JAMES AND I drew our weapons.
We moved back-to-back, both of us with our blades in guard position.
“I see seven,” James said.
“Five on my side.” Twelve total. A good challenge—if we’d both been perfectly healthy.
The mirrors on the upper-story wall made the space seem bigger, more crowded, but if I could keep the mirrors in my sight, they’d help me keep track of everyone else. We should have put the skylight between us and the door to begin with, now that I thought of it.
Too late now.
The Nightmare woman snapped and her men were on us at once.
A man with a rusted pipe reached me first, pulling back to bash me over the head. But my sword had a longer reach, and I nicked him across the exposed underside of his forearm. Blood soaked through his tattered shirt in seconds, but he didn’t back off.
I cut again, this time aiming for his ribs as the pipe came toward my head. The shirt split, and the skin beneath, but I had to duck aside to keep from getting hit.
The pipe crashed down where I’d been. I shoved him aside and sliced open his fingers so he couldn’t grip his weapon anymore, but by that time two others had reached me.
I pressed my back against James’s, taking only a second to check the mirror for his progress. He was holding his own against three men with knives, but more were closing in on him.
Then a sword swung toward my head. I blocked and shoved it up and back, my cracked rib screaming with the strain. The man staggered back and I kicked him square in the stomach as I turned my blade toward the other man, this one with a length of chain.
I scraped the tip of my sword across his chest, but I was too slow and off-balance to keep from getting smacked in the shoulder. I stumbled, caught myself in a crouch, and flicked my sword out to cut across his thigh. He yelled and staggered back.
The fighting went on, James and I keeping our backs together and the skylight at our sides; that way we had two safe sides—at least until the Nightmares brought out crossbows or blow darts.
I knocked down another man, slashed across one’s stomach, and slipped back into guard position as they began to regroup. Even the injured ones got back up, like the bleeding wounds hardly bothered them.
“We have to get out of here,” James said behind me. I checked the mirror: he matched my position, waiting for the Nightmares to rush him.
“Think they’ll give us a few minutes to climb down if we ask nicely?” I shook off the sarcasm. “We’re not leaving without stopping him.”
“And how do you propose we do that?” James grunted and one of the Nightmares began getting creative with names.
When one came at me again, I shifted and cut and kicked, my whole body screaming with the movement—and glass shattered. Everyone, even the Nightmare leader, paused to watch as a man fell through the skylight and disappeared into the building.
He was going to die.
I knew it.
There was no way he could survive a five-story fall. Definitely not when there were so many things to break himself on. The vats. Catwalks. Platforms. Other people.
I didn’t have time for guilt. More Nightmares emerged from the rooftop doorway, and if we’d been in trouble before, now it seemed even less likely we’d make it home. Maybe we should have just let the Indigo Order handle this and risk Father learning my secrets.
But that would give Mother another reason to hate James, and Father an excuse to send him away. I would not lose James.
“Light a fuse.” I shifted so James was between the skylight and me.
Now I had several more sides to guard, against several more people, but I cut and kicked and found one of the firebomb vials in my pocket. I hurled it into the mass of Nightmares coming onto the roof.
The vial exploded.
Light and crashing and glass erupted, knocking down several men, as well as the woman commanding them. My ears rang as all sounds muted. Tears obscured my light-blinded vision. I rocked on my heels, unable to see more than vague shapes in a depthless field of white.
Gradually, sight and hearing returned, but there was no time to just wait for it. I gripped my sword and started toward the nearest shadow of a Nightmare. It looked like he was trying to get off the ground, but there was red smeared across his face.
Then, smoke exploded across the rooftop, clouding around the Nightmares and clotting in my throat so I couldn’t breathe. I coughed and gagged, staggering at the disorientation. My head felt light. Confused.
“This way!” James grabbed my arm, making me jump, but his grip was solid and sure as he yanked me out of the way. “Try to run!”
