The cobra had been shocking enough that he’d all but forgotten the shooting until he became aware it had stopped, and then alarm spread a net over his body, pricking every nerve to alert. He looked back to see Glain stepping through the broken window into the store. She kept her attention fixed on the street outside, but for the moment, at least, it was quiet.

“How is she?” she asked Jess without turning.

“Cobra bite,” he said, which he knew would tell her everything. They should have had a Medica officer with them, if this had been a real mission, but for training all they had were basic first-aid kits, and nothing that would help against that venom. “We need to get her out of here.”

“No,” Glain said. She sounded calm but grim. “Jess, I need you to bring help. Get Santi. Bring back Medica for Helva and anybody else who needs it.”

“You think we’re under real attack.”

Glain nodded sharply but he saw the set of her jaw, the line of her shoulders. She was angry. “Get to the gates,” she said. “Get Santi here and not Feng. Watch your back. Go, Jess.”

He didn’t like leaving her here, all but alone to protect Wolfe, but, then again, there was no one he’d trust more with that job. And, he thought with a bitter spike of awareness, no one she would trust more to risk this. He’d grown up running books for his father through the mazelike, dangerous streets of London. She knew that.

“Here.” Jess pitched her his weapon. “I won’t need it, and it’ll just slow me down.”

Glain caught it one-handed and promptly handed it to Wolfe. When he tried to protest, she fixed him with a straight glare and said, “Take it. We’re beyond all that now, I think.” In Wolfe’s hands, it looked entirely out of place, but Jess well knew the Scholar was no stranger to fighting or killing, if it came to it.

He cast one look down at Helva, who managed a smile. She was holding her own weapon now—a smaller sidearm—and said, “Run fast.”

“Always,” he said, and—mindful of the cobra lurking in the dark corner—moved to the closed back door. He opened it and checked. It seemed clear. The alleyway was bright after the dimness of the shop, and he took a breath to let his eyes adjust, then stepped out and turned to scan the roofs. No one in view, which meant he might have a chance.

Running for his life was a feeling that settled on him like old, familiar clothes. He wasn’t frightened by it: he’d played keep-away with the local London Garda all his childhood, and running in that vast labyrinth of a city was much harder than in these straight lines and clean angles. It meant, though, that there was less cover, less chance to lose pursuers in blind corners and narrow passages. He’d have to make up for that with sheer speed.