(Alash Vortex POV)
"Before you went in," he said. "What could you feel?"
"Blood."
"Whose?"
"Hers. I didn't know that then."
"How did it feel?"
Daphne thought about it. She always does. She would rather be slow than wrong.
"Wrong," she said. "Like through water. I knew it was there, and fresh. I didn't know how much, or where."
"And once you were inside?"
"It was blood."
"Nothing between?"
"No."
The Hermit was quiet for a moment.
"The soldier's hand stopped on the wall," he said. "Yours didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Have you thought about it?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"I still don't know."
It was the same answer I had given Renn across the foot of my bed, and Renn had believed it. The Hermit looked at Daphne for a long moment and seemed to believe it too.
"Your Gravity," he said. "Did you hold it?"
"No. I hit it and let go."
"Why not hold?"
"Holding costs me," said Daphne. "Hitting costs it."
The corner of the Hermit's mouth moved, very slightly.
