Her eyes widened. The clock. Its incessant ticking raced in her ears as the tenth bell rang, blending with her footsteps pounding down the hall.

Are you paying attention, street child?

She swung open the low door behind the clock and jumped down onto the narrow wooden platform next to Bautix’s backup—a boy with a jackal’s bared jaw tattooed on his arm.

It was Olaf, the same boy she’d spared in the warehouse. He carried a rifle on his shoulder, but turned at the noise of Aina landing on the wooden platform next to him in the base of the clock. Electric yellow light enveloped them from under the wooden slats, highlighting how his eyes widened when he turned to face her.

Eleven bells. Applause rose up in the audience. Olaf fired at Aina, who flattened herself against the clock face, letting the bullet blast through the side of the clock. She shoved the end of his rifle aside, leaving him open.

Twelve bells—she swept her blade across his throat.

46

Midnight passed while Aina stood in the silence of the clock, breathing heavily as Olaf died before her. His blood trickled through the wooden base of the clock to dot the yellow lights underneath.

Turning from his body, she stared between the clock’s numbers toward the balcony across the ballroom from her, where she’d left Kohl. What she’d whispered to him came back to her now: This isn’t over.

Pushing past Olaf’s body, she lifted herself out of the clock and onto the stone walkway of the balcony.

Her footsteps slowed, echoing slightly as she rounded the corner. Tannis was still seated near the window, her head resting on her chest. Kohl was gone.

“How is your wound?” she whispered as she approached Tannis.

Tannis had ripped off the sleeve of her jacket to wrap it tightly around the wound on her abdomen. The blood flow had slowed, though her face was still drawn and exceptionally pale under the bright blue waves of her hair.

“You got better at fighting than the last time I saw you,” she said with a tight grimace. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him from leaving.”

“Wait here,” Aina said, squeezing Tannis’s shoulder. “I’ll get help for you.”

When she nodded, Aina turned and retreated down the hall. Kohl was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t matter now. She had to check that Bautix wouldn’t try anything else once he realized his plans had been ruined. As she walked, she took her scarf and tied it around the wound on her arm.

She soon reached the staircase where she’d split up with Teo earlier, then walked down until the entrance to the ballroom came into view. A few Diamond Guards stood at the entrance, but she hid the blood on her clothes as best she could and slipped past them with a quick nod.

The idea that she’d fought a deadly battle in a dark hallway only one floor above this place made her head spin. The voices of hundreds of people in the ballroom rose louder than the pounding of the rain outside. It would take a few minutes to reach the opposite end of the ballroom by walking, it was so large. It extended two stories above in a dome-like shape, the ceiling black rock, like a cave. A broad gold chandelier hung at the arc of the dome.