They didn't speak on the way back.
Raizen led. Saffi followed. The route was different now - they couldn't go up through the original trunk, not with guards positioned along the platform's edge, so they tried moving laterally, through the lower rings of Ukai. Branch to branch, trunk to trunk, working their way through the lower net of old, overgrown wood until they found a section far enough from the hall that no guard light reached it.
The climb back up was slow. Raizen's arms screamed. His fingers barely closed around the handholds anymore - the cold and the exertion had turned them into stiff, clumsy things that he had to watch carefully to make sure they were actually gripping what he told them to grip.
Saffi climbed beside him, accepting his helping hand every time. Eyes open this time.
They reached street level on the far side of the residential ring. No guards here. Just dark platforms under the faint light of hung lanterns.
