“Fuck,” Hart hissed, his gaze shooting immediately to the window we’d crawled through.
I winced, knowing we had to make a break for it. There was no other exit. Hart lifted me and slid me through the opening before I could protest. Landing on my feet and righting myself on the alley side of the building, something curdled the back of my tongue: Hart’s fear.
It was too quiet. They’d hear Hart crawl through. He’d only boosted a leg on the bench when the shout came from behind him.
“Stop! What are you doing?”
Hart’s gaze met mine. His green eyes focused with such precision that I was sure he wished they could compel me, like the green glow of an adamas stone. “Run.”
Instead, I reached for his hand and yanked him forward. I couldn’t leave him here.
A guard lunged for him inside the shop. Hart kicked hard—the guard cried out and covered his nose—before he crawled through the opening.
We had seconds to get away, before however many guards were inside the shop could get out and around the building to us. But we didn’t have anywhere to go. They would follow tooclosely. We couldn’t lead them back to Forest’s Edge, and the Eastern Gate was guarded.
I froze with indecision. The clamor of the guards exiting the front door of the shop gave me no new ideas. Fear raced down my spine with each second that passed.
“Come on, Chaos. Move!” Hart had righted himself, and his large hand enveloped mine, pulling hard. His demand urged my legs into motion. We cut behind the workshop and sprinted through the back alleys along the north side of Cross Street.
“Halt!” The guards gave chase.
I was sure he had done the same calculations I had as he led us east through the alleys. “We can’t?—”
His nod was quick. The haunted look in his eyes was less than reassuring. “I know where we can go.”
He looked anything but confident, but with no alternate options and surprisingly little hesitation, I put my fate in his oddly reassuring grip.
16
I trusted him with your life, but that wasn't the hard question. The hard question was whether you could trust him with your heart.
— ALARIC SARE’S PAPERS FOR EMBERLINE ARKOVA
My heart pounded, my breath heaved, but I didn’t drop Hart’s hand. I knew if I tried, he’d simply throw me over his shoulder and continue his sprint.
He’d done it before.
But where were we going?
We took a sharp left behind the buildings on Cross Street. If I had to guess, I’d say we were almost to the Eastern Gate. The turn had us sprinting toward the castle grounds. It wasn’t as steep as climbing the front steps, but Lower Hillstill earned its name. Every step I took, I feared I slowed—feared one of the guards in pursuit would snatch me from Hart’s grip.
Another part of me knew he’d never let that happen.
The patrol paths wound around the castle. They were the same ones we’d used to sneak out to the mines during the Selection Ball, except then, the Eastern Gate hadn’t been guarded. The odds were stacked against us now.
“Hart,” I huffed.
“Don’t slow down, Chaos.”
I hadn’t, which made finding my words harder. “My fear. Call nightmares.”
He shook his head. “Only as a last resort. They’ll know it’s us.”
I sucked in another breath. I guessed the guards might not have known us on sight. We could be anyone breaking into the jeweler’s workshop. “We won’t make it past the gate without magic.”
If I could see his face, I knew I’d catch his eye roll. But we didn’t slow down, and he didn’t even bother with a glance in my direction. He only tugged me forward.
“Where are we going?” I tried a different tack as my heart threatened to break through my rib cage.
