Chapter Three: A Wedding in the Clouds

The explosion flowered above the river. Flame severed his line, and he fell from the eighty-eighth floor. Wind filled his skull. His second strand missed a window-cleaning rig. Three hundred meters. Two hundred. His third caught an ornament at the tower's crown and snapped him into an arc. He crashed through the glass of the seventieth floor and rolled across an empty office. At 11:11, every wedding guest was alive. Lin Wan found him sitting against a wall, silver thread still trailing from his wrist. “Here to arrest me?” he asked. She holstered her pistol and tossed him a security jacket. “The cameras failed. I only saw a helpful photographer.” For the first time, they stood on the same side.