Lumiere ran.

  The City's streets were a maze of worn stone and hollow arches, the blue runes in the walls pulsing with that same steady, indifferent glow. Her mantle fred behind her with each stride. Her grip tightened on her ivory staff.

  Evelyn moved ahead of her, no longer bothering to keep cover. She didn't soften her footfalls or hide her outline when they crossed open stretches. She simply ran—in a straight line whenever the City allowed it, cutting corners where it didn't, and taking paths Lumiere had not realized were there.

  It was rare to see Evelyn so desperate. But Lumiere could hardly bme her.

  They had returned to an empty camp.

  No sentries. No voices. No movement in the ntern glow.

  No sign of Rocher or Cire.

  The silence was not the ordinary hush of the underground, but a clean, excised absence, as if someone had taken a knife to the scene and removed all the people in it. Packs gone. Bedrolls disturbed. The cookfire burned down to dead ash. Not even the padins' casual clutter remained.

  Something had happened. That much was clear.

  It was the first time she'd seen Sir Veyne react to anything at all. The second was a minute ter: when Evelyn materialized next to him, seemingly out of thin air.

  His eyes had widened—a crack in his usual disinterest—as if his body suddenly remembered how to feel surprise. He said nothing, of course. He had only looked at Evelyn, then Lumiere, and finally forced himself back into stillness. Recalibrating.

  Evelyn had not looked at him once.

  If anyone wanted to punish her ter for going against the High Synod's commandment, they could try. That was what her posture said. That was how bad things had gotten.

  Lumiere's breath began to rasp. The air down here was stale, too thin, and the old dust they were kicking up did nothing for her lungs.

  She forced herself to keep pace for another hundred steps before she finally broke, slowing at a junction where four corridors branched like veins from a heart.

  Evelyn slowed too, but only because Lumiere did.

  Lumiere bent at the waist, hands on her knees, pulling in breath that refused to satisfy. Her chest hurt. Her throat burned.

  "Evelyn," she finally managed. "Do you know where you're going?"

  Evelyn's eyes flicked across the corridors, then back to Lumiere, sharp and practical.

  "Yes," she said. "Or rather, I know where Cire would go."

  Lumiere straightened with effort. Sweat had dampened her hair at the temples, and she could feel it cooling against her skin already.

  Evelyn ran a hand down her face, sighing. "I'd marked them for her. Safe areas that were within walking distance of the camp."

  "A map," Lumiere said.

  She nodded. "If she thought there was trouble, she'd relocate to the most defensible one," Evelyn continued. "The old clock tower."

  Lumiere's brows drew together. "There is a clock tower here?"

  "Not in function," Evelyn said. "It's decrepit. Half-colpsed. But it rises above the surrounding streets. Someone holding the top would have vantage on any movement below. And there's only one way up or down: a spiral staircase."

  Lumiere forced another breath into her lungs. "Do I imagine it, or do you dislike that fact?"

  Evelyn shook her head. "I don't trust any pce with one exit."

  Lumiere followed her gaze down the nearest corridor, imagining stone stairs winding upward into darkness.

  "As defensible as it is, it's also a trap," Evelyn said. "And the company Cire is keeping is odd."

  Lumiere's spine went cold. "What does that mean?"

  Evelyn's expression barely changed, but something in her eyes sharpened, as if she had been waiting to say this aloud.

  "It means Bishop Halbrecht lied about one thing," she said. "He was not sending his best."

  Lumiere tilted her head.

  Evelyn continued, voice low as they started moving again, now at a controlled pace rather than a run.

  "I met with Doug and Dougs while we were up there," Evelyn said. "I'd asked them previously to dig up whatever dirt they could find on those padins. And as it turns out, they all have one thing in common: they'd done something to piss off the Bishop."

  Lumiere said nothing.

  "Ard was recruited from some backwoods vilge," Evelyn said. "As soon as he'd stepped foot in the Duchy, he lodged a compint to the High Synod, citing the Bishop's overreach and abuse of power."

