My fingers hover over the keys, hunting down each letter as I type out Ada Wallace in frustratingly slow motions. The machine whirs again, the screen flashing three times, before a wall of text appears. It even includes a photograph, the one used on her identification card. I linger on the picture of the newblood, taking in Ada’s deep golden skin and soft eyes. She looks sad, even in the tiny image.
Another gunshot echoes, making me jump. I turn my focus on the text, skimming through Ada’s personal information. Her birthday and birth location I already know, as well as the blood mutation that marks her as a newblood like me. Farley searches too, her eyes scanning over the words with abandon. “There.” I point a finger at what we need, feeling happier than I have in days.
Occupation: Housemaid, employed by Governor Rem Rhambos. Address: Bywater Square, Canal Sector, Harbor Bay.
“I know it,” Farley says, jabbing at the printout button. The machine spits out paper, copying down the information from Ada’s record.
The next name comes even faster from the humming machine. Wolliver Galt. Occupation: Merchant, employed by Galt Brewery. Address: Battle Garden and Charside Road, Threestone Sector, Harbor Bay. So Crance wasn’t lying about this, at least. I’ll have to shake his hand if I ever see him again.
“About done?” Cal shouts from the door, and I hear the strain in his voice. It’s only a matter of time until nymphs come running, and his flaming wall crashes down.
“Nearly,” I murmur, clicking at the keys again. “This machine isn’t just for Harbor Bay, is it?” Cal doesn’t respond, too busy maintaining his shield, but I know I’m right. With a grin, I pull the list from my jacket, and thumb to the first page. “Farley, get started on that screen.”
She jumps to attention like a rabbit, gleefully clicking until the next panel screen hums to life. We pass the list between each other, typing in name after name, collecting one printout after another. Every name from the Beacon region, all ten of them. The girl from the New Town slums, a seventy-year-old grandmother in Cancorda, twin boys on the Bahrn Islands, and so on. The papers pile on the floor, each one telling me more than Julian’s list ever could. I should feel excited, ecstatic at such a breakthrough, but something throttles my happiness. So many names. So many to save. And we are moving so slowly. There is no way we’ll find them all in time, not like this. Not even with the airjet or the records or all of Farley’s underground tunnels. Some will be lost. There is no avoiding it.
The thought disintegrates just like the wall behind me. It explodes inward in a cloud of dust, silhouetting the jagged figure of a man with gray, rocky flesh, hard as a battering ram. Stoneskin is all I manage to think before he charges, catching Farley around the waist. Her hand still clutches the line of printouts, ripping the precious paper from the machine. It streams behind her like a white banner of surrender.
“Submit to arrest!” the stoneskin roars, pinning her against the far window. Her head smacks against the glass, cracking it. Her eyes roll.
And then the wall of fire is in the room with us, surrounding Cal as he enters like a mad bull. I snatch the papers from Farley’s hand, tucking them away with the list lest they be burned. Cal works quickly, forgetting his oath not to harm, and hauls the stoneskin off her, using his flames to force him back through the hole in the wall. The fire rises, stopping him from coming back. For the time being.
“Done now?” Cal growls, his eyes like living coals.
I nod and turn my gaze on the records machine. It whirs sadly, as if it knows what I’m about to do. With a clenched fist, I overload its circuits, sending a destructive surge shuddering through the machine. Every screen and blinking line explodes in a spray of sparks, erasing exactly what we came for. “Done.”
Farley stumbles away from the window, a hand to her head, her lip bleeding, but still inexorably standing. “I think this is the part where we run.”
One glance out the window, the natural escape, tells me we’re too high up to jump. And the sounds from the hall outside, shouts and marching feet, are just as damning. “Run where?”
Cal only grimaces, extending a hand toward the polished wood floor.
“Down.”
A fireball explodes at our feet. It digs into the wood, charring the intricate designs and the solid base like a dog chewing through meat. The floor cracks in an instant, collapsing under us, and we fall to the room below, and then the next below that. My knees buckle beneath me, but Cal doesn’t let me stumble, one hand holding my collar. Then he drags me, never loosening his grip, pulling us toward another window.
I don’t need to be told what to do next.
Our flame and lightning shatter through the thick pane of glass, and we follow, leaping into what I think is thin air. Instead, we land hard, rolling onto one of the stone walkways. Farley follows, her momentum sending her right into a startled guard. Before he can react, she tosses him from the bridge. A sickening smack tells us his fall was not pleasant.
“Keep moving!” Cal growls, hoisting himself to his feet.
In a thunder of feet, we storm across the arched bridge, crossing from the Security Center to the royal palace of Ocean Hill. Smaller than Whitefire, but just as fearsome. And just as familiar to Cal.
At the end of the walkway, a door starts to open, and I hear the shouts of more guards, more officers. A veritable firing squad. But instead of trying to fight, Cal slams against the door, his hands blazing. And welds it shut.
Farley balks, glancing between the blocked door and the walkway behind us. It looks like a trap, worse than a trap. “Cal—?” she begins, fearful, but he ignores her.
Instead, he extends a hand to me. His eyes are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Pure flame, pure fire.
“I’m going to throw you,” he says, not bothering to sugarcoat a word. Behind him, something shudders against the welded door.
I don’t have time to argue, or even ask. My mind spins, poisoned by terror, but I take his wrist, and he grips mine. “Explode when you hit.” He trusts me to know what he means.
With a grunt, he heaves, and I’m airborne, falling toward another window. It gleams, and I hope it isn’t diamondglass. A split second before I find out, my sparks do as they’re told. They obliterate the window in a shriek of glittering glass as I fall through, onto plush, golden carpeting. Stacks of books, a familiar smell of old leather and paper—the musty palace library. Farley slings through the windowpane next. Cal’s aim is too perfect, and she lands right on top of me.
“Up, Mare!” she snaps, almost wrenching my arm out of my socket to get me on my feet. Her brain works faster than mine and she reaches the window first, her arms outstretched. I mirror her in a daze, my head spinning.
Above us, on the bridge, guards and officers flood from both ends. In the center, an inferno blazes. For a moment it seems still; then I realize. It’s coming at us, leaping, lunging, falling.
Cal’s flames extinguish a moment before he hits the wall—and misses the window ledge.
“Cal!” I scream, almost diving out myself.
His hand brushes through my own. For a heart-stopping second, I think I’m about to watch him die. Instead, he dangles, his other wrist firm in Farley’s grip. She roars, her muscles flexing beneath her sleeves, somehow keeping two hundred pounds of prince from falling.
“Grab him!” she screams. Her knuckles are bone white.
I send a thunderbolt skyward, to the bridge. To guards and guns all trained on Cal’s form splayed out like an easy target. They cower, and pieces of the stone crack. Another, and it will collapse.
I want it to collapse.
“MARE!” Farley shrieks.
I have to reach, I have to pull. His hand finds mine, almost breaking my wrist with the effort. But we get him up as quickly as we can, dragging him over the ledge, and backward. Into disarming silence and a room full of harmless books.
Even Cal seems shocked by the ordeal. He lies for a second, eyes wide, breath heavy. “Thanks,” he finally grinds out.
“Later!” Farley snarls. Like with me, she hoists him up. “Get us out.”