She let the fury in her heart swell and surge, filling her with a rush of churning energy. She didn’t care if Bronte would inflict on her, she could handle the pain. She could—
“RUN!” Dex shouted, flinging a copper cube into the line of Councillors.
The gadget exploded in a mist of green, putrid smoke that burned like rotten jalape?os. The Councillors hacked and wheezed, and the arthropleura scattered as Dex charged into the fray, hurling a second gadget that filled the room with loud squawking.
Dex yelled something to Sophie, but she couldn’t make out all the words as he placed a third cube in the center of the room and scrambled toward her. Blinking lights in the corners flashed like a countdown, but before it reached its end, Councillor Zarina zapped it with her lightning.
She probably meant to fry the circuits and shut the device down, but the gadget absorbed the power instead. The metal turned red-hot and the lights on the gadget started flashing and beeping a whole lot crazier as smoke curled out of the top.
“EVERYBODY GET DOWN!” Dex screamed.
The room was too loud to hear him—too many other things happening. The only person who noticed was Fitz.
He lunged for the cube, grabbing it with a yelp of pain as he raced for the door and flung it away. The gadget launched into the hall—but even with the distance, the explosion flung Fitz backward. He flew several feet before crashing down, right on the antenna of a charging arthropleura.
Sophie screamed as the barb pierced Fitz’s chest and snapped off clean. He crumpled to the floor in a convulsing heap.
THIRTY
STOP!” SOPHIE YELLED, Barely recognizing her voice.
The room fell silent—even Dex’s gadget stopped wailing—as those who hadn’t seen Fitz’s fall took in the carnage.
Sophie hurdled the wounded arthropleura and dropped to her knees at Fitz’s side. Dex had beaten her there, and his hands were pressed on Fitz’s chest trying to stop the bleeding.
“What happened?” Della asked, fighting her way to her son. Her skin turned ghostly pale when she saw how painfully still Fitz was.
“It was an accident,” Councillor Zarina said. “He—I—”
“It was my fault,” Dex mumbled.
Della removed her cloak and draped it around Fitz. “He needs a physician!”
“Exile has medical facilities,” Councillor Emery said, shouting orders at two dwarves.
“He needs elvin medicine, not dwarven,” Mr. Forkle insisted.
Sophie agreed. She’d seen how the dwarves had treated Alden’s head wound when he’d collapsed in Exile. Fitz needed much more than a plasterlike patch.
His blood was thickening like applesauce from the venom, and his breathing sounded shallow and ragged.
“Mr. Forkle says to leap Fitz out of here,” Dex whispered.
Sophie could hear the same instructions filling her head, along with details for how to contact the Black Swan’s physician. She wanted to grab Fitz and leap away, but she couldn’t leave the rest of her friends trapped in Exile.
Dex must’ve decided the same thing, because he held up his leaping crystal. “I’ll take care of him,” he promised as he grabbed Fitz and leaped the two of them away.
Outrage erupted, the Councillors ordering the dwarves to restrain the rest of their group.
“You’re seriously going to arrest us?” Biana shouted. “After what you just did to my brother?”
“It was an accident!” Councillor Zarina insisted.
It was—but it shouldn’t have happened.
A glance at Oralie told Sophie the pretty Councillor knew what she was planning—and a nod told her Oralie agreed.
Before Sophie could change her mind, she reached into her pocket and stepped to the center of the crowd. “You’re going to let us go now—or I’m going to use this.”
She held out Kenric’s cache, eliciting a round of gasps, even from the Collective.
Councillor Emery reeled on Oralie. “Is this your doing?”
“It is,” she said. “I honored Kenric’s last request. He feared Sophie would need protection—and he was right.”
“Treason!” Councillor Alina shouted, and several other Councillors agreed. Bronte and Terik tried to calm them, but it turned into a screaming match.
The only Councillor not arguing was Clarette, who sat hunched over the wounded arthropleura, whispering promises that its antenna would regrow.
Sophie was glad to hear it, but she hated that she couldn’t say the same for Fitz. A wound like his might not— She shut the thought down before it could finish.
But what if Dex hadn’t been able to reach the physician?
Or what if something happened during the leap?
Mr. Forkle had warned them that leaping through the force field was dangerous—what if the two cloaks Fitz had been wrapped in weren’t enough?
“We don’t have time for this!” she shouted, grabbing her pendant and holding the crystal to the dim light. “So here’s how this is going to work. You let us go right now, or I will leap out of here and you’ll never see this cache again.”
This is too dangerous of a game, Mr. Forkle warned.