Some weeks you spend on the verge of a hard change, gathering nerve you keep spending before you act.

Deep crimson, the colour of a step taken, rimmed in black. It has the feel of warm steel and the dry scent of hot metal.

Living on the verge for a week can drain the very nerve you're saving. It can't push you across — it holds a banked forward heat through the week, so the nerve can gather instead of bleeding out in the waiting.