Ephyra kept her grip tight on Pallas as she hustled him and Beru through the tunnel that fed into the innermost hub of the citadel. Instead of emerging into the central courtyard, Ephyra took a hard left onto the path toward the infirmary, pressing close to the inner wall to avoid straying into sightlines.

Keeping pace beside her, Beru was silent.

“Help me find something to tie him up with,” Ephyra said, her hand locked around Pallas’s arm like a vise, reminding him how easily she could kill him.

Beru nodded, and without a word darted off.

“This is futile,” Pallas said imperiously, his bright blue eyes flashing. “And it will only make things worse for you.”

“Not sure they can get any worse, actually,” Ephyra replied.

“Here,” Beru said, reappearing around the side of the building, a coil of rope slung over one shoulder.

Ephyra pushed Pallas up against one of the columns that lined the walkway and looped the rope around him and the columns as many times as she could before tying it off.

“Where will you go?” Pallas said, his voice still infuriatingly, intractably calm. “You won’t make it out of the citadel, much less the city.”

Ephyra ignored him as she grabbed the rope and tugged, testing its strength.

“Good enough,” she decided, turning back to Beru. “Come on.”

“You know this is foolish, Beru,” Pallas chastised. “You know that I am the only thing keeping the god from overtaking you. You need me. You—”

Ephyra grabbed Beru’s arm, pulling her away from Pallas and his desperate threats.

It would only be a matter of time until one of the Sentry or the Witnesses found him. They had to be long gone by then.

“Ephyra, can you please tell me what we’re doing?” Beru asked as they raced toward the infirmary. “How are we going to get out of here? We can’t escape through the gate. There’s no other exit.”

“Actually,” Ephyra replied. “There’s one other way out.”

“Where?”

“A place like this needs a way to dispose of dead prisoners without contaminating the rest of the citadel,” Ephyra explained. “There’s a tunnel that runs underneath the perimeter wall from the infirmary where they can remove the dead without dragging the body through the citadel. But it stays locked, unless there’s a body to dispose of.”

“So we’re going to unlock it? How?”

“We’re not going to,” Ephyra said. “Illya will.”

“But you just killed him!” Beru said, her brow creasing. Then her expression darkened. “Wait. Don’t tell me you’re going to bring him back.”

“Not exactly,” Ephyra replied, dropping into a crouch and skirting around the infirmary wall. “He’s not dead. I drained most of his esha. Not all of it.”

“But the handprint,” Beru said. “That would only show up if you killed him.”