I came back to myself on the stone floor of the vault with Rena's hands pressed hard against either side of my face and no memory at all of falling.
That was the first wrong thing, before I'd even opened my eyes properly. Not the ache in my chest where the shard had struck, not the cold gone bone-deep in my wrist, but the gap — a clean, seamless absence where there should have been the memory of hitting the floor, of Rena reaching me, of whatever had happened in between the shard's impact and this moment of her voice finally breaking through to me, saying my name in a register I'd never once heard her use before.
"Neil. Neil, look at me, actually look at me, not through me—"
"I'm looking," I said, and my own voice sounded strange in my ears, thinner than it should have been, as though it had traveled some distance to reach my mouth instead of simply starting there. "What happened?"
