I can do this. After all, I’m going to use this exact same technique to fly one day. How can I do that if I can’t even handle falling fast?
Talia’s hand shifted, fingers folding. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Her fist closed. Augustus cut the air with his wand.
The portal bloomed beneath their boots, and the cabin vanished.
They were falling.
Wind tore at them, a rushing void of cold night and sky. Alexander didn’t open his eyes. He tightened his grip on the surrounding metal instead, Droney included, holding all of them together as one. The force of the fall immediately tested his control. They lurched sideways, spinning slightly before he corrected, pulling them back into formation.
Hands found wrists. A circle formed in the void, each of them bound by their grips and the steel threads he refused to let go of.
“Your left,” Talia’s voice crackled through the comms. She was calm and measured, trusting in his capabilities. “Three hundred meters.”
Alexander tilted them with careful pressure, sliding their trajectory. He overcompensated, shooting them past the mark.
“Too far!” Talia’s voice cut through. “Back twenty meters.”
He yanked them back, fighting the momentum. The air howled against them.
Annie’s breathing grew sharp and shallow in his ear. Augustus answered, voice warm and steady. “Breathe with me, Annie. In. Out. In. Out.”
Seconds passed. Three. Maybe four.
His grip slipped. Just for an instant, the metal threads in Annie’s suit escaped his control. Her hand tore from his, and she spun away with a muffled shriek.
“Annie!” Augustus shouted.
Alexander’s focus snapped tight, seizing her suit again, harder this time. He yanked her back into the circle, their hands finding each other desperately. Her death grip on Augustus’s wrist didn’t loosen again.
“Ten meters right,” Talia called. “Twenty-five forward.”
He obeyed, still choosing blindness, shifting them fraction by fraction.
“Over the target,” she said.
Alexander reached down. Technopathy pulsed, and the world below lit in his mind: cameras and sensors, signals humming and painting a map within his awareness. He pressed against them, commanding secrecy.
You see nothing. All systems normal. Report no change.
Compliance rippled back at him.
He turned inward again, slowing their descent. Not too much. Not yet.
“Counting down,” Talia’s voice cut across. “Twelve seconds. Ten.”
He pulled harder, slowing their drop. The strain he felt was more the fear of failure, than from the draw on his power.
“Five.”
The wind eased. His control wavered. They dropped faster for a heartbeat before he caught them again.
“Three.”
He opened his eyes. The rooftop swelled below, filling his sight.
“Two.”
They drifted slowly now.
“One.”
Alexander released his hold. Boots met the roof with a muted thump. No shouts went out. No alarm went off.
They’d arrived safely.