Fairfax’s hand threatened to slip from his. He instinctively tightened his grip, even as he tumbled head over heels. The next moment he realized that he was no longer falling as fast. He had thought that should she succeed, they were sure to suffer injuries, slamming into a powerful current of air blasting in the exact opposite direction of their acceleration. But she had summoned multiple streams of air, so he felt harnessed—cuddled almost—and at just enough velocity to slow them down instead of making them come to a dead stop. As the ground rose to meet them, they decelerated steadily, and then more sharply as the distance to impact decreased. When he fell face-first onto cold, hard sand, it was as if he had jumped from a height of ten feet, instead of nearly three thousand feet. Pushing up to his knees, he began to laugh. Oh, it was the most marvelous feeling to be alive. “You did it. Fortune shield us, you actually did it.” She was also on her knees, clutching her chest. “My heart is going to explode.
