The air tore open with a sound that wasn't sound—a vibration that went through the bone and made the heart hesitate. Hana didn't feel herself jump. One moment she was standing on the ledge beside Lin, the city's horizon trembling under a web of crimson light. The next, she was inside that rip, falling through color that felt alive, light that bent backward, and silence that pressed against her lungs.
The Seam wasn't space. It was a wound. It pulsed, raw and wet, like the inside of something that shouldn't be touched. Every flicker of motion showed flashes of memory—the hospital roof, Keller's half-smile, the echo of sirens, the touch of Lin's hand. But the moment Hana tried to focus, they warped and slipped away, replaced by empty faces and wrong voices.
"Don't listen," Lin's voice came through the static, distant but steady. "It feeds on focus."