  Lumiere remembered Ard's stiff posture, the way he spoke as if each word had been ordained. She had thought it was piety. Perhaps it had been defiance.

  "As for Benet," Evelyn said, "it's not such a noble story. Apparently, he'd slept with a woman. Who turned out to be Halbrecht's lover at the time."

  "Lover?" Lumiere's steps faltered for half a second. "Bishops are vowed to celibacy."

  Evelyn did not look at her. "You of all people should know how flimsy those vows are."

  "Right," Lumiere said, suddenly feeling heat creep up her neck. "Continue."

  "Tomás," Evelyn said. "He's a strong one, but clumsy. He'd injured one of Halbrecht's prize champions in a mock battle. Not lethal, but enough to put him out of commission for a few months. It did a number to that image of strength the Bishop likes to project."

  Lumiere's mind supplied Tomás's broad shoulders, his earnest eyes, the way he apologized too often. It did not fit easily with the picture Evelyn painted, but humiliation did not care about intent.

  "And Sir Veyne?" Lumiere asked.

  Evelyn's mouth tightened. "Well. That one I'm still trying to puzzle out. His service record is impeccable. No scandals. No compints. At least none that were written down anyway."

  Lumiere thought of Veyne's gaze, the way it drifted across people as if they were scenery. But there was a certain sharpness to it.

  "He didn't push back," she said, realizing something. "When we left him at camp just now. I'd expected him to argue at least."

  Evelyn gnced at her then. "Does that bother you? You said that somebody needed to stay behind in case Cire and the others decided to return. And that two were better than one. I thought it was reasonable."

  "I don't know yet," Lumiere admitted. "All I know was that he was all too happy to comply when Ard told him to keep watch over me, and stopped pretending to care as soon as he was out of earshot."

  Evelyn nodded thoughtfully.

  They moved faster again, Lumiere forcing her legs to obey.

  The City opened into a wider thoroughfare, and there, in the distance, rose a silhouette that did not belong among the low ruins.

  The tower.

  It leaned slightly, as if time had been working at its spine for centuries. The clock face near its top was cracked and blind, its hands frozen in a permanent gesture that meant nothing.

  Evelyn lifted her chin toward it.

  Lumiere's heart kicked. Relief tried to form and failed.

  They were close enough now that she could make out the dark gap of its entrance, the narrow windows higher up like empty eye sockets.

  There. Something glinted at the top.

  She rushed forward.

  Evelyn's hand shot out, grabbing her by the colr, yanking her back so hard it jarred her teeth.

  "Wait a second," she hissed.

  "It's her—" Lumiere began.

  "We don't know that yet." Evelyn's eyes narrowed. "Just stay here, Lumi. Leave this one to me."

  Lumiere swallowed the argument. She pressed her back obediently to the stone.

  Evelyn drew something from within her coat, holding it for half a second, then pressed it to her face.

  The Sacred Mask of Xolotl.

  The air seemed to bend around her.

  Then she was gone.

  Evelyn approached the entrance without sound.

  The Mask did more than hide her from sight. For its short duration, it made it seem like the world had turned the other way. Even the smallest of noises were dampened: the crunch of her boots against gravel, the faint scrape of her leather breeches, the breath in her throat.

  But what it didn't do was make her invulnerable.

  She stopped just short of the threshold and looked up.

  She knew Cire.

  Cire had a mind for tactics. For anticipating where danger would come from and mounting a response before it arrived. She wouldn't forget the obvious.

  The spiral staircase.

  If Cire was holding the top, she would have booby-trapped the ascent. Possibly even this doorway.

  Evelyn gnced at the outer stonework instead.

  The tower's exterior was rough, but it was climbable. Mortar gaps. Old decorative ridges. Pces a body could wedge fingers and toes.

  The stone was cold under her gloves. Dust fked off in dry sheets. She found purchase and pulled, shifting her weight as she moved from foothold to foothold.

  She climbed the st stretch and reached the ptform that ringed the top level. She hooked an arm over the lip, then slowly lifted her head to peer over.

  Empty.

  No breath. No whisper of movement. No scrape of boot on stone.

