Chapter 19: The Plank Goes

Gabe's POV

I left before she woke.

She lay curled on the blankets with her hand open on my side of the bed, and I stood over her for a long time.

I did not remember her.

That was still true, and I hated it more every hour.

But I knew the line of her jaw, and I knew I would cross any plank in the realm to keep that hand from closing on nothing.

Dee sat at the wall with a lantern and a pot, awake.

"You're doing it anyway," she said.

"He has an old man on the edge."

"He has a lot of things, and you can't carry them all."

"I'm not carrying them. I'm going to read."

She looked at me for a long moment, and then she put the lid on her pot.

"Tell her I said yes to this," she said. "Out loud. She'll be furious."

I laid the plank myself, the way I had on Day 9, and walked out over the black with my hands where Brett could see them.

The sun was a thin white seam in the east.

On the far patch, Brett waited with his arms folded.

The old man stood at the edge behind him, swaying, with his toes over the dark.

Kelsey crouched in the red coat a few feet off, hugging her knees.

"Gabe," Brett said warmly. "Good man. Did you bring the money?"

"I brought my eyes."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm here to read the Release terms."

Brett laughed.

"You're serious."

"The Release price is set by the proposer. That's what the sheet says. I want to see the whole sheet."

"It's two thousand a head. I put it in the notice."

"Show me the page."

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