Jess took in three deep, stomach-straining breaths, oriented himself by the sun and memories of how far they’d come from the entrance, and ran. At the next alley, he cut around to the main road—it was, as the centurion at the gate had warned, the only way out. No point in wasting time.

The first block was easy; he’d caught their attackers by surprise, and when he exited the back of the alley at a flat run, he was moving like a blur. He heard the shouts rise like smoke, and a scramble up on the roofs, but they were nowhere near the right position. Someone shot at him, but it went wild. Five steps farther down, there were more shots flung his way, but with the same lack of accuracy.

Someone up there made good time or was in a lucky spot, and he saw a bottle of Greek fire arc toward the ground two body lengths away from him. No good choices: if he swerved, he’d lose momentum, and there was no telling which way the fire would splash. Going through it wasn’t an option. The thick goo would cling to skin and fabric and couldn’t be wiped or washed away. He’d burn.

As the bottle hit the ground and the fire rushed to life, Jess ran straight at the nearest wall. He put more energy into his stride and ran two gravity-defying steps sideways on the wall, then pushed off hard and launched himself like an arrow past the roiling green blaze in the middle of the path. He landed hard on the cobbles on his shoulder, and close enough that the toxic smoke crawled hot into his lungs, but he coughed it out and rolled to his feet and kept running. Shots scattered behind him, but they all missed, and now the inferno behind him was also—usefully—cover.

Only another block to the exit gates, and Jess made the turn and poured on even more speed. His heart was pumping furiously now, his lungs rebelling from the effort and the smoke, but the goal was within sight.

That was when a shot hit him squarely in the back with enough force against the flexible armor beneath his Library coat to knock him off stride and stun his lungs into paralysis. Deprived of breath, blazing with pain, Jess tumbled to the ground, rolled helpless as a beached fish, and convulsed as he tried to pull in air. Right in the same spot Tariq hit me. He saw black and red spots, and the pain came in waves as hot as Greek fire. I’m going to die, he thought, and it seemed incomprehensible to him, because the gates were right there. Rescue for Wolfe, Glain, Helva—all of them. It depended on him.

He wasn’t going to make it.

You will, he told himself over the screaming, mindless fear he felt. You have to! Get up. Get up! Do it!

His lungs released suddenly, and he sucked in a breath so fast it burned, then coughed it out and tasted bloody copper. The pain didn’t matter; he had air, and the pain couldn’t stop him. Wouldn’t stop him.