Ephyra flexed her hand. “Alchemical ink. Invisible unless it reacts with a certain agent. Illya had the agent. I had the ink.” She clapped her hands together to demonstrate. “And thus we had another victim of the Pale Hand. But not really. All I have to do is revive him.”

And she’d have to hurry. The tunnel led to a crematorium where the bodies were disposed of, and if Ephyra didn’t revive Illya in time … well, he’d be disposed of, too.

“I need you to keep watch while I revive him,” she told Beru. “Then we’ll sneak around to the tunnel entrance, and by that time he should have it open.”

The wobble in her voice betrayed how nervous she was about the plan. When Illya had first presented it to her, she’d been very skeptical about pulling it off. She’d been skeptical of just about everything Illya had to say. She’d spent much of the past two days on the verge of calling it all off.

But she hadn’t. Because for once, Illya was putting himself on the line. He’d asked Ephyra to trust him, but their plan didn’t work unless he trusted her, too. Trusted her to nearly kill him. Trusted her to revive him, afterward. Trusted that she could.

They had practiced, numerous times, in the dead of night, with Ephyra draining Illya’s esha and reviving him from farther and farther away, until she was able to do it from inside her room while he was on the perimeter of the Archon’s residence grounds. She could tell after these sessions how much nearly dying took out of him, his face drained of color, his hands shaking, but he never once complained.

“I know you wanted me to get out of here without you, but I couldn’t do it,” Ephyra said. “I couldn’t leave you here with Pallas.”

“I know,” Beru said, a note of sadness in her voice.

“And Illya … he figured out this plan. A way to get us both out.” Ephyra shook her head. “I hate to say this, but you made the right decision to trust him. I wouldn’t have done that.”

If they pulled this off, she would owe him. On top of whatever it was Beru had already promised him in exchange for his help. She almost wanted to ask her, but maybe she was better off not knowing.

“Well,” Beru said, a hint of humor in her voice. “I didn’t have a lot of other options.”

“You always see the best in people,” Ephyra said, meeting her gaze. “Even me.”

“Ephyra…” Beru said softly.

A shout split the air. “They went that way! Find them!”

Witnesses. Or Sentry. Either way, if she and Beru were found, their plan would fail—and Illya would truly be dead.