The first thing Hale felt was gravity.

Not the abstract drift of the Echo’s endless plane, but the simple, undeniable pull of mass and weight. Cold air rushed into his lungs. The ground beneath him was rough—broken concrete, slick with condensation. Somewhere distant, machinery hummed, low and uncertain, like an animal stirring in its sleep.

He opened his eyes.

Above him, the sky was fractured—a lattice of faint, pulsing threads running through the clouds, veins of the still-living ...