Inside his sphere, the Father laughed.
It was a short, tired sound. "The cellars?" he said. "You'll drop me into a cellar?" He settled himself more comfortably on the floor, his hands on his knees. "Go on, then. I'll sit just as well in the dark as I do in here. Holy ground is holy ground."
"I never said anything about the cellars," Yerin said.
The floor of the library vanished.
It wasn't only the boards under the Father's sphere. It was the whole floor. Every board from wall to wall, every fallen shelf and scattered book, all of it opened at once into a single enormous door.
And beneath it was the sky.
The Father had a moment to see it through the gold light of his barrier, a grey morning full of drifting smoke. Far, far below, so small it looked like a map, the city of Suwon spread across the valley, with the fortress walls winding through it like a pale thread and five columns of fire rising from its edges.
Then they both fell.
