CHAPTER

18

Outside the wall of Winter Barracks, Quarrah moved through the darkness until she reached a cluster of tall elm trees. Neither Raek nor Lomaya was well concealed, and she spotted them instantly. Were they even trying to hide?

“What did you see in there?” Lomaya asked impatiently.

“Glassminds,” Quarrah replied. “And a lot of fanatical people.” A surprising number, if she was honest.

The three of them weren’t ready for this. Sure, they’d grabbed some supplies from Tofar’s Salts after disembarking in the Western Harbor, but this was going to be a complicated rescue.

“What about the seventh barracks?” asked Lomaya.

“Empty,” answered Quarrah. “But they’re holding someone in the officers’ quarters on the far side of the compound. I heard him try to shout for help, but he was silenced.”

“You didn’t see if it was San?” Lomaya followed up.

Quarrah shook her head. “Do you think they’re holding more than one prisoner?”

Lomaya shrugged. “Garifus and the other cult leaders were living in the officers’ quarters. San and I were being kept in barracks number seven.”

“Well, it’s empty now,” Quarrah repeated. “And the officers’ quarters was the only building guarded by Glassminds.”

“Sounds like San got an upgrade to his living accommodations,” said Raek.

“The rest of the soldier barracks appear to have large groups of people living in them.”

“Yes,” said Lomaya. “It was about half full when we left for Pekal.”

“Well, it’s got to be getting close to capacity now,” she said. “I estimate over four hundred people in there. Men, women, children…”

“And more coming by the minute,” Raek added. “There’s been a steady stream arriving through the front gate. What are they doing in there?”

“They’re gathering everyone in the training yard,” Quarrah said. “Garifus and three of the Glassminds are mingling among them.”

“They’ll be preaching,” said Lomaya.

“That’s what it looked like,” said Quarrah, “though I didn’t get close enough to hear what they were saying.”

“Can you give me a rundown of the layout in there?” Raek asked.

“Ten-foot stone wall surrounds the entire compound, with a single guard tower by the main entrance,” began Quarrah.

“I spotted a Glassmind up there,” Raek said.

“Me, too,” she replied. “Once you pass through the front gate, there’s a large open training yard. Might have been grass once, but it’s so trampled, it’s mostly dirt now. To the right of that are the stables. They’re not big. Probably just enough to hold horses for the officers during the war. There aren’t any animals, but people are living in there. In the center of the compound are the kitchens and mess hall—more of a social pavilion, really. Lots of tables and chairs. Beyond that, you come to the barracks. Rows and rows of low-roofed buildings with little windows. Every now and again, a storage shed pops up between them. They would have held Grit and weapons during the war, but I don’t know what’s in them now.”

“And the officers’ quarters?” Raek asked.

“It’s a big square building in the middle of the barracks, taller than the rest,” she said. “A Glassmind at the front door, and another at the back. Decent windows all around, but it would take a Drift Jump to reach them.”

“So Garifus and three Glassminds in the yard,” listed Raek, “two Glassminds guarding the officers’ quarters. And the one on the guard tower.”

“That leaves one unaccounted for,” said Lomaya.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Raek said. “Maybe he’s gone, making a doughnut run.”

“Or he’s inside the officers’ quarters,” said Quarrah, “guarding the person we’re trying to rescue.”

“Love that positive attitude, Quarrah,” said Raek. “Keep it up.” She watched him unbutton his shirt. Time for another hit of Compounded Health Grit.

“Plan for the worst,” she said, “and at least you have the possibility of being pleasantly surprised.”

“The worst is that the kid is already dead,” Raek pointed out. “If that’s the case, then we’re going in there for nothing.”

“He can’t be,” whispered Lomaya. “What’s our plan to get in?”

“Through the front gate,” replied Raek, untwisting a paper roll of Heg.

“Are you insane?” Lomaya cried.

Raek shrugged. “Quarrah said there are hundreds of people inside. We wait until a new group is heading through and we fall in behind them.”

“We’ll be recognized,” Lomaya said.

“You can wear my hat.” He pulled his black knit cap from his bald head and tossed it to her. Then he placed a pinch of Heg into the pipe in his chest and replaced the cork, igniting it with a sharp rap. Raek sighed, closing his eyes. “Garifus and his cronies have never seen Quarrah or me, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

He pulled a Roller from the holster on his belt and offered it to Lomaya, who accepted it without hesitation. “Go for the head,” he instructed. “Gloristar said that shattering their glass skulls was the only way to kill them.”

