Grevail hurried into the street. There were still townfolk among roads strewn with belongings left behind by those who fled, or attempted to, though many likely didn’t make it out after the Urucan blocked the gates. The disemboweled innards of homes: chests, crates, clothes and furniture, cluttered the roads Grevail slunk through. He went quickly as he dared, running when the street was clear, and darting out of sight when it wasn’t. Urucan and Carbathe’s men patrolled the city, and they did so with a look of purpose, as if searching for something. A chill ran down his spine. Were they after Daryn or something else? That Carbathe might want the stone too was enough to pimple his skin.

  Ducking into hiding at the presence of every suspicious person or every noise meant it took much longer than he thought it would to reach Alisia’s street, but when he did, it was thankfully clear of Urucan and most anyone else. The two or three story homes here, crowded shoulder to shoulder, were silent and still, and some sat with front doors open, creaking in the breeze, as if the inhabitants had left in a hurry. He watched the road for some time to build his courage, fearing that a cadre of Carbathe’s men would round the corner the moment he stuck a toe out, but eventually, took a deep breath and forced himself into the open.

  Creeping down the cobbles he came to the gate of Alisia’s house. The windows overlooking the courtyard were empty, but that didn’t stop him from imagining a bearded Urucan watching him from one. Beside commotion echoing from the direction of the Berry Gate, only his own quick breathing was in his ears. Slowly, he turned the handle of the gate, then pushed it open, cringing at the metallic squeal it peeled into the air. He paused, listening again for any movement beyond the courtyard wall.

  Relieved that at least the courtyard must be empty, he squeezed inside to crouch on the paving stones. It looked just as it did the last time he saw it, and nothing stood out to him as suspicious. He scampered past the benches and green walls shrouded in vines to the front door. He reached toward the knob, but stopped as his hand neared. It was already open, if just by a hair. Was Usha still here? He pushed and the door floated inward. Not a sound came from inside. Carbathe’s soldiers were not here. Or have they already been here? he thought, staring at the open doorway.

  He surged inside and clambered up the staircase beside the entrance. Reaching the top, he burst into his bedroom and dove at the bed, feeling under it. For a brief few panicked moments, his hand found only smooth floorboards, but then finally, gripped the familiar metallic cube.

  Can you hear me? Only I can show you how to use this, Tameling.

  He dropped the relic and scrabbled backward away from it. That was Vidian’s voice inside of his head, as clear and real as if it was his own thought. He stared at the cube still under the bed. Behind the odd slanted triangle on the little glass circle at the center, blue light danced faintly inside like a dying flame. Hello?

  A woman’s distant scream drifted through the open window, pulling him back to where he was. Hesitantly, he crawled toward the Emberstone and reached out to grab it, closing his eyes and biting his lip as he did. When his fingers made contact, and Vidian’s voice did not pop into his head, a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding left him. This cursed thing, he thought, looking at it in his hand.

  Standing, he dashed from the room and took the stairs down two at a time. Reaching the courtyard, he started toward the gate, but after a moment’s thought, turned to shut the door tight. It would be little deterrent to the looters he’d seen ransacking homes on the way here, but hopefully it would be enough they might leave Alisia’s house untouched. The squealing of the gate behind him raised the hair on his neck. Grevail spun around to find that a man with a purple rose on the chest of his white tunic had stepped into the courtyard with him. Another four crowded in behind, and they all eyed Grevail with expressions of suspicion and surprise.

  “Who are you?” the stocky man with a scruffy blond beard asked.

  Grevail froze with his mouth open, staring back at him.

  Narrowing his gray eyes at Grevail’s silence, the lead man stepped further into the courtyard. “Where is Alisia? Are you a Delphine?” His gaze fell to Grevail’s hand and he frowned, brow furrowing.

  Grevail remembered that like a fool, he still held the cube. He looked down at it, surprised to notice that it was warm, and seemed to be growing warmer by the moment. That realization, and the alarm it instilled in him, came and went in almost the same instant before he forced himself to focus on Carbathe’s henchmen before him. I can run through Alisia’s house to the back garden. If he made it up and over the wall there, he might escape with his skin.

  The man rolled his eyes, as if tiring of Grevail’s hesitation. “This house is now the property of Khos Carbathe. Whoever you may be, looter or Delphine, hand over whatever you’ve got and we will forget you were here. We have enough rabble to deal with and—”

  Between the man and Grevail, a small yellow flame flared into being, hovering in the air at head height. They both stared at it in disbelief, and the other soldiers stood dumbfounded with mouths agape as this tiny, floating lick of fire, no bigger than that of a candle, began to rapidly grow in size, building in intensity. With a bright flash, a huge bar of flame as round as a barrel shot upward from that suspended pinprick, higher than Alisia’s house, higher than probably most everything in town.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Carbathe’s men issued terrified gasps and threw hands over their faces as they were enveloped in an crimson glow. The raging tongue of red fire blazed into the sky with a deafening roar for several moments, then vanished in the sound of guttering flames, leaving nothing else to say it had been there beside a thick gray line of vertical smoke that began to bend and drift with the breeze.

