The storm let them go like a fist unclenching.
Mist clung to everything - ropes, bark, the undersides of leaves big enough to be roofs. Lanterns hung from lines in soft chains, their glass still beaded with rain, their light the color of patient fires. The road had given up being a road a while back; now it was a bridge, then another bridge, then a platform that pretended to be a street. The trunks of the trees were not trees so much as pillars - brown columns wide enough to swallow houses - rising into a ceiling the mist was in no hurry to reveal.
The lead car eased to a stop at a carved post wearing vines and old knife marks. The Wardens stepped out first, shoulders squared, hands relaxed and not. The second car opened on the eight and on Alan, who had the decency to wince when he moved. The patch at his ribs had gone a darker color. The white-green light under his sternum kept its place, pulsing like an apology he didn't know how to give.
