Chapter Five: The Temperature of the Beak Needle

Lin drained heat from the first creatures' joints. They froze, and his own body began to shake. More climbed the bone walls. He became precise. He melted only a film beneath their feet, then pulled its heat into the air. Blades erupted along the ice lattice like a ground-hugging aurora, pinning rows of creatures to the wing. With every transfer, a warm memory dimmed. Lin forgot whether his mother seasoned soup with ginger or pepper. He forgot the warmth of his father's embrace. "Stop!" Su saw his vacant expression. "The price isn't body heat. It is emotional memory." The final creature leaped behind her. Lin compressed its heat into a sphere the size of a coin and fired it upward with gravity.