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I land on the packed earth of the townhome’s courtyard with as much grace as if I had fallen from the sky.

The wind is knocked from me. My head reels.

Silas made using his card look seamless, but now I know there’s a learning curve to it.

I double over, retching. Not sure if it’s from the teleportation or from the feeling of the guards’ hands on me, trying to force me back to Halazar.

I’ll die before I go back there, I think as I wipe my lips with the back of my hand, heart still pounding but mouth set in a determined line.

“Everyone. Lounge. Now!” I throw open the back door and shout, praying they’re back. That they didn’t encounter any issues.

Feet pound the stairs. The floor above me rattles. I’m pacing in front of the now-dark fireplace as they enter.

“Clara?” Jura gasps softly, taking in my haggard form. I heave a sigh of relief, my hard exterior momentarily cracking as they all appear, still with makeup crusted on their faces from our deception at the ball.

“How did you—” Gregor begins to say.

“What?” Ren speaks at the same time.

“What happened?” Bristara cuts through the rest of them much like her sharp eyes piercing the night.

There’s worry and fear in that stare. But enough compassion that I almost crumple like a child, desperately searching for the embrace of a mother long gone.

For someone to hold me and tell me it’ll all be all right.

But there’s no time to fall into selfish comfort.

Not when time is running out for all of us.

“They know.” So much is encompassed in those two words: They know I’m a Major.

They know I’m the one who escaped Halazar.

They know I’m done being their puppet on strings.

Judging from the horror that creeps across Bristara’s face, relaxing all the small muscles and smoothing out the hard lines at the corners of her mouth, she understands.

“We’re leaving through the mountains tonight,” she announces. “Gather what you can.”

Everyone springs into motion. Not one question is asked. Save for Jura’s: “Fresh clothes?”

“Please.” My feet move on their own while my mind is a city away, back in the dark halls of Arcana Academy.

Kaelis… He told me not to run. He was right, I knew he was.

But what else could I have done? It’s over now, isn’t it?

Our sham of an engagement. My time at the academy.

Probably us working together—what we had…

whatever it really was. Kaelis and my indulgences should be the last of my worries right now, but my mind returns to them with every step.

I press my hand into my corset as we begin to ascend the stairs, feeling the Death card where it’s still safe against my ribs.

He won’t uncover my treachery until I’m long gone. Then we will truly be enemies.

I halt, mid-step.

There’s someone else in those dark halls of the academy. Someone who Ravin now knows has been helping me.

“Silas,” I whisper. Jura turns. I look over my own shoulder, back to Bristara. “I escaped because of him; Ravin and Kaelis both know it.” I don’t know what Ravin will do to him, but I know it won’t be good.

“Clara—”

“I can’t leave him behind,” I interrupt, already hearing the mix of warning and scolding in her tone. “Not after all he did to help us.” I promised I wouldn’t let harm come to him.

“You can’t go back there.” Bristara takes another step and, with her height, we’re eye to eye even though I’m higher on the stairs. “If you do, they will never let you leave again.”

“They’ll have to find and catch me first, and I’ve had a year to learn the hidden and forgotten passages of the fortress. I only need to make it in and to Silas. He’ll get us out.”

Bristara opens her mouth to speak, but I watch the determination evaporate from her face and turn into frustration. “Your mind is set, isn’t it?”

“Unequivocally.”

“Go, then. As fast as your feet can carry you. There’s no time to waste on argument.”

“You’ll move faster in trousers.” Jura stops me before I can bolt down the stairs. I’m forced to agree.

I don’t waste time fully changing out of my dress.

There are too many laces to bother, and I don’t want to risk the Death card leaving my person.

I slide on a sleek pair of black trousers and then take a knife to the skirts just underneath where they seam into the corset, cutting and ripping them loose.

I tear free the remnants of my lace sleeves right before Jura hands me a loose shirt and slips a hooded cloak over my shoulders.

She fastens it at my neck, and I slip my arms through the slits to keep it on me during what I know will be a sprint.

“We lost you once, Clara.” Her eyes meet mine. “Don’t let us lose you again.”

“I won’t,” I vow.

Her fingers tremble. I catch them before they fall and yank her to me. Our arms tighten around each other in a breathless embrace.

