ALUNA LOOKED AT CALLI, uncertain what she’d heard.

“You’re helping me?”

Calli nodded, her face pale, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I want you to want to stay, but you don’t. Does that make any sense? If you go now, no one will blame the high senator and no one will blame me. It’s the perfect chance.”

For the first time, Aluna saw a hint of President Iolanthe’s power and charisma deep in Calli’s eyes.

“But what about your mother’s safety?”

“She’ll be surrounded by senators,” Calli said quickly. “And directing our forces. And screaming at people. And cursing her inability to get out there and fight herself.”

Aluna nodded. Her father would have been the same way.

“So where do we go? Your water and waste must be funneled somewhere. It sounds gross, but maybe we can find one of those chutes and follow it.”

“No, all of our water and sewage is recycled,” Calli said. She took a step and collapsed. She would have fallen to her knees if Aluna hadn’t caught her. “This way,” she said, brushing the tears away from her eyes. “There’s a secret tunnel under the palace that leads to an old escape passage. It goes all the way down to the bottom of the mountain. They installed it all after my mother lost her wing.”

Calli had never mentioned the passage before, not in all of their discussions about her escape. But she was mentioning it now, and that had to be good enough.

“Now is not the time for stiff wings,” Calli said. “Let’s go!”

Aluna nodded and helped Calli hobble down the corridor. Twice they hid in alcoves — Aluna’s sweaty back pressed against cool stone — as messengers ran by. And still, the alarms screamed and screeched, adding to the growing chaos.

“A few more passages,” Calli said, huffing. The girl winced with each step. Aluna shifted her shoulder to take more of her weight.

“Hoku!” Aluna said suddenly. “We need to go back!”

“We’d never make it,” Calli said. “We’ll find another way to get him out. Hoku is smart. I am, too. We’ll find a way.”

Aluna closed her eyes and nodded. Calli was right. She could help Hoku more from the outside, even if it meant raising an army of Kampii to come rescue him. The Aviars were fierce but honorable. They’d treat him fairly. Still, her stomach clenched at the thought of leaving him behind.

They rounded the last corner and heard metal clank against metal. Senator Niobe stood in the hallway, struggling with an Upgrader who had clearly emerged from the hidden door in the wall. At first, Aluna thought the man was a Human. Then she caught the glint of metal where his eyes should have been. Instead of fingers on his right hand, five thin metal blades dripped a mixture of blood and green fluid. Niobe had the man’s wrists gripped in her hands and was trying to fend him off. Four parallel cuts in her shoulder told Aluna that she’d already been hit . . . and possibly poisoned.

“The passage is already open. You can make it out,” Calli whispered. “Now, while they’re both fighting!”

Escaping was the right thing to do. Aluna’s people needed her. The Aviars weren’t her people; they were her captors. She owed them nothing. If she didn’t leave now, she might never get another chance.

The Upgrader’s bladed hand inched closer to Senator Niobe’s face. The Aviar gritted her teeth as she struggled to keep its poison tips away from her eyes.

Aluna edged toward the passage. Neither Niobe nor the Upgrader appeared to notice her. She kept her body low and crept steadily along the wall. And it was from that vantage point that she saw the needles coming out of the Upgrader’s boot. One swift kick and he’d pump vile green fluid into the senator’s body.

She was almost there. A crisp breeze blew out from the open passage, promising fresh air and sunlight and freedom. Focus, she told herself. Keep your head in the hunt.

The Upgrader pulled back his foot to kick.

Instead of diving for the passage, Aluna dropped onto her back and kicked her own legs out in front of her. She trapped the Upgrader’s swinging leg between her own, like using a crab’s claws to trap a fish. Her legs were thick and strong from a lifetime of swimming. Despite his size, he couldn’t budge his leg.

Aluna couldn’t watch Niobe die, not when she had the power to save her.

With the Upgrader suddenly off balance, Niobe swung both his wrists to the left. Together, they swept him off his feet. Aluna kept her eyes on the needles sticking out of his foot. One wrong move and she’d get whatever venom they held. Niobe slammed her knee into the man’s chest, but couldn’t afford to let go of his wrists.

Aluna grunted, trying to break the man’s leg between her own. “Break,” she said. “Break!” But his leg wouldn’t snap. Was it even made of bone and flesh?

“Surrender!” Niobe screamed, but the man continued fighting.

The sound of metal thwacking bone pierced the cacophony of battle noise, and the Upgrader’s body fell limp.

“It’s over, child,” Niobe said, her breath coming hard and fast. The senator untangled herself from the Upgrader and stood up, pressing her right hand against the gashes in her shoulder. “The boy took care of him.”

“The boy?” Aluna untangled her legs from the Upgrader’s and sat up. Hoku stood by the man’s head, shaking. He held a dented metal lantern in his hand. A lantern he’d clearly used to bludgeon the Upgrader’s skull. As she watched, the lantern fell from his hand and clanked to the floor.

Hoku’s voice cracked. “Is he . . . ?”

“Unconscious,” Niobe said. “Good work, boy, even though I told you to stay in your room.”

Hoku looked pale as a milkfish. Aluna opened her mouth to tell him it was okay, to tell him he’d just done what needed to be done for their survival, but she didn’t get a chance. Before she could speak, Calli hobbled into his arms.

“You saved us,” Calli said. She hugged him and kissed his cheek.

And Hoku kissed her back.