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‘I will hold the line,’ she said. ‘Get away.’

‘No. Witness the price of a shattered oath,’ Kornephoros said. ‘I cannot kill you. That pleasure is reserved for the Suzerain. But what happens next is on your head, Underqueen.’

His shadow fell across us both. Terebell threw me out of his reach, almost off the edge of the floor. I turned around in time to see the club arc down.

I heard the crunch of Rephaite bone, which should have been unbreakable.

My blood roared in my ears; my vision blurred. I was rooted to the spot, unable to look away, or to breathe, as Kornephoros laid into Terebell. The club rose and came down, over and over.

No.

Now Lucida charged into the fray. She tried to wrest the club from Kornephoros, but she was outflanked and poorly armed, as the Ranthen always were. Kornephoros seized her arm, and she let out a high-pitched keen as his power entered her bones, flooding her with agony.

Terebell somehow lifted her face. Tears stung my eyes as our gazes met.

‘Get up,’ I whispered.

She was a healer. Surely she could mend her own bones. At least, that was what I believed, in that final moment of denial, when I thought Terebell Sheratan would find her strength and rise.

‘Go,’ she said to me, her voice barely there. ‘End this for me, Paige.’

Her gaze strayed towards Arcturus, right as Kornephoros brought the club down on her skull.

My entire body was numb.

Kornephoros threw her broken form into the hypogeum. His club dripped with her ectoplasm. I pushed myself backwards, face soaked, chest heaving. The telltale cold stole over my skin as Gomeisa prepared to lift me again. He would take me away to be executed.

You will only have moments to break his line of sight.

There was nothing for it. I turned and jumped into the pit.

A lifetime seemed to pass before I hit the ground. My old instincts kicked in, and I rolled to soften the landing. Even then, pain flared in my heels, sharp on the right. A fall from that height could have broken my legs, but even if they shook as I got up again, they held.

I had eluded Gomeisa, but now I was among the hungry Buzzers. The hypogeum rang with their screams. I limped along its main passage, following a trail of ectoplasm. Terebell was being pulled far away, out of the ruins, preoccupying the Buzzers. That was the only reason I wasn’t dead.

Down here, I might as well have been wading through deep water. Even if I hadn’t been injured, I would have been slower than usual, and the Buzzers were already on to me. More than one ofthem was on fire, making unearthly sounds. A scythe raked across my back, then another, but I hardly felt it, even when the cold hit my wounds, because Arcturus was suddenly there, scooping me up with one arm.

He had come for me.

‘Arcturus,’ I gasped out, ‘she’s gone. The Buzzers—’

‘Did they hurt you?’

I nodded, light-headed from the pain, the exhaustion. We backed away from the creatures, but their presence was overpowering.

‘I will hold them off while you climb,’ Arcturus said. ‘You must go quickly, before the wounds incapacitate you.’

‘No.’

‘Paige—’

‘I amnotgoing without you.’ My throat burned. ‘I’d rather die right here.’

Now the Buzzers were surrounding us. I pushed them back with a surge of pressure. Before I knew it, the swarm was too thick for us to penetrate, blocking our way to the walls. I looked at the darkening sky, which seemed impossibly far away, down here in the pit. I was sure I could see those strange lights again, forming a crown over the Colosseum.

Arcturus took the Buzzers in. I stared up at him, hoping against hope that he might have a plan.

‘I will not leave you,’ he said, his voice soft. ‘Forgive me, little dreamer.’