“Lavender scones,” I whisper into her ear. “That’s what I want when we’re all in whatever safe place is next.”

“Be there to eat them.”

“I will. Till then, don’t weep for an empty coffin.”

She says the last part in time with me as I release her.

I don’t waste another second. I’m down the stairs, nearly out the door, when Bristara stops me by calling my name.

She stands by the wall of the stairs, a secret door unhinged.

I hadn’t even noticed the seams in the paneling of the wood under the stairs.

“You’ll have an hour, no more. Then this whole place is going down.

” There’s a spark in her eyes that promises to become flames that will soon engulf the townhome.

For a second, the errant notion that she might have been the one to destroy the club races through my mind.

But I banish it. Bristara wouldn’t have had a reason then.

At least, not one that I can think of…“We can’t risk being found, not when this passage directly connects to the tunnels underneath and out of the city. ”

I’ve seen this before. A woman, standing by a secret door underneath the stairs.

The notion almost has me staggering. It’s not Bristara, but Mother.

Arina, just a babe, is in her arms. We must go, she whispers, your father will come soon.

We can’t let him find us. I was small, barely more than a toddler.

Be strong for me, Clara. This is all nothing more than a bad dream.

“Was this my old home?” I whisper.

Bristara’s eyes go wide.

The papers that were in the pocket of the skirts I just cut off—papers I entrusted to Jura.

The High Lady of Clan Tower was the one to request my mother’s death.

The symbol of Clan Tower in the room Twino had made into his workshop.

You don’t know of any other homes abandoned by noble clans we can take over, do you? Jura had said of this place.

No…no, it can’t be. An image begins to form in my mind. A history from before my memories. The money was gone. Mother had left the comfort of it. Father “abandoned” us. But, what if it was the other way around? What if it wasn’t because my father didn’t care, but because of the people around him?

“My name, the one Mother told us never to say, Cheval—”

“Never, never say your real name,” Bristara cuts me off with a growl, evoking all the force Mother wielded whenever she impressed upon us the importance of secrecy about our name. Now that secrecy takes on new meaning. A reason why she’d fight so hard to hide it.

“Am I a Clan Tower bastard?” The horrible question slips out without a thought.

Bristara closes the gap between us, grabbing my arm. “Don’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answers to.”

But I want the answers. I want all of them.

Mother never spoke of Father; is this why?

Bristara said she was never that close to Mother, but did she know my father and that’s how she got this place?

Was it because of him—because of my mother’s association with him, and his with Arina’s and my existence—that she was murdered?

I’ve a hundred more questions, but they lodge in my throat, refusing to release. Because…

“I don’t fucking have time for this.” I wrench my arm from Bristara’s grasp, shooting her a glare. The anger might be misplaced. I don’t know. But it’s overflowing. “When I’m back—when we’re all safe—tell me everything. Worldkeepers. Mother. My bloodline. Everything you know. No more secrets.”

“No more secrets.” Bristara means it when she says it. With a noise of frustration, I start for the front door. “An hour, Clara.”

“I won’t even need that long.” I shut the door behind me, adjust my hood, and begin to run through the city.

I run like the enforcers are on my tail. Like all of Halazar’s guards are a pack of wolves that have my scent. I run through the streets that I’ve known since I was a girl. All too familiar. Painfully so now.

Was this my home?

What would’ve been my life, were it not for the machinations of Clan Tower and the crown they serve?

My nails dig crescents into my palms, and I run faster, nothing more than a blur in the night.

I follow in Arina’s footsteps, in my mother’s…

in the footsteps of countless people who I’m sure came before me.

People who also wanted to scream at the cruelty of it all.

At how the whole world feels like a powder mill and we are the ingredients, hammered constantly into dust by an unseen hand that perpetually looms above us.

I run until I reach the ruined entry to the passageway at the end of the bridge.

One hand on my side, the other supporting me on a piece of rubble, I hunch over, nearly retching for a second time.

I’m burning from the inside out. Everything in me is screaming.

But I’m silent other than my ragged breaths.

I stare at the academy looming on the horizon, a blackened silhouette against a dark sky.

Underneath my palm, the Death card remains. Like a promise and a threat.