The black tower did not open when we reached it.
It did not need to. The base of it simply stopped being solid, as if the stone had decided we were already late. Cold air came out of that gap. Not wind. Just absence.
Orin did not give a long speech this time.
"All six laws are inside," she said. "Breath will thicken. Bone will try to take you. Echoes will use any sound you cannot control. Blood will ask again. Sight will show you what you still cannot stand. Names will test whether what you kept is enough. If one of those breaks the line, the tower will not wait for the rest of you to catch up."
Elizabeth looked at each of us once.
"Stay in reach. If someone drops, we do not leave them in a chamber to be noble. We pull them and keep moving."
We went in.
The first stretch was Breath and Bone together.
