“Miss Baine!” the one in the lead panted, skidding to a stop in the wet, burnt grass. His narrow face had gone stark white, his brown eyes round with shock and horror. “What happened here?”

I looked down at my clothes, which were completely ruined by the smoke and flames, then over my shoulder. My eyes narrowed at the sight of a broken length of pipe lying amongst the scorched vegetation. I crossed over to where it stood, ignoring my shaky legs and my wildly beating heart.

“I think this is a bomb, or at least what remains of it,” I muttered, crouching down to examine the object.

“Bomb?” the guard echoed in disbelief. I poked at the jagged piece of pipe. It was still boiling hot despite being soaked with cold water. My nose wrinkled at the scent of gunpowder, a scent I was becoming more familiar with now that the Resistance had begun using firearms. “Who in the world would dare to bring a bomb into Solantha Palace?”

“I don’t know.” I glanced up at the row of second-story windows. One of them was open, the curtains flapping gently in the ocean breeze, and I pointed at it. “But whoever it was, they snuck right past you. And they had a perfect shot at me through that window.”

* * *

Later, I sprawled on my four-poster bed, staring up at the canopy as I tried to relax. But it was hard to calm my racing mind after narrowly escaping death… especially considering the way it had happened.

Had it really been Roanas’s voice I’d heard, warning me away from the bomb? Or had I imagined it? This wasn’t the first time I’d heard voices, but until my recent conversation with Resinah, the first mage and the mouthpiece of the Creator, disembodied voices had been few and far between in my life. I’d mostly thought of them as figments of my imagination… but after all I’d been through, I wasn’t so sure anymore.

It would be just like Roanas to choose to transform into a guardian spirit in the afterlife, rather than be reborn. A smile touched my lips. It was comforting, the idea that he might be still out there, watching over me.

The entrance to the hidden passage creaked open, and I sat up to watch Iannis duck through the narrow doorway. A sigh of relief passed my lips before I could stop it—I’d been worried I wouldn’t get to see him tonight.

“I wish we’d been able to locate the attacker.” Frustration simmered in Iannis’s voice as he crossed the room and kicked off his shoes. The sheets rustled a little as he settled onto the bed next to me. “I don’t understand how they were able to evade us.”