“Lottie!” August fell to his knees beside her.
Felix’s eyes widened, and a sour taste crept into his mouth as he stared at the windwielder. Sean was a regular at the pub and one of Marlow’s friends from Hatha House.
He just saved Felix’s life.
The boy gave him a small nod and a sharp grin, then turned and headed back into the fray.
Felix looked down at the growing puddle of blood beneath the youngest aesling. Guilt climbed his throat, and for a second, he was sure he’d be sick.
No, she was one ofthem. She attacked him.
He forced his gaze away.
A wall of City Watch stormed into the market square, clad in sleek black instead of the usual grey.
Not City Watch, he realized. Ministry. It made sense they’d be sent in. He should have expected it. But even with their trainingin subduing wielders, the ministry didn’t stand a chance. They were outnumbered and vastly out-powered.
A large man barreled toward the line, and an officer sent a blade out with a flick of his hand. He didn’t even aim. It wouldn’t hit.
But the blade redirected its course at the last moment, curving to bury itself in the man’s temple. He tripped over his own feet and fell lifeless to the ground.
Impossible.
Another officer put his hands together, and as he drew them apart, pink fire appeared between them. He launched the fireball into the crowd.
Screams and the smell of charred flesh.
A third pressed out with his hands and blasted a group off their feet with a powerful gust.
Felix’s stomach sank. It was magic. They were using the elixir.Thiswas why the aesran wanted it. To fight magic with magic. And it wasworking.
People scattered as the ministry attempted to quell the riot, taking out wielders and nonwielders all at once.
“Felix!” Marlow called. He couldn’t see her, but she was close.
He gritted his teeth and turned back to August, his grip tightening on his pistol.
He wasn’t done.
The innkeeper handed Marlow a key and said something August couldn’t hear. He stayed back near the door with Felix, shifting his weight. He needed to run. This town was crawling with Watch. If he could get free, it would be easy to find one and have Felix arrested. He’d be executed on the spot, no doubt.
Good, August thought. He’d rather do it himself, of course, but a win was a win.
But what then? Go home and face his mother? No, he couldn’t. This plague was as much her fault as it was Ashcroft’s. The thought made him nauseous. He’d be happy if he never had to see her again. And he certainly didn’t want to be the aesling again. He’d never wanted the throne, but that was truer now than it had ever been.
August had gladly washed his hands of all of it. He wasn’t going back.
He’d avoid the Watch, then. Find somewhere here to hide. Haverglen seemed like a safe place. No lost, from what he could tell. But something about the town set him on edge. It reeked of secrets.
Marlow returned with the key, and Felix clapped a hand over the back of August’s neck through his hood, forcing him forward.
The stairs creaked under their weight, and when they made it to the top, Marlow opened the door to the room and motioned for him to go first.
It was small—too small to comfortably fit the two beds crammed inside—and the wallpaper was browning and peeling in spots. A ratty curtain covered the single window, and the stale air smelled of body odor and week-old food.
August scowled. “Absolutely not.”
Felix shoved him past the threshold and locked the door behind them.