“I hardly think this is going to do the trick.” Lomaya eyed the weapon. “I hit them with pure Blast Grit and it barely knocked them over.”

“I’m with Lomaya on this,” Quarrah said. “I’d rather rescue San without being seen at all. If we open fire on Garifus, it’s not just the Glassminds we’ll have to contend with. I don’t think four hundred devout followers will stand by and watch their leader get assassinated.”

“You have a better idea?” Raek asked.

“Maybe…” She shook her head. “No. Never mind.”

“Oh, come on,” pressed Raek. “Out with it.”

“I don’t have it with me anyway…” she stammered. “We’d have to swing by one of my apartments, and we don’t even know what it does.”

“What are you rambling about?”

She groaned, angry with herself for bringing it up and knowing that she had to come clean with Raek now. “Future Grit.”

“But we don’t have—”

“Ard’s vial was a fake,” Quarrah said. “I took the real one after you were done inspecting it in the Be’Igoth.”

Raek’s scarred face glowed with a huge smile. “Why, you little—”

“I didn’t trust Ard with it,” she explained. “He’s not careful with things like that and… well, just look at what he did on the Shiverswift.”

“Oh, I’m not questioning why you did it,” Raek said. “In fact, I’ve never been prouder of you.”

“Thanks?” Quarrah said, grateful that Raek wasn’t asking why she hadn’t told him. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Raek to keep a secret from Ard—he’d been doing that while supplying her with liquid Grit for the past year. It was just Quarrah’s default to keep things to herself.

“It’s a bad idea,” Quarrah went on. “If we use the Future Grit without understanding it, that makes us no better than Ard—”

“Future Grit?” Lomaya cut in.

“I wanted to call it Time Grit,” said Raek.

“It’s a new liquid solution…” Quarrah trailed off as Lomaya shook her head.

“You’re saying there’s another source material?” the young woman asked. “One we didn’t know about?”

“We weren’t able to identify it,” Raek said.

“Did you use a light filtration scope?” she asked.

“Ha. Because I have one of those lying around,” Raek answered sarcastically.

“There’s one at the college,” Lomaya said. “Professor Wal taught us how to use it.”

“That’s not exactly open to the public,” said Raek.

“I’ve still got connections there. I could run the vial through the scope myself.”

“That’s not going to help your friend tonight,” Quarrah said, bringing the two scientific minds back to earth. She should never have suggested the Future Grit. All it did was expose her secret. “We’ve got to get San out of the officers’ quarters.” She thought about their options. “What if we smoke him out? Literally. We light the officers’ building on fire and wait for him to emerge.” It was a bit flashy for her taste, but it would be right up Raek’s alley.

“That would send the whole compound into chaos,” said Lomaya.

“Exactly,” continued Quarrah. “We use the chaos to get close enough to grab your friend and escape.”

“I’m in love with this plan.” Raek swung his pack around and untied his crossbow. “In love, do you hear me?”

“How do we start this fire?” Lomaya asked.

“Blast Grit’s our surest bet,” said Raek. “I can rig up a bolt and we can shoot it through one of the windows… Boom!”

“What if San is up there?” Lomaya asked, a trace of panic in her voice.

“All the rooms will be on the first floor,” said Quarrah. “I assume that’s where he’ll be. We can shoot through the third-story windows and blow up the top level. It should be just a map room.”

“Should be,” Lomaya repeated. “How do you know this?”

“Winter Barracks is an Archkingdom compound,” Quarrah explained. “Its layout and design are virtually identical to Forward Barracks in the Northern Quarter, and Midway Barracks to the south.”

“And you’ve been there?”

“Both of those barracks were used as redistribution centers when the war ended. Lots of valuables in the officers’ quarters.”

Lomaya looked aghast, but Raek chuckled, a pleased expression on his rugged face as he worked on filling a blank Grit bolt.

“I don’t know,” Lomaya said. “If they’re planning to kill San anyway, what makes us think they’ll bother pulling him out of a burning building?”

“If Garifus was going to kill him, don’t you think he’d already be dead?” Raek asked. “Sounds like the Glassminds have been back for two days. Why bother keeping him prisoner?”

“Raek’s right,” said Quarrah. “Garifus must have something else in mind for your friend.”

“Still,” said Lomaya, “even if they do exit the quarters, we have no way of knowing where they’ll take him.”

“We’ll have to be ready for anything.” Raek carefully dropped a chip of Slagstone through the opening on the end of the bolt. “I’ll stick with going through the front gate. If they bring him my way, I’ll be there.”

