Erebus opened the bead in a room that didn't exist.
He called it a cold pocket: a slice of his Necropolis leaned just out of phase with Luna Base, all black stone and quiet pressure, no air to carry a spark if the thing chose to die messy. I stood with him at the threshold; the rest watched through a pane that was glass only because people like seeing glass.
"Gently," I said.
"I am bone," he replied, amused. "I do nothing else."
His hand was a cage of ivory. The bead hung within—sleek, faceted, the color of old smoke. Reika's two-letter No still clung to it like frost.
"Valeria?" I asked under my breath.
"Wrong tool for hitting," she murmured from my hip. "Right tool for a line if he needs one."
Erebus tapped one facet. A seam appeared that hadn't been there, as if the bead remembered how to be honest. He slid a thin splinter of bone into the seam and turned it like a key. The bead sighed without sound and unfolded into three petals.
