I was dimly aware of the feathers in the air. All the ones I’d loosed, while repeating the same descent down the stairs, so disconnected from reality that I wasn’t realizing what was happening.
“There,” Rose said. “On the other side of the wall. It’s… glowing in the darkness, kind of.”
I pressed my hand against the wall.
Unreachable.
Unreachable by humans.
“Evan,” I said. “Go find it, see if you can do something?”
Rose repeated my instruction for Evan, pointing.
He was back in four seconds. “Can’t.”
“Why not?” Rose asked.
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
“This isn’t the time to start acting more like a ghost. Why can’t you?” Rose asked.
“F-frostbite?” Evan asked.
He held up one hand, showing us fingers that were frayed at the tip. More ghostly than they might otherwise be.
“Salt,” I said. “This is all very deliberate.”
I was aware of Duncan Behaim making his way across the building. “Rose? I guess this is connections 101, for you. Look. Can you sense Duncan Behaim?”
“Oh god,” Rose said. “Blake-”
I winced, and shut my eyes. Firm, I asked, “Can you?”
“No.”
My heart sank.
“Blake-”
“If I give you more power, then-”
“If you give me more, you’ll die. Don’t. I didn’t ever imagine you’d try to do something like this. Or… get stuck in prison. Or any of this. But I’m not capable, even with a bit of a boost. You shouldn’t have assumed like this.”
“Was going with my instincts,” I said.
“You really shouldn’t trust your instincts if they’re telling you to carve yourself up.”
“I needed backup,” I said “This kills two birds with one -ow- stone, so to speak. Bringing you back, and reducing my profile. This is serious. We’re in trouble if we can’t deal with Duncan here. Right now, I think he’s busy setting up more traps. Sealing us inside the building.”
“Okay,” Rose said. “I’m trying to think.”
“Good,” I said. “We need it to come together. Because I just gave up almost everything I have to bring you back and give you some muscle, and apparently you can’t get muscle. I need you doing what you can, because I’m not up for more than getting from A to B, and mid-level problem solving.”
“I think you’re putting an unfair burden on me,” Rose said. “I don’t have the ability to do much of anything, here. I can’t affect the world.”
“You couldn’t, but that was before,” I said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t now. You might be able to talk to people, or distract them, at least. Figure something out.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
With that, she was gone from the frame.
I wandered down the stairs, then up a few flights. There was no ‘snap’ when I passed the boundary. Duncan remained one floor below me at all times.
Rigging traps at the exits, binding me in place.
He hadn’t hurt me, though. Laird hadn’t either.
That was a good thing to keep in mind.
What were the other options?
Thinking outside the box… I could theoretically break the rune by taking the most direct route. Rather than walk around to the other side, I could try attacking it from here.
Punch through the wall until I could break the section of wall the rune was painted on? Even if I had the raw strength, I didn’t want to do that to myself, and I wasn’t sure it would work. Tearing the railing from the wall somehow and using it as a battering ram? Same problem.
Besides, my ability to easily alter and affect the world was apparently one of the things I’d lost when I’d spilled my own blood.
I looked down at Evan. “It looks like we’re stuck here until Rose figures something out. Unless you can figure out some kind of escape route.”
He turned around.
I followed his line of sight.
“Very funny,” I said.
Much of the light in the stairwell came from a single large window, just above one landing.
He shrugged.
“We’re still on the third floor,” I said.
He shrugged again.
“Right,” I said. I glanced around.
No other brilliant ideas were presenting themselves.
Staring at the bright window, turned gold by the sunlight, it disoriented.
When I looked away, I couldn’t help but feel that the stairwell was a little more crooked than it had been.
“Fair enough,” I said. “We’ll do it your way.”
I kicked the window and it didn’t break. Not a huge surprise; I’d controlled my kick so my leg wouldn’t keep going, only to get sliced up by the remaining glass, but I’d held back in the process… not that strong.
I tried again, moving back so my position would keep my leg from going too far, kicking harder.
Nothing.
Rose returned, her silhouette dark, the light shining from behind her. “Duncan’s drawing runes by the front entrance. We need to use the other exit if we’re going to run for it.”
“Any progress on getting me out of here?” I asked.
“I can get reactions from people, speaking, but there’s nothing I can use anywhere near the rune on the wall.”
“Can you break this window?”
I saw her look, craning her head around to take it in.
“Even a little,” I said. “You have a lot more power to devote to the task.”
“I also lost almost two days of time,” Rose said.
I kicked the window again, to no effect. I hurt more than the window did. My arms, my head, my general disorientation…
Fuck.
But that time, I noticed Duncan reacting.
A connection. Between him and the window?
Of course. It was an obvious way out. I hopped up to search the surface.
There. On the surface of the window, a rune. I recognized it as one that enhanced durability.
This was the Behaim style, apparently. Big chronomancy, using the family and the circle, bits of shamanism, enchantment and other tools here and there. Binding, augmenting, distracting…
I scratched at it. Permanent marker.
Nothing in the stairwell to scratch at it, my pockets had been cleaned out.
“I can’t think of another way out,” I said. “I can’t force you, but… well, look at it this way. It’ll take something out of you, but it’s going to exact a price from him too. Quite possibly a greater price. He said he’d keep me here. Let’s make him lie.”
“And if I spend something and I can’t deal with the abstract demon?”
“Spent or not, we can’t do anything about the abstract demon until we’ve dealt with Duncan here,” I said.
Rose heaved out enough of a sigh that I could see her shoulders move.
“Get back,” she said.
I nodded, retreating partway up the stairs.
I heard a heavy thud, a shuddering of the window within the frame.
“Fuck,” she said. “Ow.”
Duncan had noticed. He was approaching now, running.
“A crack… and it didn’t take that much out of me. One more try…”
The window shattered. I saw glass fly.
Then Rose’s voice from further up the stairs. “I am stronger.”