Killian slept through the first hour of the ride home, folded against the gunwale with Hrimnir's warm weight pinned against his legs. Nobody tried to wake him. The hull he had stretched for eight people sat low in the water, and every swell slapped it like a hand.
Erik took the tiller and kept them to the narrow side channels. Michelle sat in the middle with one palm against her stomach, her eyes on the dead windows sliding past. Danielle kept her arm over the hutch. Alex had not stopped looking at the water since they left the lake.
"It was a park," he said at last. "I used to run that route on Saturdays."
"I remember," Erik said.
"Now there's a lake in it." He rubbed his wrist, where the gray vein had begun to fade. "I keep waiting to feel it. The wall. It's like reaching for a limb and finding nothing."
"It'll get easier."
"You don't know that."
"No," Erik admitted. "But you'll sleep tonight. That's something."
Alex laughed, thin and short, and said nothing more.
