“There,” I shout, pointing. We shift sideways as one and the streak of magic whirs past. Our eyes meet. When we’re together like this, fighting for our people, shoulder to shoulder, I am a part of him. In a way I couldn’t be part of anyone else. He gets why we have to win, why we have to survive this. It sets his jaw. And courses through him like fuel now.

Dust and bits of stone make it hazy. I squint for Kai, but all I see is a blur of gold, shifting and thrusting, followed by grunts and clangs.

“Help her. I’ll be fine,” I tell him.

Jhamal’s nostrils flare. “Not leaving your side.” The months might have slimmed his frame, but a lion still lives behind those eyes, and the ember for him that I buried begs for life.

But I deny it air.

I can’t. He doesn’t deserve the shell of a person I am. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. How could he see me any differently? Magic dents my periphery.

“Jham—” Before I can get the words out, Patrol pops up through the smoke clearing and fires right at me. Magic whistles through the air.

“Yo’kuse,” I say, flinging my arms forward. A clear substance oozes from my fingertips and hardens into a barrier between us and them. Their magic slams into the wall and fizzles out with a hissss.

Where there were just a handful of guards, now there are at least a dozen. One sneers, his buddy joining him. They keep coming, two, no, three of them, firing at me. Their magic sails through the air like a thousand arrows loosed at once, and the barrier between us shatters in a shower of chimes. Shit. Shit. Shit. I throw my arms up, blocking as best I can. Bits of their magic and glass burn my skin, raining from overhead.

I dig deep and thrust. The air ripples, knocking them off their feet, and for a second I can almost catch my breath.

“Jhamal! Kai!” Everything is chaos around me.

Dead ahead, Patrol’s back on their feet and…

They. Keep. Coming. Bodies, ten, maybe more, are charging in my direction. We knock them down, but more keep spilling into the hall from connecting corridors. I zig and zag, blocking blows. Fire streaks past and I cover my face. Magic ricochets off my gilded wrists like bullets. More Patrol flood the hallway. Gooseprickles spread on my arms, memories tugging at me. Dread weighs on me like lead.

We can’t win this.

We need to get out of here.