“And I’ll come over the back wall,” Quarrah said.

“I think you should take the shot since you’re likely to get closer to the officers’ quarters.” Raek passed her the crossbow. “And be careful,” he said, melodramatically handing over the Grit bolt. “This baby is stuffed fuller than a nobleman’s wallet. It’s not going to fly too well, but it’ll pack a serious punch.”

Quarrah nodded in understanding. She’d handled plenty of crossbows. And she’d have ample time to line up a good shot from atop the low barracks roofs.

“What about me?” Lomaya asked.

“You should go with Quarrah,” Raek said.

“Why me?” Quarrah asked, before realizing that it made Lomaya sound like unwanted goods.

“You’ll need someone to help you identify San Green,” Raek explained.

“And you won’t?” Quarrah asked.

“I’ve seen him twice,” answered Raek. “I spoke with him in Portsend’s lab, and then I saw a very convincing wax replica of his severed head.”

“What?” Lomaya cried in horror.

“Don’t be jealous,” Raek said. “There was one of you, too. Anyway, I’m thinking I’ll recognize him when I see him again.”

“All right.” Quarrah glanced at Lomaya Vans. The girl didn’t look overly stealthy, but Quarrah had a bit of Silence Grit if they needed it.

Raek slung his pack onto his shoulders again. “Give me at least twenty minutes to get into position. Then light it up. If we get separated, don’t wait. I’ll meet you back at Tofar’s Salts.”

Lomaya followed Quarrah closely as they set off in the opposite direction. They took their time, but not just for Raek’s sake. Over the years, Quarrah had learned that rushing a stealth mission was the quickest way to get caught.

They rounded the corner, moving along the back side of the compound wall until Quarrah brought up a hand to stop them. She reached to her belt, pulling out a little mesh bag of Grit.

“I’ve never Drift Jumped before,” Lomaya suddenly whispered in her ear.

Oh, great. How many ways could this go wrong?

“You’ll feel a sensation of weightlessness,” Quarrah whispered back. “Makes some people sick the first few times.”

“Oh, I’ve been in a Drift cloud,” Lomaya replied. “I’ve just never had to jump through one. I understand the basic concept. I’m just wondering how you compensate for wind resistance and aerodynamics.”

Sparks. Lomaya was really overthinking this.

“I just sort of line it up and… jump,” Quarrah replied. That answer was clearly too basic for Lomaya’s scientific mind. “Listen,” she continued, “we only need to make it to the top of the wall. You should be able to see enough from there while I move onto the rooftops to make the shot.”

Quarrah crouched down, Lomaya following suit.

“Hold on to something,” Quarrah whispered. Innocently, Lomaya reached out and grabbed her arm.

That would do.

Quarrah gripped a fistful of grass and pitched her little bag of Drift Grit against the face of the stone wall. It detonated successfully, enveloping her and Lomaya in a cloud of weightlessness.

“We can jump together,” Quarrah said, throwing an arm around the other woman’s shoulder. Lomaya nodded vigorously, visibly anxious. Quarrah counted down from three and they sprang upward.

The Drift cloud was large enough to see them all the way to the top of the wall. Quarrah reached out and gripped the capstone, steadying the two of them until Lomaya could successfully swing her leg over the wall, straddling it like a horse.

Quarrah pointed across the flat roofs of the soldiers’ barracks and waited for Lomaya to acknowledge that she recognized the officers’ quarters. The only movement came from a few tired cultists adjourning to their rooms after a late-night gawking at their Glassmind leaders.

Multiple orbs of Light Grit illuminated the area, easily allowing Quarrah to spot the Glassmind stationed at the back door to the officers’ quarters. She gestured for Lomaya to stay low on the wall. Then she gauged the distance to the nearest roof. There was enough overspill from the Drift cloud that she had no trouble making it.

She landed nimbly on the roof, but one of the clay shingles broke, clattering down the eave and tumbling over the edge. She cursed silently. Weren’t these barracks only three years old? Why were they already in such disrepair?

Quarrah held still until she was sure the sound hadn’t attracted any attention. Then she pulled the crossbow off her back and ratcheted the string into place. Carefully, she took Raek’s bolt of Blast Grit from her side pocket and laid it into the weapon.

This was a long shot for a crossbow with a bolt this heavy. Luckily, she didn’t have to be accurate. Still, she’d have to aim high to compensate for the fall over such a distance.

