Once Ellis is upright beneath her, she takes the hilt and starts pulling. It's a rare moment when being highest up feels bizarre. When her platform is a person, the whole experience has an organic tippiness she has to reassess constantly, ensuring neither she nor Ellis throw off their balance.

Laura assumes she'll be raising the thing all the way over her head, too, but it stops only a few fingers' breadths over Holden's reach. There's none of the sway or heft she expects, a long and awkward object pulled free and dangling from her hands. Instead, it snaps into position, a sharp column that dwarfs all of them, and there's a flash of light the colour of red lyrium. Around them, the ground sinks away into stairs leading to some lower level.