In ten years of Void smuggling, Fi had her fair share of jobs gone wrong. How to describe that feeling, the moment beforedisaster hit? That hot prickle down her arms. The churn of adrenaline in her gut. Like the instinct of an animal caught before a storm, when the wind began to rustle, too late to run for shelter.
That explosion didn’t come from the governor’s office. It was toobigfor a safe, to have shaken the windows where Fi stood. Her ears perked at a sound like crumbling mortar.
Milana and Erik. Those lichen-mouthed liars. This wasn’t about a safe, it was—
A second explosion threw Fi off her feet.
She hit the floor on knees and elbows, curling into a ball as dust and snow billowed in from the courtyard, a cacophony of percussion and stone drowning out everything around her.
Her ears rang as the dust settled.
Moaning, Fi uncurled, hair a snarl of Void and rainbow, face…stinging. Shards of glass coated the floor, the windows shattered. Her silviamesh saved her from the deluge, but shrapnel ripped the sleeves of her robe and left a cut down her jaw. Overhead, the ceiling groaned.
Then a crack.
“Oh, f—”
Fi lurched to her feet. Her vision spun as she stumbled across the room. Ears still ringing as stone scraped above her. She dove into the hallway seconds before a chunk of ceiling broke loose, crashing to the floor in a spray of rubble and snuffed candles.
More cracks split the walls.
She didn’t have time to think. Barely time to catch her breath on the dust-choked air.
With a hearty middle finger to Milana and Erik andeverything about this, she hurtled into the halls of the capitol, intent on getting the fuck out of here.
The building was chaos. A flood of well-dressed administratorsand secretaries surged out of offices and into hallways. Guards in midnight uniforms hurried people toward exits, their shouted directions scarcely audible above the din. Distracted by their own urgency, none bothered Fi with a second glance.
This was no minor explosion. No petty theft. It was a focused attack, and Fi didn’t knowwhy. Buildings weren’t supposed to explode in territories ruled by daeyari, the hard hands of the immortals enough to deter even the bitterest whiffs of insurrection.
Fi pushed counter to the crowd, retracing her path back to the Curtain she’d cut. Milana’s route had been labyrinthine, avoiding points of heavier traffic, but Fi could memorize spatial layouts in her sleep. Otherwise, she’d have lost herself in the Void years ago.
She ran into the final hallway, in sight of the storage room she’d entered through. No sign of Milana or Erik. They’d told her to meet them in the reflection hall, but if they had any sense, they’d either find their own exit from the crumbling building, or get to the Curtain.
MaybeFi would be charitable and wait an extra minute for them. More than they deserved—and only for the chance to snarl at them herself. If she spotted a hint of this roof coming down, she’d book it through that Curtain with or without—
A third explosion went off. Directly above her.
The force shattered windows, throwing Fi against a wall. By the time her head stopped spinning, rubble blocked her path to the Curtain. A heinouscracksounded as a fissure spread across the ceiling.
Fi clawed into her pockets and yanked out her transport stone.
The polished carnelian was cool in her palm, the spiral shape of a fossilized shell: a Shard ammonite. Little extra-Planarorganisms capable of dematerialization. As the ceiling groaned, Fi cracked the stone in two, a seam pre-cut down the middle. The halves pulled to each other like magnets, eager to rejoin. She hurled one half out a broken window.
The second half, she clutched for dear life. As the ceiling gave way, Fi closed her eyes, palm sizzling as she Shaped energy into the stone.
Hot static shuddered over her skin, stabbing through muscle, through bone. Fi clenched her teeth against the liquifying sensation. A lurch sent her off her feet.
Then she was stumbling. Outside.
Fi careened off balance, skinning her hands as she caught herself on the flagstone of the plaza, hunched over where the thrown half of her transport stone had clattered to a halt. She shook, stomach reeling, skin like a swarm of ants. Human bodies weren’t made for dematerialization, but she could survive a jump or two before any organs started melting.
Stone thundered behind her. Fi rolled to face the capitol building, eyes wide as the entire west wing collapsed in a plume of dust. She drew an arm across her face, shielding her eyes as the pulse hit. Mortar struck her arms. The air turned thick as chalk.
Then, an eerie quiet as stone began to settle.
Fi blinked at her surroundings, trying to make sense of silhouettes in the dust, voices shouting across the plaza. How much of the capitol went down?
How manypeoplewere in there?