Kneeling for stability, Quarrah tucked the crossbow’s stock against her shoulder. Sighting down the bolt, she squeezed the trigger, not even seeing where it hit before her eyes squinted shut against a deafening blast of flames and smoke. She dropped to her stomach, dust and fine debris raining over her back.

Screams tore through the night, spreading across the compound like a landslide of terror. Quarrah lifted her face to examine her handiwork. A good portion of the roof had been blown off, and the top floor was all aflame.

The Glassmind guard crouched at the base of the building, both hands over her head. The falling debris sloughed to either side of her, blocked by some sort of unseen shield. Probably Barrier Grit, manipulated in a moment’s notice to create a uniquely shaped shield.

“That’s him!” Lomaya screamed from atop the wall, her voice blending with the chaos. It took Quarrah a moment to see who she was talking about. A young man, accompanied by another Glassmind, had just emerged from the back door, his captor pushing him forward frantically. Before Quarrah could even rise, they had disappeared around the corner of the building.

All right, Raek, she thought. They’re coming your way.

But Quarrah wasn’t going to leave him to face the enemy alone. She dropped the crossbow. No point in lugging that thing around without any bolts. Turning over her shoulder, she shouted instructions to Lomaya.

“Jump down! Circle around the outside of the compound and meet us by the front gate!”

Without waiting to see how she’d respond, Quarrah leapt to her feet and sprinted across the barracks roof. Reaching the edge, she twisted, dropping down and catching the eave to break her fall. She braced her feet against the wall and dropped to the packed dirt.

It wasn’t going to be hard to slip past that backdoor Glassmind—Quarrah would just blend in with the people running in every direction. Maybe there was more merit to this bombastic tactic than she’d ever given credit. It was certainly a far cry from her usual leave-no-trace approach.

As Quarrah sped past, she saw the Glassmind woman reaching her arms toward the burning building, manipulating some kind of Grit cloud in an effort to quell the fire. What type could do that? It looked like Gather Grit, Compounded to such an intensity that it was drawing the flames together to a central point, pulling them away from fresh combustibles and choking them out.

If Quarrah was right—if the Glassminds had Gather Grit, then they probably knew about the other types of liquid Grit, too. Sparks, she and Raek would have no advantage over these beings.

Ahead, she saw San Green and his Glassmind escort entering the open dining pavilion. Beyond, the training yard was a jumble of chaos as hundreds of cultists tried to pour out the front gate with no semblance of order.

Quarrah doubled her speed. San wasn’t shackled or tied. If she could pull him away from the Glassmind, they might be able to slip into the throng and escape without a fight.

She caught up to them on the far side of the pavilion. The Glassmind man had paused, one hand gripping the back of San’s neck as if he were a small child in need of discipline. Quarrah couldn’t tell what the man was doing, holding perfectly still, overlooking the confusion in the yard.

She was close enough now that she regretted not having a gun. Her knife seemed sorely insufficient against the muscled figure ahead. She needed something big and blunt. Some way to shatter her foe’s skull before he knew what had hit him.

Quarrah yanked out another bag of Drift Grit and hurled it ahead of her, the detonation filling the aisle between two long tables. She’d judged the distance perfectly, the perimeter of the cloud stopping just behind San and the Glassmind, not tipping them off to her presence.

With a grunt, Quarrah hoisted one of the wooden benches onto her shoulder. She ran forward, trying to gain as much momentum as she could before reaching the cloud.

She hurled the long bench into the Drift detonation, watching it sail forward. Her own momentum sent her tumbling into the cloud behind it, but she managed to grab the edge of a grounded table, steadying herself in time to see the bench find its mark.

It struck the Glassmind in the back of the neck, missing his red skull by mere inches. But the unexpected force was enough to send him toppling forward, losing his grip on his prisoner.

“San!” Quarrah shouted, pulling herself along the edge of the table. “Run!”

The young man looked back at her, confused. Frightened. Then he bolted for the yard. Quarrah exited the Drift cloud and hit the ground running just feet behind him.

Just when she thought they might make it, something grabbed her from behind. She swatted at it, but an invisible force had yanked her off her feet, dragging her back toward the pavilion.

Partway there, she collided with San, a tangle of arms and legs as they squirmed against the power drawing them in. Quarrah saw the Glassmind on his knees, just outside the Drift detonation, hands outstretched to manipulate a cloud of his own.

This was Gather Grit without a doubt. And with seemingly little effort, their enemy was gathering them both back to him.

“I have found the intruder,” she heard the Glassmind say. His strange enhanced voice was calm and controlled, not possibly loud enough for anyone but her and San to hear. “I’ll hold them in the dining area.”

