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already the wooded area beyond the paths had turned to a misty gray wall, the unraveling flowing across the field. The roaring in my ears increased with every Echo that disappeared. I turned, looking for the rift we’d come through.
    â€œAddie?”
    The grass around our pivot was silvery with hoarfrost.
    â€œCome on!” She sprinted, graceful even when she was running for her life. I followed as best I could in my clunky boots and overloaded backpack. The asphalt was starting to soften and the curve ahead was fading. I could see where the edges of the world didn’t quite align, and hear the Key World’s frequency drifting through like a beacon.
    Inches away from the pivot, the signpost for the park dissolved into a lumpy puddle. There was no way we’d reach it in time.
    â€œWait!” I caught the hem of her jacket. She ignored me, and I yanked harder. “We’ll never make it through—we’ll be caught in the cleaving.”
    She whirled, eyes bright with fear. “We’re caught unless we get out of here, you moron!”
    â€œLook,” I said. The signpost disappeared. An instant later, the pivot was gone too, replaced with the same formless gray overtaking the park.
    Addie made a sound like a drowning kitten and went limp. “We’re stuck.”
    The silver-coated ground crept toward us like fog. I tugged at her. “Back this way. The park.” For once, she didn’t argue. “There has to be an emergency plan.”
    â€œYeah. Don’t cleave a world while you’re standing in the middle of it!”
    We reached the playground, where the disintegration was already setting in. The benches bowed toward the ground, the moms and nannies oblivious. The kids climbed on the jungle gym, unconcerned by the bars warping beneath their hands.
    â€œNo pivot points,” Addie said. “That’s the only way in or out.”
    She was right. The ooze had overtaken the far end of the playground and the parking lot, where the strongest concentration of pivots was. It was impossible to cross. Iggy and Simon had been replaced by a sea of grayish light; so had the swingset and the spot where I’d bumped into the jogger. The Echoes never noticed. They’d fade before they realized what was happening, reabsorbed into the fabric of the universe.
    We wouldn’t be reabsorbed. We’d be dead.
    Addie dropped onto the bench and started to cry. I tried not to throw up. A few feet away the little girl with the balloon twirled, the balloon’s color bleeding away.
    The balloon.
    The balloon should have been tangled in the tree overhead.
    I’d fixed it, and the kid had gone back to playing, instead of crying at the base of the tree.
    And she was still here. Only . . . not for much longer.
    â€œMove!” I hauled Addie up.
    â€œIt’s too small, Del. We’ll never get through.”
    â€œYou have a better option? Move your ass, or we’re dead!” I skidded to a halt inches from the girl. I listened as hard as I could for a frequency—any frequency—not obscured by the white noise of the cleaving.
    â€œHurry,” Addie said.
    â€œShut up!”
    The balloon flickered as I heard one—E minor, haunting and sweet. Light filtered through the pivot, pale as dust and barely visible. I lunged for it, clutching my sister’s hand.
    The last thing I saw was the little girl disappearing in a burst of static.

CHAPTER FIVE
    The term “accident” is a misnomer. Every consequence, no matter how unexpected, is rooted in a choice.
    â€”Chapter Ten, “Ethics and Governance,”
    Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five
    I LANDED HARD. My palms and knees stung from the impact, and my ears rang in the sudden silence. Less than a foot away, the edges of the portal fluttered like the wings of a monarch and sealed themselves. Slowly, I sat up and brushed wood chips from my hair.
    Addie lay nearby,