“You sound like Rigg,” she said, chuckling.

“Pompousness is contagious.”

“Is that what it is? Pomposity? But Rigg only talked that way around adults who were also speaking that kind of high language,” said Param.

“Oh, I know,” said Umbo. “He never talked that way at home. The first time I heard him speak like a . . . a . . .”

“A royal,” she prompted.

“I was going to say ‘jackass,’ but yes, like that,” said Umbo, smiling. “First time I heard him talk like that was when he was trying to overawe that banker back in O. Mr. Cooper. It feels like seven years ago.”

“But seven years ago, you would have been, what, four?”

“How old do you think I am?” asked Umbo, offended. “I’m not eleven, I’m fourteen.”

“Really?”

“Small for my age,” said Umbo, turning away, embarrassed. “Hoping for puberty to hit me with both fists pretty soon now.”

“I wasn’t criticizing you,” said Param. “I just thought you were younger than you are. Not that much younger than me, really. A couple of years, like Rigg.”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” said Umbo, changing the subject. “If we have to wait for them anyway, why not get behind this tree, where they won’t be able to see us, and then you take us into slow time and we can watch the whole thing and when they get to this side, come back to normal speed and it’ll all be done before we’re really hungry or thirsty.”

“So we’ll sit here and watch them cross.”

“Only it’ll be faster this time,” said Umbo, “thanks to you.”

“And do nothing to help.”

“They made it across,” said Umbo.

“Did they? I didn’t see Rigg make it.”

“They went back for him.”

“But did they get him? Everything flew by. We were falling. I was looking down at my own death. By the time I could glance that way again, you had already taken us back in time so none of them were there.”

“I didn’t think I had a choice,” said Umbo. “I had to take us back.”

“Of course you did! Oh, look at you—suddenly it’s the end of the world.”

“It is the end of the world,” said Umbo. “Our world is on the other side of the Wall. We don’t know anybody here. We don’t know anything about this wallfold. And look at all we went through to get here. Don’t you wish things were different?”

“I don’t know anybody in that world, either,” said Param. “I thought I knew my mother, but I was wrong about that. And you, Umbo—are you leaving anybody behind?”

“My mother.”

“You left her behind a year ago. And your brothers and sisters, except the boy who died, and he left you.”

“My friends.”

“Any better friends than Rigg and Loaf?”

“No.”

“And they’re coming here to join us. Except that maybe Rigg stays in there too long. Maybe he goes crazy. Maybe when the others go back to drag him out, they go crazy too.”

“So we’ll watch, and if it doesn’t come out well enough, we’ll jump back in time and go out to the exact spot where we’ll be needed, and wait there in slow time and everything will be all right. As long as we can get to the right place, we can go back and fix things.”

Param nodded. Umbo nodded back.

“I’m embarrassed to ask, but . . .”

“What?” said Umbo.

“Are we friends?”

Umbo was truly startled by the question.

“I have to ask,” said Param, “because I’ve never had one. I have a brother—I’d never had one before, either. And Rigg is a good one of those. I try to be a good sister to him, too, though I don’t have much experience at that, either.”

“You’re doing fine,” said Umbo.

“But you and me,” said Param. “Are we friends? Is this enough to be friends—jumping off the rock together. Saving each other’s lives.”

“Generally that’s considered adequate,” said Umbo.

“But it’s not just a debt of gratitude, is it? It’s something about enjoying each other’s company, isn’t it?”

“You’re the Sissaminka,” said Umbo. “You’re the heir to the Tent of Light.”

“Not any more,” said Param. “I can trust you, right?”

“Just the way I trusted you,” said Umbo.

“We crossed the Wall together.”

“We’re friends, yes, definitely, beyond question!”

Param sighed. “And now you’re angry with me.”

“I’m annoyed! Because I don’t know how to answer. You’re older than me. When two kids are friends, and one is older, then the older one doesn’t ask the younger one, ‘are we friends,’ it’s the older one who decides, and the younger one’s who considers himself lucky.”

“Oh. So it’s not because I’m royal.”

“You’re sixteen! You’re a girl! I’m still a little kid! Yes, we’re friends, and I’m lucky!”

Param thought about that. “I didn’t know age made so much difference.”

“When the guy’s older, not so much. When the girl’s older, all the difference in the world.”

“But . . . you’re the time-jumper,” said Param. “You have this amazing ability.”

“And you’re the time-slicer,” said Umbo. “And Rigg is the pathfinder. We are about as amazing as it gets.”

“So it’s a friendship among equals,” said Param.

“In which two are royal and one’s a little privick kid, yes, exactly.”

Param laughed.

Umbo remembered holding her hand all the way across the Wall. He remembered her taking his hands and thrusting him to the side of the rock and making him jump. He remembered her arms wrapped around him and her hands pressing against his chest. He blushed. He didn’t even know why he blushed. There was nothing wrong with any of it. He wasn’t ashamed. But he blushed to remember it.

“Let’s hurry up and wait,” said Param, and then laughed.

“I guess that’s what you do, isn’t it,” said Umbo. “You wait while the whole world hurries by.”

“I just take life a slice at a time.”

“That sounds like philosophy,” said Umbo.

She held out her hands to him. He stared at them. She wanted him to hold hands with her and suddenly he was shy.

“What?” she demanded. “How can we wait together if you won’t hold my hands?”

Umbo blushed again. She was offering to hold hands with him so she could carry him into her sliced-up slow time again. What was he thinking?

He took her hands.

The world around them sped up. Not as fast as when they crossed the Wall, and definitely not as fast as the days that passed during the seconds it took them to jump down from the promontory.

It happened that when they went into slow time, Umbo was facing somewhat away from the Wall, and Param almost directly facing it. He had a good view of her face, and she had a good view of the opposite side, where sometime in the next few days she would see herself and all the others arrive.

He started to turn to face the way she was facing—without breaking contact with her hands—when he saw someone racing around just a few dozen yards beyond her, on this side of the Wall. He watched, sure that there was something familiar about the person, but he was moving too quickly for Umbo to recognize him. He started to raise his hand to get her attention, so he could point to the stranger. This was important—the first person they would meet on this side of the Wall. But the man was gone before Umbo could even catch her eye. It was so frustrating not to be able to speak while in slow time.

Param started nodding. Umbo turned his head, and by the time he completed the movement, Rigg, Loaf, and Olivenko were in the middle of the Wall, bending a little to keep their hands on an invisible beast. Beyond them, a mile away, he could see the soldiers arriving, and the queen, and General Citizen. And himself and Param, standing on the outcropping of rock.

The world around them slowed, but not all the way back to normal. Still fast enough that Umbo and Param were probably still invisible, or perhaps a flickering shadow if someone looked closely. Loaf and Olivenko emerged from the Wall, but Rigg was lying supine, struggling to raise his hands. A bizarre feathered quadruped bounded out of the Wall and stood shivering not ten yards away.