He rose to his full height as Quarrah and San rolled to a halt at his feet. Dizzy and disoriented, she pushed herself up onto her elbows just in time to see a figure sprinting through the pavilion toward them.

It was Raekon Dorrel. He was unarmed, but wearing thick leather gloves, gripping a short iron rod in each hand. His fists seemed to be enclosed in a shimmering orb of Grit.

With one fluid motion, he leapt onto the table, boards bowing under his weight. He sprang forward, entering the Drift cloud with an acrobatic twist. Quarrah kicked the Glassmind in the knee as hard as she could, sending him staggering a step back, falling into the detonation just as Raek passed over his unprotected head.

Raek’s Grit-clad fist came down in a thundering blow, shattering the Glassmind’s skull into a hundred shards. The transformed being lurched awkwardly in the weightless cloud, his glowing red eyes going dark. He floated forward, regaining his weight as he left the perimeter, thudding onto his face between Quarrah and San.

Raek’s momentum carried him out the other side of the Drift cloud and he came down hard, cracking one of the tables in half.

“Sparks,” San Green hissed. “Who are you?”

Firelight from the burning building glinted on the shards of red glass that spun lazily in the Drift cloud. Raek pulled himself up with a grunt and stepped over to them, nudging the dead Glassmind with his foot.

“Come on,” Quarrah said, turning toward the panicked crowd. But she couldn’t run. She couldn’t say anything, staring in speechless shock at what was coming over the front gate.

It was another Glassmind.

And he was flying.

His arms were at his sides, columns of Grit detonations flowing from his downturned palms, reaching all the way to the ground. The people below were scattering, the crowd parting down the middle to make a path for the airborne Glassmind. And those who didn’t move quickly enough were thrown aside.

Of course. He was manipulating the push of Compounded Void Grit to lift himself from the ground. And he was flying right toward them.

“This way!” Raek cried, moving around one of the dining tables and heading east. The three of them exited the pavilion with a clear line of sight to the outer wall.

“Tell me you didn’t toss my crossbow,” Raek said.

“It was useless,” Quarrah replied.

“Not to me,” he said. “That crossbow was my friend. Now we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” He ground to a halt, twenty yards away from the stone wall.

“I need you to get a little keg of Blast Grit out of my pack,” he said.

“Why don’t you get it?” She didn’t see the sense in digging around if he knew right where it was.

Raek held up his gloved, Grit-covered hands. “I might as well have hooves at the moment.”

He turned his back and Quarrah reached into his pack, yanking out the keg he’d used to fill the Grit bolt earlier.

“Throw it at the wall,” Raek instructed her.

“But that’s a storage keg,” San cut in. “It won’t detonate without a Slagstone pin.” His sparsely stubbled face was sweaty, and he looked a bit peaky.

“Ignition Grit, kid,” said Raek. “You know the stuff. There’s a vial of it on my belt.”

Quarrah hurled the keg. It landed a few feet short of the wall, cracking open and spilling its contents as it rolled against the thick stone. She turned back just in time to see San pitch the little vial of liquid Ignition Grit. It struck, creating a flash cloud that ignited the spilled Blast Grit.

The wall exploded, throwing the three of them back with a gush of hot air and a blinding belch of flames. The size of this explosion made the officers’ quarters look like a smoldering cooking fire.

Between the darkness and the smoke, Quarrah couldn’t see how effective it had been. Didn’t really matter anyway. Through the wreckage, the Glassmind was slowly descending.

Quarrah scrambled to Raek’s side, pulling San up along the way. There was blood on the young man’s forehead but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Garifus,” San whispered as the Glassmind’s feet touched down on the blasted soil.

“San, San, San,” the huge man said. He stood in a curtain of dust and smoke, blocking their path to the hole they had surely blasted in the wall. Garifus’s glowing eyes turned to Quarrah, and he tilted his head as though she were a curiosity.

“And your name is Quarrah.” His voice was a hum and a whisper rolled into one. She shivered at the attention.

“You were trapped under a Barrier cloud with a man named Ardor on the night Gloristar killed the king.” Garifus smiled. “Don’t flatter yourself by thinking you made an impression on me. I remember all things. My memory, like the rest of me, is operating at complete perfection.”

“Well, you don’t know me,” Raek grumbled, racing forward and banging his Grit-covered fists together as if priming them for a mighty blow.

