Iona looked across and realized, of course—this entire side of the tower was covered in scaffolding. She wasn’t sure if she was up to making the descent but the noises coming from behind the door and inside the oven compelled her to try. Without hesitating she followed the king to the window as he moved a chair over to it and climbed out. Iona stepped out after him.

Iona wasn’t scared of heights and visited building sites all the time, but she’d never had to traverse one under this kind of pressure. She hurtled down ladders and across gangways, looking for handholds and keeping away from the open sides.

On the third floor, Saori, following close behind Iona, landed heavily on a weak plank and her foot went through it—she was stuck. Iona shouted for the king to wait. It was only then that she realized she didn’t know his name.

The king saw Saori struggling and immediately doubled back to help.

“What was your name before you were the king?” Iona asked him while they pulled Saori’s foot free of the broken boards.

“Steve,” he said.

Of course it was.

By the time they reached the bottom Iona felt giddy from running back and forth across the scaffolding, and when she tried to race around to the entrance she was barely able to go in a straight line.

At the entrance they found Victor still waiting on the step, holding the key. He was jittery, he could hear something was going on in the tower and his relief at seeing them was evident. He started to ask how they’d gotten outside without first coming through the front door before realizing they didn’t have time and it didn’t matter: all that mattered was they were here. He asked if they were ready.

“Yes,” said Iona.

Victor attracted the attention of the nearest citizen, milling around looking for someone to reprogram, and said to it in a clear voice: “You are dead.”

When the citizen heard this specific trigger phrase it started to walk through the city, repeating it loudly. While it did this it placed its wooden palms together and rubbed them against each other rapidly and tirelessly. It took a minute or two for this action to start a fire. Once the fire caught, the citizen headed into the nearest building so that would catch fire too.

The trigger phrase passed from citizen to citizen, across the city, and they all reacted the same way. The fires spread quickly and because everybody was occupied with starting the fires there was nobody to put them out. Iona worried the plan might be too effective, leaving them insufficient time to escape. It was by no means clear the key would work anyway, it hadn’t been tested. But the important thing was to destroy the city and its citizens so the Poramutantur couldn’t get out.

If they died, well . . . they had all lived too long anyway.

Iona, Victor, Saori, and Steve ran through the burning streets together—the first time the four of them had been together in as long as they could remember. Something about it felt right to Iona—they belonged together. Of course there had been many more crew members on board the Mull of Kintyre, so they might only have been on nodding terms during the mission itself. But after the crash they must have been thrown together, fighting for survival. They felt like a unit, and they were finally working as one.