Grey folded space like paper and let us through. One step, and the living room's soft light became knife-clear mountain air. The world smelled like snow and pine and old stone warmed by sun. Wind tugged at Stella's hair; she squinted into it, grinning the way she does when a problem has an elegant answer.
Mount Hua's spines rose in ranks to the horizon—hard, blue-white, absolute. Prayer banners flickered along a lower ridge, their colors bright as candy against the rock. The sect had already cleared a corridor for us; I'd pinged them ten minutes earlier, and polite ghosts in white had answered with a clear path and silence.
