Mirela walked up beside them with her blush finally fading as she looked up at the dissolving spire.
"How long until the ground floor disappears?"
"A few hours, based on the current rate of decay," Anya calculated. "Once the foundation dissolves, the ambient spatial distortion will violently correct itself, leaving nothing but an empty crater in the snowpack."
"Then we don't have a lot of time," Klaus said with his voice dropping solemnly.
He uncrossed his arms, turning his gaze away from the falling tower and looking toward the massive stone steps leading up to the double doors.
Lying in the snowpack, half-buried near the base of the stairs, was a skeleton.
It was draped in a rotting frozen gray cloak.
The skull was resting against the bottom step with the bony fingers of its right hand stretched outward, frozen permanently just inches away from the threshold it had spent three entire centuries trying to reach.
