For a moment Celie just felt weightless, hanging in space. There was no sound and no feeling, just the sickening realization that she'd been pitched out of the window. Kingsley and the Kark leaned after her, arms outstretched, mouths moving noiselessly. Hadn't she been here before? She definitely remembered the falling.

Sensation got its bearings and suddenly Celie felt wood. And pain. Her arm was broken, and from the feel of it, so was at least one rib. The dispassionate analysis of her own body's frailties made her feel better, and the pain at least let her know that she was alive; few people were better acquainted with the dead's threshold for unfeeling. She righted herself and peered around in the gloom. A canopy of floors hung high in the air over her, supported by flimsy beams and columns loaded with arches and superfluous looking hoses and pipes. A pool of light descended from the cracks where the building above was leaning out of the way, its supports bent at vast multi-edged hinges. She set one hand on the boardwalk that had broken her fall and bones, and leaned back to look for her friends. A pack of cigarettes landed at her feet, and the rushing sound of two bodies falling through space.

Kingsley landed heavily in a falling roll. Celie was impressed, it didn't look as though he'd broken anything. Out in the water there was a splash and muffled cursing. The Kark became visible, bobbing amongst concentric rings. "M' cigs make it okay?" He began swimming towards them, and overhead there was a cacophony of creaks and crunches. Their former hideout suddenly swung, supports straightening and columns leaning back into place. Huge arms descended from its neighbors and gentled worked it back into place, sealing up the tiny portal of light.