“How many of them?”
“How many what?” She continued to retreat, eyes darting over my shoulder.
“How many people have they got? They obviously overwhelmed the Guards at the door.”
She shook her head. “No, Credo. They were the Guards at the door.”
Mago. Mago had seen us hauling Aven away. Had this been part of the plan all along, or was this revenge for us taking her down?
“Then more soldiers came up from the city and joined them. And some of the rebels, too, countryfolk, not many, but the ones who were still really angry. They’re saying it’s a revolution and the ones negotiating are betraying their cause … and they need to burn out the heart of the beast, and…”
“It’s going to be all right,” I lied. “Keep going down this hall. Do you think you can get out a window? There are small ones in the sitting room, through there. If you break the glass and climb out, do you think you can get out of the grounds unseen?”
“I don’t know,” she said, voice rising.
“It’s going to be all right,” I repeated. “It’s not a big drop. If you can get to the Darfri quarter, raise the alarm there.”
I didn’t give her time to argue. Zealous rebels or Aven’s loyalists or both, it didn’t really matter. I couldn’t get through ten people in time to save the people trapped in the chamber, let alone hundreds.
But maybe I didn’t have to.
It took precious time to find the storeroom; several wrong turns and a few dead ends. Eventually I got to the one Kalina had mentioned, recognizable by the dusty cupboard with the carved doors in the corner. Up I scrambled into Kalina’s little tunnel. It was ill-suited for my stockier form, and already thin lines of smoke wafted through its twilight length, but I wiggled along as swiftly as possible, trying not to think of my sister up here, trying not to think how I would get the more rotund of us through this tiny space on the way out. My shoulders jammed in the bends and my face grew hot as I drew close. I regretted the full pouches and supplies strapped to my body under my paluma, because they caught on every irregularity in the passage and I had no room to shed them. An eternity of shuffling, breathing, fighting down panic.
It was hot and dark in the viewing alcove, and smoke crept in from the room below along with the sounds of desperate coughing and wails of terror. On my hands and knees I fumbled with the viewing slit, trying to no avail to force it larger. The space was concealed behind the internal paneling, though, which surely wouldn’t withstand a decent amount of force. I curled into a ball and rolled onto my back, spun around so that my shoulders were wedged against the back of the space, then kicked my feet as hard as I could at the viewing panel.
It popped out with a satisfying crack.
I scrambled onto my hands and knees and stuck my head in through the splintered wood. Below was a nightmare. They must have either rigged the room in advance or thrown some kind of flammable substance in before barricading it. The perimeter of the chamber crackled with angry orange flames, and two dozen–odd people huddled in the middle of the stone table, coughing and crying. Torn clothing masked their faces to shield them from the smoke, and those on the outer edges clutched water jugs and teacups as if the last dregs of liquid could fight the flames. “Tain!” I called, and through the smoke I saw his face turn up among the cluster. He had one arm around an older man who seemed barely able to stand.
“Jov!” He barked out a relieved laugh-cough and shoved his mask down for a moment. “Everyone, forgive me, but shut up and listen!”
Others spotted me, too; Salvea wept with joy at the sight. “Come on,” I said. “Hurry.” I had untied the knots on my cording before entering the tunnel and I pulled it loose from my body now, double thickness. But below me the flames licked up hungrily and I worried it would catch, too, if I lowered it straight down.
Tain followed my gaze. “Salvea, quick. I’ll boost you.” Together he and a burly Darfri man stood at the outer edge of the central table and made a stool of their arms. Salvea tottered up on it, her eyes wide with terror above her face mask. I threw her one end of the cording and she wrapped both hands tightly in the silky rope. Tain counted, “One, two…” and on three they hoisted Salvea like a pillar tossed at the karodee games up toward me. She hit the portrait below me with a squeal and I pulled her the rest of the way, bracing awkwardly in the small space, and soon had her forearms on mine.
She cried out as her arms caught on the splintery edges of the wood but made it up, fitting easier than I had in the space. “Keep going,” I told her, squashed up as far as I could to let her past.
We got the smallest and the elderly in the room out that way: Nara, Marjeta, Budua, and Eliska, most of the rebel representatives, and Varina. But since I had burst the panel open another problem was presenting itself: the smoke, which was wearing down the remaining men on the table, was flooding the tunnel so badly now I could barely see through it. “They won’t make it,” I yelled to Tain between my own coughs. “They’ll suffocate.”
Tain looked at the barred door, now behind an impenetrable wall of flames. The portraits and other hanging wall coverings had caught, and a fair amount of the carpet. Even the treated wood paneling below me was starting to burn. Bradomir, Lazar, and Javesto all slumped on their knees in the central huddle, barely coughing anymore and almost invisible from my perch. Several of the Darfri leaders still stood, but the smoke was now so thick none of us would last much longer. Tain looked back at me, and his dark eyes were bleak. I fancied I could hear the sounds of fighting outside the door, but what good would it do? Even if loyal forces prevailed, they’d never get in here in time.
My friend gestured at the tunnel. “Go,” he cried, and dropped to his knees. “Please, go.”
But instead I looked up at the glass dome ceiling and had one final, dumb idea.
“Get me a fresh mask!” I called down urgently, and Tain didn’t ask questions, just cut off another section of the base of his paluma, soaked it in the remaining teapot, and balled it up to toss to me. I wrapped it gratefully around my nose and mouth; the last one had already dried off in the heat.
I dug into my supplies one last time.
As I swung my torso out of the hole, I had a sudden and vivid memory of my uncle, standing in his workshop, beaming at me over a jar of silvery-white crystals we’d derived from bat dung. I could smell the caramelizing sugar and acrid chemical stench as the crystals turned purple in the flames, as richly if he stood before me right now. His kind, wise eyes regarded me with approval and a dose of mischief. I miss you, Etan, I told him silently.
I took what grip I could on the ornate cornices, pressing my body tight against the hot wall, and wedged the last of Baina’s devices into the space above the cornice. Then I lowered myself down carefully back into my hole, broke off a piece of the now-burning wood paneling, and held it at one end with a piece of my paluma, like a torch.
“Get low and cover your heads,” I called down to those remaining on the table.
I lit the device, dropped the stick fuse, and squished back as far into the tunnel as I could get.
There was just time to note the flare of indigo before the dull boom and a splintering crash and then everything was heat and pressure and light, and I was falling, tumbling, landing hard on my back with a crunch.