  Carbathe’s men stared at him wide-eyed in pure terror, though the look on Grevail’s own face was surely no different. One man loosed a hysterical shriek, dashing toward the gate, and in a matter of moments, all of them were stumbling over each other toward the exit, casting worried looks back at Grevail as they did. “Paragons protect me!” one of them shouted as they fled down the street, feet slapping the cobbles.

  The cube was no longer warm in his hand. He shivered as an overwhelming urge came over him to toss it as far as he could and run the other way. It is the key to saving my friends, he reminded himself, though still felt as if he held a poisonous snake that might bite him at any time.

  He took a step toward the open gate, but as he did, a section of vine on the courtyard wall swept to the ground, heaving a dark cloud of particulate into the air. He froze, staring at the pile of dust that had been created. He raised his eyes to study the rest of the vines that still clung to the stone. They were a stark black instead of the healthy green they’d been when he arrived. He reached and poked at a nearby leaf, which crumbled away like ash at his touch. It had all been burnt to a crisp. He didn’t remember feeling any heat from that fire, at least he thought, not enough to do this. There were no burn marks on the walls, or on the ground, nor did anything else in the courtyard appear damaged. He looked down at the relic again, licking his lips.

  I don’t have time for this. Those men could come back, or some other threat might appear, and he didn’t want to be standing here with this…thing when they did. He shoved it into his pocket and hurried into the street. There was no sign of Carbathe’s men, and he wasted no time returning to Alisia’s hideout much the same way as he had went to her house—by staying out of sight however he could. The few times he spotted any of Carbathe’s men or the Urucan, they were far away, but still, he crept through the city as quietly as a mouse in a den of snakes.

  By the time he was walking toward the door of the mill, dusk was chasing the light toward the horizon. A moment after knocking, the door cracked open. One of Alisia’s dark blue eyes appeared in the slit, widening at the sight of him. She flung the door wide and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, yanking him inside.

  “Where did you go?” she asked after she had shut the door and turned, shaking a finger under his nose. “You had us worried to death. I thought you had went after your friends…or…or something even more stupid!”

  “I had to get the relic,” he said. “I need it to get my friends back.”

  The young woman stared at him as if she had not considered that. “I suppose if anything is worth the risk, it would be that,” she said after a moment, and reached to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you are safe. We will need your help if we are to get the Khos out, and of course you can’t save your friends dead, but please…at least tell me before you do something so stupid again. Carbathe’s men will be sure to search my house. Did you see Usha there?”

  “She was not there.” He was glad Usha was not there, though felt a touch of shame at the thought. What would Usha have made of that fiery column in the courtyard? If Alisia knew, would she reconsider helping him? It was for that reason he rejected the idea of telling her he encountered Carbathe’s men at her home. He just wanted to be free of this ashen stone. He wanted to be free of Vidian, and he wanted Raela, Dell and Tessyn back. “What about my friends?” he asked, surprised by the sudden emotion that cracked his voice.

  Alisia’s eyes turned serious. “I must help Daryn escape the city. Amphid will need them if he is to take Tamirra back. Grevail, helping your friends is important too, but if we don’t—”

  “You promised,” Grevail said around his tightening throat. “You said that if I went to the Council House you would help my friends. I did as you asked. Who knows what has happened to them during all of this!” Wetness stung his eyes, but he refused to look away from her. They’re alive. If Seirod, Vaik and Erphele wanted this relic, his friends would be alive.

  “I will help you after the Khos has escaped the city,” Alisia said, then swallowed, as if she found words distasteful. “One last thing, Grevail, and we will help your friends. I know I’ve already promised this to you, but circumstances have changed. Daryn must reach Amphid.”

  Since he came to be with the Delphines, he’d thought up a million plans to free his friends by himself and for one reason or another discarded them all. He could not do it by himself. He closed his mouth around the harsh words on the tip of his tongue. He would give her one last chance to fulfill her promise, and if she still refused to help, he would try to free his friends on his own any way he could. He had no other choice.

  A tired sigh heaved Alisia’s chest, as if sensing his mood. “Come. I’ll show you to your room. We wanted to keep this place a secret, so we didn’t use it often, but at times we did. There are at least enough beds so we don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she walked into a nearby hallway lined with doors and Grevail followed after her. The first thing he had to do was to hide the relic and get it as far away from himself as possible, though even that wouldn’t protect him from Vidian. After the day’s events, he was tired enough to sleep on a slab of stone like he had in the Refuge, but he didn’t want to so much as close his eyes long enough to blink around the Emberstone. It is what will save my friends. He tailed Alisia down the hallway, ignoring the relic rubbing against his leg, just as he tried to forget what had happened in the courtyard. When he exchanged the stone for his friends, he’d never have to think about it again.