“I know.” Again, I remembered Cris lying on the altar, the flash of silver as he raised the knife, the gold of the phoenix blood still marking the blade after five thousand years. It was my fault he was trapped like this. He’d chosen what he thought would be death. But this—as a sylph—no. For saving my life, he bore the same punishment as those who’d tortured a phoenix in their quest for immortality.
As much as I wanted to help them, free them from this existence, the idea of so many depending on me was staggering. I was only beginning to learn how to do things for myself. I’d done everything I could for newsouls, which hadn’t turned out like I’d hoped, and now sylph needed me, too.
Another hour passed talking with Sam and Cris, trying to comfort one another, and encourage. But the sylph were right: waiting was the worst.
We were sitting in the weaving room when Sam looked up and scowled. “Did you hear—”
The door flew open. Daylight flooded the room, and all the sylph swarmed toward the door, heat billowing off them.
Sylph songs turned to screeches a heartbeat later. Brass objects skittered into the room. Sylph eggs. Lids open. My sylph poured into the eggs like smoke through a flue.
Crashing sounded from the storage room, then footsteps.
Sam and I scrambled for our pistols as a dozen people in bright red burst into the room. Half of them dove toward the sylph eggs, flipping the lids shut before the sylph could escape. From the others, blue targeting lights shone across the room and turned on Sam and me.
A sylph peeled away from the shadows, burning through wool and skin and tissue. The stink of cooking flesh filled the room as another guard withdrew a sylph egg, twisted it, and flipped open the lid. Cris darted toward the hall where Stef and Sarit were coming, their weapons ready.
Everything was chaos. I fired my pistol, not thinking about a person there, only that they’d come to kill us. Trap the sylph. Take the key.
People screamed as lasers threaded the room. Wood burned and cracked. Machinery came crashing to the floor, and the reek of smoke permeated the room.
Sam dragged me behind one of the burning looms, then pushed me down so we were both crouching. “First chance you get, grab your bag and get out of here. Don’t wait for anyone.”
“But—”
“No. You have the key. You know the plan. It must succeed, no matter what.”
I clenched my jaw and peered through the flames, which licked across the old, polished wood of the fallen looms. The smoke caught in my throat, making me cough.
Stef and Sarit shot more guards, using a door in the hallway as a cover. Cris burned through people, struggling to open the eggs scattered across the floor, but he was incorporeal. He couldn’t touch anything.
“We need to get the eggs open,” I hissed.
Sam stood and shot the last guard before she could trap Cris.
The fire grew quickly, so we waited only a moment before the four of us crept from our hiding places and reached for the nearest eggs to free the sylph. Just as my hands closed around one of the brass devices, more guards poured into the room, targeting lights shining everywhere.
I flipped open the lid of my egg and let it go. Hot pain flared across my right arm as I grabbed for my pistol, but I ignored the sharp bloom of heat. My pistol was ready. I aimed at the door and shot. Someone dropped, clutching their burned leg. Around me, Sam, Stef, and Sarit were shooting too, though they had better aim.
A couple of sylph fluttered from their eggs, disoriented from being trapped for even a few minutes. But Cris rallied them and they dove in front of us, acting as shields, absorbing the laser blasts, as they had the acid from the dragons.
Smoke thickened in the room, searing my lungs. The fire licked the ceiling now, roaring as it grew. There was nowhere to hide.
With a sylph guarding me, I pushed forward and reached for another egg, but blue light—immediately followed by pain—shot across my fingers. I jumped back.
“Ana!” Sarit’s voice pierced the cacophony of fire and screams and sylph song. Red marked her bare arms, and her face was flushed with heat and pain. She shook back the black tendrils of her hair as she hefted her pistol and shot another guard. “Get your bag and go.”
Not without everyone else. I searched for Sam in the smoke-choked weaving room, but I couldn’t find him or Stef. “Sam!” Smoke burned my lungs and made my voice crack. “Stef!”
One of the guards near me dropped, pistol burns crisscrossing his face. My sylph shield stretched as I bent to open another egg, but the heat of sylph and fire and pain made my head swim. I fumbled for the lid. My fingers caught with one another, feeling disconnected as the metal bit into them. My thoughts felt thin and faraway as I staggered toward the door and my bag there.
But I couldn’t leave without my friends.