The heat from all the fires was building up and they had to keep running but Iona was tiring. She took a moment to rest and glanced back over her shoulder at the tower. People had always assumed King’s Tower was her proudest achievement but that wasn’t true: she preferred buildings with function and the tower actually did very little. The fire was surging up it at a considerable rate.

Steve saw her looking and he stopped and turned to look too. It had been his home since he’d been made king—a position he’d only been given because the ship’s cat belonged to him and this made him the easiest person to manipulate.

As they watched, the base of the tower weakened to the point where the structure could no longer support itself. Once it started to lean it all happened very quickly—people talk of large buildings collapsing as if in slow motion but that’s not what this was like. It fell away from them and was gone almost in the blink of an eye.

Iona and Steve looked at each other. He looked bewildered, panicky: he hadn’t yet come to terms with what had happened. But Iona felt nothing. If anything she felt relief.

Victor and Saori were shouting at them to keep running so Iona and Steve turned and carried on. Smoke was washing across the streets and they had to trust they’d set off in the right direction because they couldn’t see where they were going. Iona only realized they’d reached the edge of the city when she felt the grass under her feet. Eventually the smoke cleared and they were climbing a gentle ridge toward the woods, at the top of which they allowed themselves to stop, turn, and look.

There was nothing to see except fire and smoke. In the blaze the city had lost its shape. The place they’d lived all this time—the only place any of them could clearly remember—was gone and none of them knew if they could get to anywhere else.

Exhausted now, they dragged themselves on through the woods and found their way to the window. The attention of the figures had been attracted by the fire. None of them were doing anything about it: it was hard to tell if they were even concerned, or if they were just observing. Perhaps they assumed this was normal, that the life cycle of the human was to build a vast city and eventually burn it down.

When the humans got out—if they got out—they’d have to deal with the figures’ reaction, whatever it might be. The figures might simply shoot them. From their point of view they were just animals escaping their cage.

Iona was at the back of the group when they arrived at the window but she made her way to the front and Victor handed her the key. They’d agreed she would be the one to open the door, or at least try to. The door wasn’t visible but Iona knew where it was—about a meter to the left of the window. She stepped over to the blank wall, raised the key—