She took a single step in their direction and the ground shattered. Stellated cracks spread across the entire plateau, curling between the desks and chairs, spreading into ravines of chalky dust into which grief cubes tumbled. Momentous chunks of earth broke and plummeted into an unseen abyss. Everything trembled as the monumental school furniture tilted and toppled.

Winnipeg's reflexes activated. She bounded from her own schism of land to the next descending block, playing a platform game with a killer time limit. While she flitted from piece to piece, Fargo and Regina-Saskatoon floundered near the edge of the cataclysm, running into one another and treading on their toes and falling over. For Winnipeg, time elongated. The clear safest path across the obstacle course of rock and tile presented itself as if illuminated by a rippling current.

(Chapter 8)