I keep moving.
∗ ∗ ∗
The main entrance is blocked.
The twin doors—those massive slabs of living wood that bled ink when touched—have collapsed inward, pinned beneath tons of fallen stone. Contract-fire burns in the rubble, consuming paper and wood and bone with equal appetite. The heat pushes back against us, impossible to approach.
“There’s another way.” Gror’s voice is hoarse. He points toward a service corridor. “The delivery entrance. Where they brought in supplies.”
I shake my head. “Too far. Building won’t hold.”
“Then what?—”
The floor bucks. A crack opens between us and the blocked entrance, spreading with terrible speed, swallowing stone and contract-paper and the bones of whoever was buried beneath the Hall when Gravebind was young.
I grab Ivalys. Pull her back from the edge. Her body presses against mine—warm and alive and real in a way that grounds me, gives me something to fight for.
“The window.” I point toward the far wall, where a massive stained-glass window depicts the Ledger Master receiving tribute from a sea of supplicants. “Through there.”
“That’s three stories up?—”
“It’s below us now.” The Hall has collapsed unevenly, sections falling into the catacombs below while others stay intact. The window that used to be three stories up is now level with us—and beyond it, I can see the gray light of Gravebind’s perpetual twilight. “The plaza’s on the other side.”
Ivalys looks at the window. At me. At her brother.
“Do it.”
I don’t hesitate. I grab a chunk of fallen stone—heavy, jagged, torn from one of the collapsing pillars—and hurl it at the stained glass.
The window shatters.
The Ledger Master’s painted face explodes outward in a shower of colored glass, taking his tribute-bearing supplicants with it. Cold air rushes in—clean air, free of contract-dust and the smell of dying magic. For the first time in what feels like hours, I can breathe.
“Go.” I push Gror toward the opening. “Jump.”
He doesn’t argue. He climbs onto the sill, looks down at whatever’s below, and throws himself through. I hear him hit something—stone, probably, the plaza outside the Hall—and grunt in pain.
“Ivy!”
She’s hesitating. Looking at me instead of the window.
“Can you make it? With your arm, your chest?—”
I cup her face. One handed. The way I did before, when I promised her later. Her eyes meet mine—gold-flecked brown, blazing with fear that isn’t for herself.
“I’m right behind you.”
She doesn’t believe me. I can see it in her face. But she nods anyway, pulls my hand to her lips, presses a kiss to my scarred knuckles.
“You’d better be.”
Then she’s gone. Through the window. Falling.
I don’t let myself hesitate. Don’t let myself think about the broken arm, the chest wound, the blood I’ve lost. I climb onto the sill, glass crunching beneath my boots, and I jump.
∗ ∗ ∗
The landing nearly kills me.
