Jade reached the bottom of the school stairwell before her depth perception admitted the stairs were finished.
Her boot hit flat concrete.
She stumbled.
Kieran caught her elbow.
Jade almost pulled away.
Almost.
Command had habits, and pain made those habits worse.
"I have you," Kieran said.
"I know."
"Do you?"
Jade looked at her with the one eye that still worked.
The right side of Kieran's face stayed missing until Jade turned her head farther. Then it appeared in pieces: gold-lit bandage, tight jaw, ash on her cheek, worry she had no time to soften.
Jade hated how much effort seeing now required.
"Ask me later."
"I will."
"That was not permission."
"Good. I was not asking."
Behind them, Waddell's soldiers moved the wounded down the stairs in pairs. Children came next, wrapped in blankets that smelled like floodwater and smoke. Tyree guided an old woman with one hand while clutching the cracked bone charm in the other.
