Approaching a cell door, she knocked lightly on the bars. It was nearly pitch-black inside, but she could make out the slight shift of a shape near the bars. The prisoner lifted his head, eyes widening when he saw her.

“We’re breaking you out,” she said in a low voice. “Stand back before this dynamite blows, then run to the fourth-floor south stairwell. You’ll find a ventilation shaft leading to the subway tunnels. Head down the tunnels and you’ll find flares lighting a path to an exit east of the Minos River.”

She repeated the message at the entrance of each cell, not waiting around to see who listened. Most prisoners were awake, and she had no time to rouse the ones who weren’t. The explosion would rouse them and, if they were smart, they’d run.

All of them would stand a chance, and that was what mattered. Those who managed to escape could expose Bautix for what he was.

Even if all of them were recaptured, the explosions and the breakout would cause a distraction and hopefully draw Bautix’s attention away from the Linasian princess.

But she wanted these Inosen prisoners to escape. Saving these people wouldn’t negate all the lives she’d taken, but freeing them would at least avenge her parents, who’d only died for their own freedom.

Life is precious, like her parents had used to say.

Within five minutes, she and Teo regrouped near the door they’d entered from. He passed her one of his guns wordlessly.

Her fingers shook around the handle as she recalled all the times Kohl had made her practice shooting and reloading, regardless of her asking to stop, no matter how strongly the memories of her parents’ deaths flooded back.

Back then, she’d swallowed her fears and convinced herself that Kohl was doing her a favor. She’d taken all his lessons and honed herself into a weapon, another thing to plunge this city into darkness.

Maybe monsters could be made, like her and Kohl, but they could also be unmade—they could choose to work against corruption and terror instead of with it.

She and Teo moved to stand at the walkway railing and gazed down at the courtyard nine floors below. A few guards stood on the glass-covered floor of diamonds, talking in low voices, while others sat in chairs in the center of the courtyard. All of them were oblivious to what was happening above.

Aina and Teo nodded at each other, then struck a handful of matches each and lit the wires, their hands moving at the same steady pace. The wires were connected to all the sticks of dynamite lining the cells of the ninth, eighth, and seventh floors.

It would take a few minutes for the flames to reach all the cells, but the ensuing chaos would at least give the prisoners plenty of cover to get out.

They stepped away from the wires, withdrew grappling hooks from their packs, and tossed the hooks upward to the landing of the tenth and highest floor. The hooks latched on with dull clinks.