Page 12 of Thunder's Reckoning

MIDNIGHT CAME LIKEa held breath finally released.

The house had gone into its nighttime rhythm, doors locked, lights dimmed. The cameras were down; Tallis had promised me that, and I believed him. But the absence of their low hum didn’t feel like freedom, it felt like the moment before a storm breaks.

I’d been counting the seconds since sunset, my palms damp, the filled backpack imagined weight already in my hands.

I dressed quickly in the most comfortable dress I owned, dark fabric that wouldn’t catch, shoes that wouldn’t betray me on stone or dirt.

Zara was asleep when I touched her shoulder, but her eyes opened at once. No tears. No questions. Just her hand slipping into mine like she’d been waiting.

“Quiet now,” I whispered, and she nodded, still heavy with dreams.

Malik was awake. Sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed. I had whispered the plan to him in a private moment before bed. I knew in my heart he could be trusted not to tell.

“How long do we have?” he murmured.

“Enough,” I said.

His gaze searched mine. “Tallis is sure?”

“Yes.”

That one word would have to be enough for him.

We moved quickly but not loud, the way you learn to move in a place where sound can draw worse than eyes.

The nursery hall stretched ahead, lit by low amber lights. Our shadows moved before us, long and distorted, touching the far wall before we reached it.

The servant stairs were narrow and steep. They groaned under our weight, but the absence of the camera hum made it feel like every sound carried twice as far. I stumbled on the second-to-last step, and Malik leaned into me, catching us before we fell, my hand over her mouth until she nodded she was fine.

At the bottom, we paused. Voices floated faintly from somewhere toward the front of the house—shouts, sharp and muffled by distance. Tallis’s diversion.

“This way,” I breathed, and we slipped into the east corridor.

The backpack was where Tallis said it would be, behind the last panel before the garden door. I pulled it free. Cash, a burner phone, keys cold and heavy in my hand.

I had my hand on the garden door latch when I heard it—footsteps. Slow. Measured. Coming from the far end of the corridor.

I pulled the children back into the alcove by the panel, pressing them against the wall, my body curved in front of theirs.

The steps drew closer, steady, unhurried. My pulse pounded in my ears. Zara clung to my skirt. Malik’s hand tightened on my arm, not in fear, but in warning, ready to move if I did.

The guard passed the corridor entrance without looking in, his focus fixed on the shouting still drifting from to the directionof Tallis’s diversion. The moment his steps faded, I pushed the garden door open.

Cool night air rushed in, smelling faintly of wet grass and the metallic tang of the fountain. We slipped outside, keeping low along the hedge line.

At the far end of the garden, the wall loomed. The section near the old cypress tree was unlatched just as Tallis had promised. I pushed it open with my shoulder while holding Zara’s hand in one palm and the backpack in the other.

Beyond the wall, the dirt road was a dark ribbon between the trees. The car waited where he said it would, shadowed under the overhang of branches.

I pushed it first—silent but heavy—but thankfully it was downhill, the gravel grinding under my shoes. My arms ached, my breath came hard, but we didn’t stop until the wall was nothing but a shadow behind us.

I slid into the driver’s seat, fumbling with the keys. Malik pulled Zara into the back.

“Do you even know where we’re going?” he asked, his voice steady but low.

“Away.” I kept my eyes on the ignition.

“Far enough?”