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Thorn ducked beneath his flailing limbs, dodged another guard’s swinging fist. A hand grabbed her sleeve. Thorn spun around, snarling, her vision blazing an angry red.

She kicked the guard who had grabbed her, right in the soft part of his left thigh. He dropped her, howling. Thorn kicked him again—his left knee—and again, in the same spot, and then, when he reached for her, unsteady, his gloved hand comingright at her face, she shoved the heel of her hand hard at his nose.

Something on the guard’s face gave way with a sickeningcrunch, like tree bark snapping in two.

Thorn ran. Boots pounded the stone floor, chasing her. She heard Quicksilver shout, “Take that, you brute!” and something heavy drop to the floor.

A fallen guard, Thorn hoped.

Would the guards outnumber and overwhelm her? Would they punish Quicksilver for tricking them?

Doesn’t matter,murmured the shell around her bones.Keep going.

Brier and Zaf.

Zaf and Brier.

Thorn raced through the winding dungeon hallways, her new strong bones swinging her arms faster, her new muscles pumping her legs harder. In her mind’s eye, she was a girl of sleek black enamel, pounding through Castle Stratiara like a storm.

A guard bolted out of a doorway; Thorn dodged his hands. Another guard jumped down a set of stairs and lunged for Thorn. She darted past him, kept running. Slamming footfalls chased her down the narrow stone hallway. Locked cell doors lined the walls.

Where was Noro? She didn’t dare call for him. The guards couldn’t know what she was doing. Let them think she was trying to escape and run home.

She faked a pathetic-sounding scream.

Let them think she was afraid of them.

Up a narrow set of stone stairs, then out into a wider hallway lined with arched windows. Beyond the windows to her right was a courtyard choked with flowers.

Suddenly Thorn had an idea.

She hurried into the courtyard, toward a clump of wisteria vines. Mistbirds watched curiously from the trees. The sound of boot steps—close,closer—drummed against Thorn’s mind. She closed her eyes, thought of Noro, held her breath. Then, just as she’d watched Brier do so many times, Thorn dragged her finger along the purple blooms.

Silence, of course, to Thorn’s ears.

But her ears weren’t the ones that mattered.

A distant crash erupted, followed by shouts, screams, running boots, shattering glass.

Three guards burst into the courtyard, trampling a clump of tiny white snowbells. One raised his sword. The others dove for Thorn.

“Now, girl, justhold stillfor one storming minute,” one of them growled.

Thorn spun on her heel and fled back into the hallway, listening hard. Flowers framed every window, spilled out of stone pots perched at every doorway.

She raced down two hallways, then a third, then up a set of blue-carpeted stairs, and then, at last, Thorn rounded a corner and slammed right into Noro, who’d kept his hooves silent as still air.

She stretched up on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed her cheek against his matted mane. Snapped chains and frayed ropes clung to his body. Bright red sores marked his coat, some gleaming with silver-streaked red blood.

Thorn swallowed hard. She’d never seen Noro bleed before. She hadn’t known Norocouldbleed.

“I didn’t know where they’d taken you,” she whispered.

Noro nudged her shoulder. “Not even royal chains can keep me from you, Thorn of the Vale. Up you go.”

Thorn scrambled onto his back, hissing in pain when her legs touched his belly. Running footsteps approached from every shadowed hallway. Bells began chiming from the castle towers,fast and loud. Warning bells. Bells to wake up every soldier in Aeria.

Noro galloped west. “Shall we go into the mountains? We can hide out there, find help—”