The channel widened to about seventy feet. Right there, the boundary quality changed.
I'd been watching for it ever since Vassara mentioned the pressure during her previous visit. She hadn't described instability. She'd described something pressing against the boundary from the inside for a very long time.
At this depth the dimensional layers sat closest to the channel stone. If Wren had been working from the pre-settlement side, this was where the air should have shown it most clearly. Or it would have, before Wren left.
What I found instead was the residue of something that had been pressing for a long time and had recently stopped.
It wasn't empty. It was settled.
Like a pot that had been simmering and had just been taken off the heat. The heat had existed. The process had run. What remained carried the memory of it.
I wrote that down on the wall.