Garifus Floc merely stretched out one hand, his fingertips sparking in the darkness. A wall of Barrier Grit streamed from his palm, colliding with Raek so hard, he was thrown backward. The Barrier wall folded downward, becoming a dome that enclosed Quarrah, Raek, and San.

“Oh, you’re going to toy with us?” Raek called, mustering the strength to sit up and spit. The bridge of his nose was cut, and going by the amount of blood streaming down his upper lip, the bone was probably broken. “Let me take you in a fair fight. We’ll see who gets a perfect kill.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Garifus said. “I don’t want to kill anyone. All must have a chance to reach the Homeland. Only then will you be judged.”

“Slag,” Raek moaned. “You’re a blazing lunatic. And I’m getting a whiff of coward coming off your shiny little head.”

Through the thick dust of the broken wall, Quarrah glimpsed movement behind Garifus. She squinted, trying not to make it obvious, since Raek was clearly fighting to keep the Glassmind’s attention.

A significant portion of the wall had crumbled, a U-shaped opening clogged with chunks of stone. Standing on the rubble was Lomaya Vans, Raek’s Roller in her outstretched hand.

She was sighting down the barrel, her elevated position providing the perfect angle for a shot at the back of Garifus’s glass skull.

“Come on!” Raek goaded the man. Or maybe he was shouting to Lomaya. He reached out and punched his orbed fists against their impenetrable prison dome. “Come on!”

Lomaya’s Roller cracked. In the darkness, Quarrah saw a tongue of flames lick the end of the barrel. The moment the gun sounded, Garifus Floc’s hand shot out behind him, fingertips sparking.

A cone-shaped detonation met the Roller ball and Quarrah actually saw the projectile come to a halt in the air not three feet from Garifus’s head. The lead ball spun, suspended in midair as the Glassmind turned toward his shooter. Then he pushed his hand outward.

The ball returned along the same path it had come, speeding so fast that Quarrah didn’t have a chance of seeing it. But she saw where it hit.

Lomaya’s head snapped backward as the metal took her in the forehead, her body crumpling on the rubble of the blasted wall.

Beside her, San Green let out a scream. Raw. Almost tangible with its grief.

Garifus Floc turned to face them once again, his pale blue-gold face wearing an obvious expression of discontentment. “I am the Homeland,” he said. “And the Homeland’s strength lies in perfection. I hope you believe me when I say that I am as disappointed in her loss as you are.”

San Green was sobbing at Quarrah’s side, big gasping breaths that seemed insufficient to deliver air. He shouted something, but it was too inarticulate to decipher through his grief and anger.

Garifus looked past the trapped trio, his red eyes seeming to lose focus for a moment. His stance was oddly detached, similar to the Glassmind that had been holding San at the edge of the pavilion.

“I must go,” he said, eyes regaining focus. “You have made my followers feel unsafe. Some of them are saying that I was killed in the explosion. I cannot allow this rumor to spread among my scattered believers.”

He lowered his arms, palms earthward as his fingertips sparked again. His feet left the ground as columns of Void Grit propelled him upward.

“We shall speak again soon,” Garifus called. “And perhaps I will convince you of the Homeland’s perfection.” Then he angled his body and sped toward the front gate.

In the silence that followed, Quarrah reached out and placed a hand on San’s back. He shrugged it off with a moan of despair.

“You really think he’d leave us unattended like this?” Raek asked. The clouds of Containment Grit around his fists had gone out and he was sliding his hands out of the leather gauntlets.

“I’m guessing another Glassmind is on the way,” she replied quietly. “And we’ve got at least five more minutes before this thing burns out.” Quarrah reached up and knocked on the Barrier dome.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” said Raek. “For all his talk about having a perfect mind, there’s one thing Garifus Floc doesn’t know about us.”

“What’s that?” Quarrah asked, in no mood for Raek to be clever.

“We were friends with the guy who invented Null Grit.” He held up his hand and Quarrah saw a little vial pinched between his fingers. He dashed it against the Barrier cloud, which was immediately snuffed out.

“Come on…” Quarrah pulled a numb San Green to his feet. “This is our best chance of getting out of here, but I need you to run.”

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt—blood, tears, snot. Then he nodded resolutely and the three of them sprinted for the crumbled wall.

Quarrah climbed over the chunks of rubble, coughing at the smoke and dust that lingered from the explosion. She paused only once, reaching down to close the eyes of Lomaya Vans. Quarrah’s stomach turned, and her heart ached in unison with San’s grief-stricken wail.

Then she was running again. Running through the night.

It’s strange to think that everything hinges on trading one life for another. Stranger still that I feel no remorse about it.