  The ptform y in shadow, lit only by the faint glow leaking from cracks in the stone below. No wind could exist under the mountain, but a chill crawled along her skin anyway.

  Evelyn pulled herself over the edge, nding in a crouch. Then she stepped forward.

  A thin wire snagged against her shin. Something rattled from above her, scattering the dim light.

  "Who's there?" A familiar voice rasped from the dark.

  Evelyn's hand moved before thought. A dagger left her palm and collided with a bolt mid-flight, sending it spinning into the stone.

  She stared at it. Had she been a second slower, she would have been struck.

  That wasn't like Cire. She wasn't the type to shoot first.

  Evelyn turned her attention to the darkness, her ears flicking intently. A shadow was moving across the far corner of the ptform.

  "Cire!" she shouted. "It's me, Evelyn!"

  She let her invisibility pse, and waited for a response.

  It came in the form of another bolt.

  It struck the stone near her shoulder, close enough that the impact sent chips of rock into her cheek.

  Evelyn scowled.

  There was no time for a careful approach.

  She sprinted toward the corner where the shadow had moved, trusting speed over stealth. Before Cire had time to reload.

  She found not a girl, but a small object nestled where Cire should have been.

  A bomb.

  Evelyn's body reacted before her mind finished beling it. She kicked it hard, sending it skidding down the stairwell entrance that led up from the interior.

  It bounced once.

  Then it detonated with a fsh that turned the ptform white.

  Sound smmed into Evelyn like a fist. The world went muffled, then high and thin, a ringing that made her teeth ache. Light lingered behind her eyes in fshes.

  She blinked hard and forced herself upright.

  Enough.

  Evelyn reached up, fingers tracing the embroidered stitches on the Sacred Mask, invoking its magic once more.

  Then she moved like darkness itself.

  There.

  Cire was standing near the parapet, crossbow raised, hands trembling. Her chestnut hair clung damply to her forehead. Her face was flushed, her familiar hazel eyes clouded as if someone had poured milk into them.

  She was shaking. Scared.

  Evelyn stopped.

  For half a heartbeat, the sight stole her momentum.

  This was Cire. Small. Light. Too fragile to be the source of this violence.

  That hesitation was a mistake—the Mask's magic had begun to wear off.

  A bolt loosed instantly at the first sound.

  Evelyn twisted. The bolt grazed her sleeve and tore through cloth, close enough that she felt the air cut. She lunged to the side, closing distance in a low arc, moving around Cire's line of sight rather than straight into it.

  Cire tried to crank the crossbow again, fingers slipping.

  Evelyn was already behind her.

  She hooked an arm around Cire's neck and sank into a blood choke, forearm pressed under the jaw, bicep tight against the side of Cire's throat. Her other hand trapped Cire's wrist before the crossbow could be used as a club.

  Cire struggled, weakly at first, then with a sudden surge of frantic strength that did not match her frame. Nails scraped at Evelyn's arm. A choked sound tore from her throat.

  "Stop," Evelyn hissed into her ear. "Stop. It's me."

  But Cire could only shake her head violently. "No," she rasped. "No, please."

  It wasn't her usual defiance. It was fear. Raw and pleading and indiscriminate.

  With reluctance, Evelyn tightened her grip.

  There would be time for questions ter. Where the others were. What had happened at camp. Why Cire was alone and armed and half-feral in this tower.

  But at the moment, Cire was a danger to herself and anyone who tried to get close.

  Her breath came hot and uneven against Evelyn's forearm, but eventually it slowed.

  "It hurts," she gasped, voice breaking.

  Evelyn flinched, but she swallowed the reflex to ease up. It felt wrong, to do this to someone so light, to someone whose grip felt so weak on her arm.

  Cire's fingers fluttered against Evelyn's sleeve, then fell away. Her body sagged, knees finally giving.

  Evelyn followed her carefully to the ground, cradling her head. She bit her lip and looked down at Cire for a single, tight moment.

  Then she turned toward the stairwell, ears still ringing, forcing herself to focus on the next problem:

  How to carry her down.