The woman let out a bloody cry of challenge that was almost as chilling, reached into a bag at her waist, and drew out a glass globe.

Burners. My father’s working with Burners.

He felt Morgan’s hand closing hard around his arm and reached out to hold her closer. “Nothing we can do,” he said.

The leader’s throw landed accurately right on the lion’s head and spread caustic chemicals down the metal face and into the red eyes. Glass popped and sizzled, blinding it as the chemicals ignited and began to burn with a fierce intensity. The lion shook its head, trying to throw it off, but the thick stuff clung and melted, turning the automaton’s face into a hideous, twisted mask of skeletal cables and clockwork.

The other Burners were throwing now, too, targeting the other lions. One automaton managed to dodge the rain of bottles and landed hard on a screaming victim—man, woman, Jess couldn’t tell, and in the next instant it didn’t much matter, because the scream cut off quickly. Some of the Burners weren’t much older than him. Jess shut his eyes as the lions thrashed and roared, the bottles of Greek fire flew and broke, and another Burner yelled in fear and pain.

Then Morgan said, in an unsteady, hushed voice, “It’s over.”

He opened his eyes again to see the last of the lions had collapsed on its side. It was melting into a tangled mess, cables twisting and snapping, gears and springs deforming. The metallic roaring faded to a strange, distorted whimper, and then . . . nothing.

Four lions lay dead—did automata die?—in a shimmering pool of Greek fire, with two Burners bloody and crushed nearby. It was a terrible sight, and the street and steps scorched black from the rippling heat.

“Well,” Callum said from behind him. “That was well worth the price.”

Jess didn’t even think. He rounded on his father, fist pulled back, and as Morgan shouted his name, his brother grabbed his arm and held it while Jess shouted and struggled. “Let go! Let me go!”

“Be smarter,” Brendan said quietly. “He’ll kill you.”

“I could have—” Stopped this without people dying, he almost blurted out, but he could see Thomas’s warning stare over Brendan’s shoulder. “I could have done this differently. Burners, Brendan. Since when do we work with Burners?”

“When it’s smart to do it,” he said. “Profit, not philosophy, remember? Relax, brother. We have it under control.”

Khalila and Dario, with Thomas and Glain, moved up the Scholar Steps; they were meant to go straight to the Scholar’s Reading Room and grab as many books as they could. Each of them had their packs already loaded with originals, but Jess couldn’t tell his family that now. He didn’t trust them with that rare, precious knowledge. Or with the idea of the press. Then where will we turn? He didn’t know. He felt sick, having led his friends here, to a safety that vanished like fog under the sun.