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The Academy of Blood & Shadow

Page 548

by Océanne Rhéaume

Fuck. Think. "Old dining room."

"Windows."

"Interior storage corridor."

"One exit."

Fuck. Rhyven's voice from weeks ago exists somewhere in my skull. Everything fails. What next?

"The lower chapel."

Lena looks surprised. "That's outside inner east."

"By twenty yards."

"Safer structure?"

"Stone. Two exits. No exterior windows." She nods. "Take thirty."

"You?"

"I'm staying here." She hesitates. "Lena." Right. She leaves.

Someone slams into the inner doors from outside.

Three knocks. Pause. Two. Current code. The guards open. Students pour through. Smoke with them.

Blood. Two are carrying a professor between them. One has burns covering half his face. One is crying without making any sound. One looks fine until she steps inside and collapses.

"Medical!" I shout. Nobody answers. Everyone is medical now.

I grab the collapsed girl beneath her shoulders.

Another student takes her legs. We drag.

Her eyes open. "Don't—"

"What?"

"My brother."

"What?"

"Outside." Her fingers close around my sleeve. "He's outside." I look toward the open doors. Smoke. People. Magic. Death. I cannot go looking for one person. I know that. I hate knowing that.

"What's his name?"

"Perrin."

I turn toward a runner. "Add Perrin to external search. First-year?"

"Second."

"Wing?"

"Root." The girl nods frantically. The runner leaves. That's all I can give her. It feels like nothing.

Another roar splits the sky. Theryn. Everyone knows that sound now. Not because it sounds like her. Because it doesn't.