Heathcliff grabbed Mistrial and reared the broom around and slingshotted away, ignoring the dicey assembly of machinery above that seemed to be drawing them up into its berth, and they were relieved to see the facile phenomenon of the doorway to Vermilla’s interior and shot through it, back out into the open air of Lith, losing the broom from under them, so they sailed on up without it, tickling the ceiling of heaven, before turning back down, faced with the immensity of the drop ahead. They plummeted through tiers of vapor, spattered wet with snow as they dropped through the haley bellies of clouds. Mistrial lost her breath, lost sight of up and down, and was certain her time had come and the fall would be blessedly quick, if not for the intervention of Heathcliff who had somehow regained the stick and fired down to intercept her. Grabbed her hand, lost it, grabbed her foot, lost it, tackled her and brought the the broom sweeping back down beneath them for a final effort at a tremendous airbrake that drove them down into it so hard that a loud crack issued from the wood and Mistrial had never seen a look of terror run across Heathcliff’s face as she had in that moment. Heathcliff, wobbling, tried reducing the strain and held fast the broom’s weak point together, urging it on just a little bit further, she leaned in and whispered something to it, a little apology, and Mistrial thought she saw in it a little golden apparition, its eyes closed forever in silent listening, before a drop in turbulence split the broom away beneath them, flitting off into two pieces. Mistrial plummeted down into a body of water, the impact bursting her hip like a grape, and she was lost and drowning, scuttled on a bed of sharp rock, and Heathcliff, being a lighter mass, sailed a bit further into a pile of broken chairs that cracked across her body like as many baseball bats.