Jiang vanished below the broken spur, but his call stayed inside Aylin's wrist.
It rang through the small bones of her hand. The borrowed voice traveled under swollen skin, climbed the red branch beneath her palm, and opened blue-black cilia toward the escaping penguins.
The second intake widened under their escape route.
"Take your hand off the wood," Valea said.
Aylin tried to obey.
Two outer fingers opened. Her middle fingers remained crooked against the branch while pale threads tightened beneath the punctures.
The foreign roots had already hooked her tendons.
She flexed one finger at a time. The smallest lagged, then bent farther than she intended. That hand held a knife, caught branches, and found Jiang when a flooded road separated them. Fear arrived through every ordinary thing she might lose with it.
Hest caught Aylin around the waist before the branch rolled. He drew her backward until the roots showed as thin white ridges from palm to wrist.
