Layla and Clay weren’t born criminals. They were arrested for breaking into an Elite Healer clinic, trying to steal basic potions for the people in Ashgrave who were being left to rot. Imran, poor, loyal Imran, had followed them like a lost puppy and got swept up in the chaos.
Three lives shredded because they tried to help the sick.
Viva la Revolution.I hope the Great Awakening hasn’t just brought magic back; I hope it’s burned every one of those gated clinics to the ground.
When I finally get out of this hole, I’m not going back to the Elite life. I’ve made the decision to kill Aurora Drakeward and bury her under the concrete of this cell block. My new life will be under a fake name, and I’ll be starting from zero.
I’m not romanticizing it—I know it’ll be a struggle.
Getting a job will be interesting. And learning things like cooking, and paying bills for electricity, rent.
The list of things I don’t know is a mile long. But I’d rather be poor, exhausted, and honest than spend another second on the side of the people who deny medicine to humans while they sip champagne.
Sky still has a year left on her sentence, which means I’ll be out a month before her. I’ve already started building a house in my head, a small place that is full of giggles—and freedom. She can move in with me. We’ll make it work.
Tally.
Thinking about his sentence feels like a physical weight on my chest. He has years left. He’s supposed to be moved to the state penitentiary when he turns twenty-one, trading one cage for a bigger one. But I’ll be there. We’ll all be there, waiting at the gates for the day the system finally spits him back out.
And then there’s London.
I haven’t seen him since the bus, but he’s often in my mind. If I’m setting up a house for Quo misfits, he definitely gets a room. I can imagine us in a cramped, drafty apartment in the Ashgrave slums. Layla grumbling about the dishes, Clay trying to get Imran to eat, and London… probably hanging upside down from the ceiling rafters, singing nursery rhymes about the end of the world.
It would be loud. It would be messy. It would be a far cry from the silent, marble halls of the Manor.
And I want it so badly my chest aches.
I have to make this a reality. If I’m being practical—and Quo has taught me nothing if not how to be practical—I’ll have to go back to Havengard City first. I’ll need to empty my jewelry box. I don’t have a bank account or a cent to my name, but I have diamonds.
Layla would know how to move them without getting caught. We’ll use my family’s "legacy" to buy the medicine that will keep Imran’s lungs from failing.Please, gods, let him last that long.
My mind flicks to Cosmo—would my brother help me?
No. He’d freak and probably lock me back into my mansion quarters. He’s such a fucking snob. He’d never understand loving people from a different station in life.
And I do love them.
Lay, Sky, Imran, Clay…Tally.
London? Probably. I can’t wait to find out.
But listening to the distant yelling, that dream feels a million miles away.
I stand up and start to pace. Why isn’t Tally back yet?
Wump—ppp.
Heavy, uneven footsteps echo in the corridor, dragging my heart into my throat. I rush to the bars, my fingers gripping the cold iron as two shadows bleed out of the gloom.
Tally is leaning heavily on François, his face covered with fresh cuts and drying blood. Behind them, I see Dot and Clay, theirexpressions grim as they usher the rest of the block back into their cages.
“Tally!” I gasp. “You’re OK. What about everyone else? Where’s Layla?”
“I’m here, Barbie,” Layla’s voice calls out from the darkness. She steps into the flickering light, looking exhausted but intact. “Sky’s back in our cell. We’re all accounted for. Mostly. A few cracked skulls, broken arms and shanked flesh, but nothing deadly.”
“And Imran?”
Tally stumbles into the cell as François releases him with a look of profound distaste. He slumps against the bars, his chest heaving. “Not doing good,” he rasps, the words coming out in a pained wheeze. “Stupid idiot was trying to help.”
