Chapter Four: The Stripped Light

Their matching faces looked at one another across it, forming a straight sightline. Subject. Boundary. A witness beside him. “Believe she can take it back,” Shen said. “I believe.” The shutter fell. The sheet flipped in Bai Shu's hands. Instead of illuminating what lay ahead, it changed the direction of falling. Chains, hounds, and the enormous white frame all plunged toward the sky. Daystar broke free, ran down a stream of rising glass, and punched through the first hound. Shen forgot his mother's face. He knew she had died young. He knew she used to leave orange peels on the radiator. He could no longer picture her. The blank arrived quietly, and its quiet was terrifying.