The General will be in his chambers, far removed from the fighting, letting others bleed for him as he hides.

When I’m nearly to the top, a shadow moves at the far end of the hall. I turn to retreat, only to see another shadow about to round a corner. Loyalists.

I duck into the nearest room, heart racing, willing the beaded curtain that serves as a door to stop swinging.

I freeze at the sound of crying.

I’ve stumbled into the nursery.

Bay is here. My eyes skirt over the cradles, searching even when I know I should hide.

“Please don’t hurt them,” a woman says. Two toddlers cling to her legs, their faces buried in her skirt. She thinks I’m the enemy. That the Powder Town forces are the ones to fear.

I shake my head, put a finger to my lips to signal silence. But she takes this the wrong way—that I will harm her if she’s not quiet—and she breaks down sobbing.

Footsteps sound in the hall. There’s another doorway behind the caretaker, a second room. Maybe I can hide there.

Too late, I register the sound of the beaded curtain clicking behind me. “Someone promised us that you were dead.” The Loyalist wears a ram-skull mask obscuring his face—the General’s Third. The last of his Four that remains, aside from Reed.

Another Loyalist ducks through the curtain. No mask. An average solider. He moves toward the caretaker, blocking my way into the second room.

I back away from the cradles. Slowly. Until my hip hits the window ledge.

Glancing out, I can see the wreckage of battle. Our fleet is scattered beyond Bedrock’s dam, half the wagons overturned, charred and burning. The others stand abandoned, Powder Town flags whipping on their masts, their crews now infiltrating the settlement through the opening blown into the dam. Aqueducts have splintered and fallen. Water spills into the wastes, flowing like blood over stone. The crop fields have descended into chaos, workers running for cover while the Reaper’s troops clash with the Loyalists. The air smells like blood and fire.

“Are you gonna shoot her or not?” the Loyalist asks the Third.

“Not yet,” the Third says, eyeing me through the slits in his mask. “The General may want to question her.”

“I’ll bring her to him,” says a familiar voice. Reed, stepping through the curtains.

“You said she was dead,” the Third grunts.

“She was. I burned her body.”

“Then how is she here?”

Reed shrugs. “Perhaps she’s gods touched after all—maybe even a god.”

The Third’s weapon remains on me, but he looks fearful now, as if I might turn him to ash by blinking.

“I’ll take her to the General myself,” Reed offers.

“No. Something’s off.”