Mara did not say go.
She stood in the cradle alcove with the line still clipped to her belt and Sera waiting a pace away with the coil on her shoulder, and she looked past Sera, along the walkway, at the heart hanging in its rings with the black split through it. Six hours. The gate was open. The Tern could leave. The bins were strapped by the ring. Everything Sera had said was right.
“If we leave,” Mara said, “the review happens without us. The lattice looks at the coupon and decides. And if it decides against, the procedure resumes, and the coolant falls, and the shell goes, and Lorn goes dark. And we’re at the dock with twenty seats.” She looked at Sera. “If we stay, we have six hours to make the review go our way, with a heart.”
“You can’t make a heart in six hours. The keeper said eleven. With a crew.”
“I know.” Mara unclipped the line from her own belt, at last, and held the end out to Sera. “But I can start one. And a heart half-made in a forge that’s still standing is a better argument than a coupon in a forge that’s about to be crushed.”
