Farley grabs the nearest Guardsman, hoisting her to her feet. “Scatter!” she shouts, gesturing to the alleys on either side of us. “To the north side, to the tunnels!” She points to her lieutenants as she speaks, telling them where to go. “Shade, to the park side!” My brother nods, knowing what she means. Another missile careens into a nearby building, drowning her out. But it’s easy to tell what she’s shouting.
Run.
Part of me wants to hold my ground, to stand, to fight. My purple-and-white lightning will certainly make me a target and draw the jets away from the fleeing Guard. I might even take a plane or two with me. But that cannot be. I’m worth more than the rest, more than red masks and bandages. Shade and I must survive—if not for the cause, then for the others. For the list of hundreds like us—hybrids, anomalies, freaks, Red-and-Silver impossibilities—who will surely die if we fail.
Shade knows this as well as I do. He loops his arm into mine, his grip so tight as to be bruising. It’s almost too easy to run in step with him, to let him guide me off the wide avenue and into a gray-green tangle of overgrown trees spilling into the street. The deeper we go, the thicker they become, gnarled together like deformed fingers. A thousand years of neglect turned this little plot into a dead jungle. It shelters us from the sky, until we can only hear the jets circling closer and closer. Kilorn is never far behind. For a moment, I can pretend we’re back at home, wandering the Stilts, looking for fun and trouble.
Trouble is all we seem to find.
When Shade finally skids to a stop, his heels scarring the dirt beneath us, I chance a glance around. Kilorn halts next to us, his rifle aimed uselessly skyward, but no one else follows. I can’t even see the street anymore, or the red rags fleeing into the ruins.
My brother glares up through the boughs of the trees, watching and waiting for the jets to fly out of range.
“Where are we going?” I ask him, breathless.
Kilorn answers instead. “The river,” he says. “And then the ocean. Can you take us?” He glances at Shade’s hands, as if he could see his ability plain in his flesh. But Shade’s strength is buried like mine, invisible until he chooses to reveal it.
My brother shakes his head. “Not in one jump, it’s too far. And I’d rather run, save my strength.” His eyes darken. “Until we really need it.”
I nod, agreeing. I know firsthand what it is to be ability-worn, tired in your bones, barely able to move, let alone fight.
“Where are they taking Cal?”
My question makes Kilorn wince.
“Hell if I care.”
“You should,” I fire back, even as my voice shakes with hesitation. No, he shouldn’t. Neither should you. If the prince is gone, you must let him go. “He can help us get out of this. He can fight with us.”
“He’ll escape or kill us the second we give him the chance,” he snaps, tearing away his scarf to show the angry scowl beneath.
In my head, I see Cal’s fire. It burns everything in its path, from metal to flesh. “He could’ve killed you already,” I say. It’s not an exaggeration, and Kilorn knows it.
“Somehow I thought you two would outgrow your bickering,” Shade says, stepping between us. “How silly of me.”
Kilorn forces out an apology through gritted teeth, but I do no such thing. My focus is on the jets, letting their electric hearts beat against mine. They weaken with each second, getting farther and farther away. “They’re flying away from us. If we’re going to go, we need to do it now.”
Both my brother and Kilorn look at me strangely, but neither argue. “This way,” Shade says, pointing through the trees. A small, almost invisible path winds through them, where the dirt has been swept away to reveal stone and asphalt beneath. Again, Shade links his arm through mine, and Kilorn charges ahead, setting a swift pace for us to follow.
Branches scrape against us, bending over the narrowing path, until it’s impossible for us to run side by side. But instead of letting me go, Shade squeezes even tighter. And then I realize he’s not squeezing me at all. It’s the air, the world. Everything and anything tightens in a blistering, black second. And then, in a blink, we’re on the other side of the trees, looking back to see Kilorn emerge from the gray grove.
“But he was ahead,” I murmur aloud, looking back and forth between Shade and the pathway. We cross into the middle of the street, with the sky and smoke drifting overhead. “You—”
Shade grins. The action seems out of place against the distant scream of jets. “Let’s say I . . . jumped. As long as you’re holding on to me, you’ll be able to come along,” he says, before hurrying us into the next alley.
My heart races with the knowledge that I just teleported, to the point where it’s almost possible to forget our predicament.
The jets are quick to remind me. Another missile explodes to the north, bringing down a building with the rumble of an earthquake. Dust races down the alley in a wave, painting us in another layer of gray. Smoke and fire are so familiar to me now that I barely smell it, even when ash begins to fall like snow. We leave our footprints in it. Perhaps they will be the last marks we make.
Shade knows where to go and how to run. Kilorn has no trouble keeping up, even with the rifle weighing him down. By now, we’ve circled back to the avenue. To the east, a swirl of daylight breaks through the dirt and dust, bringing with it a salty gasp of sea air. To the west, the first collapsed building lies like a fallen giant, blocking any retreat to the train. Broken glass, the iron skeletons of buildings, and strange slabs of faded white screens rise around us, a palace of ruins.
What was this? I dimly wonder. Julian would know. Just thinking his name hurts, and I push the sensation away.
A few other red rags dart through the ashen air, and I look for a familiar silhouette. But Cal is nowhere to be seen, and it makes me so terribly afraid.
“I’m not leaving without him.”
Shade doesn’t bother to ask who I’m talking about. He already knows.
“The prince is coming with us. I give you my word.”
My response cuts my insides. “I don’t trust your word.”
Shade is a soldier. His life has been anything but easy, and he is no stranger to pain. Still, my declaration wounds him deeply. I see it in his face.
I’ll apologize later, I tell myself.
If later ever comes.
Another missile sails overhead, striking a few streets away. The distant thunder of an explosion doesn’t mask the harsher and more terrifying noise rising all around.
The rhythm of a thousand marching feet.
TWO
The air thickens with a cloak of ash, buying us a few seconds to stare down our oncoming doom. The silhouettes of soldiers move down the streets from the north. I can’t see their guns yet, but a Silver army doesn’t need guns to kill.
Other Guardsmen flee before us, sprinting down the avenue with abandon. For now, it looks like they might escape, but to where? There’s only the river and the sea beyond. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. The army marches slowly, at a strange shuffling pace. I squint through the dust, straining to see them. And then I realize what this is, what Maven has done. The shock of it sparks in me, through me, forcing Shade and Kilorn to jump back.