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“Are you hurt?”

All over, I thought. “My arm.”

“You’re bleeding.”

I could feel that, too. The warm, slow drip from jaw to collarbone. Blood flowing from a cut on my cheek. I thought my arm might be broken.

I turned my face inward again and hoped Theo would carry me for longer.Take me away, I thought.Take me anywhere.I was sickeningly dizzy. I wanted to go home. Home to Scurry.

“Can you stand?” He didn’t await an answer. Gingerly, my feet were guided to the ground, and the rest of me quickly followed, crumpling there on the warm cobbles.

“Whoa!” Theo said, his hands on my shoulder, my wrist. “Just sit. Catch your breath.”

I blinked furiously until the vision before me solidified into one unfractured picture. The Academy in pieces, its roof inverted, fire scampering among the heap and consuming morsels. Artisans everywhere. Bleeding. Crying. Working to unbury the buried. Injured Masons struggled to free people from all that stone.

“Aunt Francis—”

“You can’t help her,” Theo said brokenly, leaning in to fill my vision. “I’m sorry. I tried to get her out, but…” Here his words failed him. “She’s gone.”

I knew already. I had meant to say,Aunt Francis is dead. My lips shook. My chest heaved.

“We need to go somewhere safe. The Union might attack again,” he said, panicked.

A cold, cruel dread swept through me.

“We’ll go to the House of Lords,” Theo gripped my chin, commanding me to focus with a pleading look. “My father will help us. Helpyou. Nina.Nina?”

But the House of Lords intended to hide me away, to keep me safely locked up until they needed a weapon. The very same Lords who had bid us to stay, to ignore the warnings.

I’d be a fool not to ensure I have all my knives sharpened.

“We need to hurry,” Theo said, eyes darting around the dust. “Let’s leave. Now.”

To the House of Lords. To Lord Tanner. To be those knives they wanted us to be.

An earth Charmer is quite a valuable thing.

You would do what is necessary, would you not?

You’ve got a mind of your own. Don’t let those fuckers take it.

“Come on,” Theo said, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll carry you.”

“No. Wait.”

“My father will know what to do—”

“I can’t,” I shook my head, and the world spun. “I won’t.”

A pause, and then: “What?”

“I can’t go to the House,” I said. “I…” People around us screamed and wept, and I thought,This is what it is to bury people alive. Then I thought,This is what they’ll ask of you. To bury the Union in return. Bury the Crafters. Bury the brink.

I couldn’t.

Lord. I couldn’t.

“We should run.”