Her shadow pulled again.
Sella leaned into the tether and pressed down harder with her boot. The black shape stretched out from beneath her sole, its toes reaching along the pale floor. Its outline shifted against the pressure, like a hand trying to slide free from beneath a door.
She could let it go. She could also step away and see whether it followed, but the door was still under strain. If she let go of the tether, it might turn toward Iven again. If she pinned her shadow, she might hold the position and learn nothing except how long her leg could shake.
“Right,” she muttered. “Let’s start with the thing that seems least likely to hurt everyone.”
She eased her heel up by a fraction.
The shadow slid forward.
Pain lanced through her right wrist. Sella flinched, and the tether jerked in her hands. The threshold tipped toward the landing. She caught it with both arms, gripping until the rope bit into her palm.
“Fine. That was the wrong answer.”
The shadow had reached past her boot, a long dark shape stretched toward the blue door’s shadow. It moved without taking her with it. Sella’s feet stayed planted; the floor beneath her remained firm. The dark outline kept crawling.
On the landing, Tassa’s shadow was motionless. So was Tassa.
Sella swallowed her next instruction. Commands had a way of becoming routes down here. She tried a question instead.
“What are you doing?”
Her shadow made no reply. Its arm—her arm, if that still meant anything—extended toward the threshold’s shadow. The wrist bent, then straightened. Sella felt a corresponding ache climb into her forearm, a pressure without a hand.
Iven’s mouth moved. A moment later, his voice reached her. “Don’t let it—”
His throat-ring tightened. Sella saw the black writing draw in against his skin.
Next
Sella’s shadow has left a handprint on the far side of the blue door, and she has to find out what it touched there.
“—turn,” Iven finished, strained and hoarse. His hand lifted toward the blue threshold, then stopped at his chest. “I meant—keep it there.”
“I know.”
The door’s upper edge shivered. The tether pulled harder. Sella bent her knees and held on.
Her shadow reached the threshold’s shadow and spread its hand across it. The blue door rocked once, then settled. The pressure on the tether eased.
Sella stared down at her outstretched shadow-hand. She had not moved her own.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s useful.”
Her shadow’s fingers curled.
The door shifted toward Iven.
Sella’s wrist gave a sharp, sickening tug. She pulled back against the tether. The threshold stopped, but her grip faltered. One loop of rope slipped across her palm and opened the skin below her thumb.
She hissed and caught it again.
Tassa had taken one step forward on the landing. Her shadow stayed where it was.
“Stay there,” Sella called.
Tassa froze. Her gaze dropped to her own feet, then lifted to Sella. She didn’t argue.
Sella pressed her bleeding palm against the rope. The sting helped. She could focus on that, on the threshold’s angle, on the shallow tremor running through the tether. Simple things. Things that stayed where they were.
Her shadow had not stayed where it was.
She lifted her boot, just enough to free its heel. The shadow stretched farther, all the way to the threshold’s shadow. Her own knees wobbled, but she didn’t slide forward. The dark shape was separate from her now, flattened across the pale route between them.
“Don’t pull,” she said. Then, after a beat: “Please.”
Her shadow tightened its grip on the door’s shadow.
The tether went taut. The threshold’s edge bucked toward the landing, and the strain snapped through Sella’s wounded palm. She nearly lost it. Pain flooded up her arm, bright enough to blur the blue paint.
She tried to stop the shadow with her boot again.
As soon as her heel came down, the shadow’s hand flattened. The door started to turn.
Sella’s ankle twisted. The route dragged beneath her, trying to set her foot at the same angle as the door. She caught herself on one knee, still holding the tether. On the landing, Brannoc braced his shield against the floor. It slid a finger’s breadth toward her.
That movement could have been his. It could have been the shield responding to her attention. Either way, he was in danger of being pulled after it.
Sella took her heel off the shadow.
The door swung back toward its upright position. The shadow’s hand pressed down. The threshold stopped.
Sella’s knee throbbed against the stone. Blood ran over her knuckles and darkened the rope. She wanted to curse the room, the door, her own feet—anything with a name she could trust.
Instead, she moved her wounded hand higher on the tether and used the other to steady it. She let her shadow hold the threshold’s shadow.
“Do that,” she said. “Hold. Nothing else.”
The dark hand stayed spread across the floor.
For several seconds, nothing changed. Sella watched the threshold’s edge and waited for the turn. Her shadow didn’t pull. The tether slackened by a small, steady amount. Her shoulder dropped as the strain eased.
On the landing, Brannoc lowered his shield. He looked at Sella’s hand and said something she couldn’t hear.
“Still attached,” she called. “Mostly.”
“Good,” he answered. His voice arrived before his lips stopped moving. “I was going to offer you my other shield.”
“You don’t have another shield.”
“I know. It was a generous offer.”
For the first time since her shadow began to move, Sella almost laughed. The sound came out rough, but it was hers.
Then her shadow’s fingers lifted from the floor.
Sella’s smile vanished. “Hold.”
The hand didn’t rise far. It shifted, sliding past the threshold’s shadow and reaching the blue face of the door itself. Sella’s own arm remained by her side. The pressure in her wrist returned, and she clamped down on the tether to keep from being pulled along.
The shadow’s palm touched the painted surface.
A dark handprint appeared on the far side of the door.
Sella stared. She couldn’t see what lay beyond that face from here. She couldn’t tell if the mark was a shadow, a stain, or something pressing through from the other side. It had five long fingers, one thumb, and a shallow crease across the palm.
Her hand was bleeding onto the rope. The mark on the door was clean.
“Tassa,” Sella said. “Can you see it?”
Tassa leaned without taking another step. Her shadow did not follow. She squinted at the door, then raised one hand to her own palm and looked back at Sella.
“I see something,” Tassa called. “That’s all I can promise.”
Sella looked down at her shadow. Its palm remained against the door. She could pull the tether and force it back. She could step on it again. She could also leave it there and keep the threshold braced.
Her wrist hurt. Her hand was bleeding. The door was steady.
She let the rope rest against her shoulder and kept both feet clear of the shadow.
The palmprint on the far side of the blue door held its place.
Sella had managed to keep the threshold from turning. She had no idea what had put a hand on the other side.