We moved around the smoke as best we could. My throat and eyes stung as we hurried toward the door—but someone cut us off. Another Nightmare. I struck out with my sword, slashing him across the nose. When he screamed and doubled over to cup his bleeding face, James shoved him toward the smoke and chaos.
“In here.” James dragged me into the sixth story of the building.
The air was clearer here. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and followed James down the narrow, metal stairs that rang with our footsteps. “Don’t look directly at the firebombs when you throw them,” I said. “In case you were wondering.”
“How have you been doing this without me?” he muttered. Or at least, it sounded like he was muttering. My ears continued to ring at a headache-inducing pitch.
I gripped the rail with my free hand as we hurried down the stairs. After the first flight, my vision returned to normal, and by the second flight, I could clearly hear the hum of machinery, the clang of boots hitting metal, and voices shouting instructions to kill the intruders.
There were men above, coming down the stairs after us. And there were men racing up the stairs. We had perhaps two minutes before they reached us.
We were trapped. There was no getting to the ground floor from here.
A quick scan of our surroundings revealed the catwalks that stretched over the giant vats. The nearest catwalk was five strides away, with guardrails at waist level. It would be a long jump. Below us waited a huge, bubbling vat of firefly. Heat and wraith stink rose off the pearlescent liquid. Fumes. Could one fall to the effects of firefly just from the fumes?
Well, there weren’t any better options.
I sheathed my sword and climbed onto the stair rail. “James.”
He glanced over his shoulder and ran back to meet me. Of course, he immediately knew what I planned. “This is insane.”
The men were closing in. “Insane is all we’ve got.”
“It’s that or beheading.” James sheathed his sword and followed me onto the rail. Old metal creaked as he found his footing and glanced at me. “Go together?”
“Let’s do it.” I kept my eyes on the guardrail on the catwalk.
Footfalls clanged down the stairs as our pursuers gained on us.
“On three.” James threw one of his firebombs up, toward the men coming down the stairs, then pulled himself into a tight crouch; I crouched, too. “One. Two. Three—”
We jumped.
The firefly boiled below. Shouts sounded from behind. The firebomb exploded, making the air rumble around us.
James hit the guardrail first. He grabbed it and hung on.
I hit second. Lower. My hands slipped on the smooth floor of the catwalk. My cracked rib burned as I tried to pull myself up—at least enough to grab the lower rail.
It was no use. I couldn’t do it. Not right now. The heat from the firefly vats was smothering, making my hands slick with sweat.
I dug my fingertips into the metal.
“Tobiah!” James scrambled above me, boots scraping onto the floor. When he was secure, he reached for me.
Before I slipped again, I grabbed James’s hand and squeezed as he hauled me up enough that I could take hold of the rail.
I wanted to pause and catch my breath, but several of our pursuers had come even with us on the stairs. James and I tumbled onto the catwalk, picked a direction, and ran.
The firebomb he’d thrown had done its work. The skeletal stair was in tatters above, with metal blackened and torn, and lengths of the rail dripping toward the firefly below. A chunk fell in, splashing the bottom of our catwalk; the metal sizzled.
“Sounds bad.” James glanced over his shoulder to make sure I was keeping up. “Look for more stairs.”
As if I wasn’t already.
But the whole place was a mess of wiry catwalks and platforms, metal rods and gunk-smeared windows. It was hard to see anything potentially useful, but there had to be more stairs somewhere.
My boots pounded on the steel catwalk as I followed James around a blind corner, blocked by a mess of support beams.
A tall, tattooed figure dropped onto the catwalk ahead. The Nightmare woman grabbed James before he could pull his sword. She whipped him around and pressed a dagger to his throat.
Before I could react, another person dropped behind me, hitting the catwalk with an awful thud. I reached over my shoulder for my sword, but the man—he was taller than me, so likely a man—caught my hand and elbow, wrenched them back, and shoved everything forward.
My shoulder gave an agonizing pop and my whole arm went numb.