Jiang bit the broad cloth and hauled himself onto Myrn's lowered shoulder.
His unstable leg folded halfway up. Myrn bent until her shell ridge met his breast, then waited while he dragged the failed wing clear.
That was answer enough from both of them.
Aylin laid the cloth across Myrn's uninjured side only after the mount nosed its center toward her shoulder. Both ends hung loose. High-root remained clipped to Jiang's coat and ran separately into Aylin's hands.
Sivra checked the empty places where Myrn's bit and saddle braces had once been.
"Nothing closes around her," she said.
"Nothing does," Aylin replied as Kessa came last.
Kessa kept Maelin's severance blade at her hip. From inside her coat she drew a shorter mothglass edge, broad-backed and chipped near the point. One side had been wrapped for a hunter's palm.
"It frees claws from broken tack," Kessa said. "Today it frees a hall."
