Gates bloomed!
Everywhere, all at once, across the whole region, gates. Iron gates, white-lit, thousands upon thousands of them, opening out of nothing in the sandy cloud and the snow and the torn sky and the air around Noah's face, and every one of them swung shut in the instant it appeared. They closed on the cloud. They closed on the plasma. They closed on the scene of the woman at her table, and the scene froze in the middle of her laugh and went grey.
Noah's obsidian-gold brilliance stopped.
It simply stopped, every glittering grain pinned in the air where it hung, and around him, his Nightmare buzzed, a low thick hum, pressing forward against the gates and going nowhere.
Noah looked at the grain of light frozen an inch from his eye, and for the first time since he had stepped onto the terrace, something in him paid close attention.
Brunhild floated down through the frozen fog, slowly, until she hung just above him. Her eyes were shining, white and cold and very calm.
