The fire crackles and pops, hissing as it makes contact with the rain. Fleur chokes on the thick smoke as she wraps my arm around her shoulders and guides me through the gate into the park. I feel her inside my head, prodding the edges of my mind for soft spots. Not spying. Checking for damage, I realize. I wonder how much of that memory she saw before I woke up. If she saw everything that happened that night. If she saw my argument with my mom. If she saw my dad walk out or heard what he said. If she saw me polish off that fifth of cheap booze in my car just before the wreck. I shake off her arm and push the memory somewhere deep.

There’s a deafening explosion behind us. Propelled by a blast of heat, we land facedown in the grass. Fleur pushes up on her hands, twisting to see the car engulfed in flames. Rain streams down her face, soot and blood trailing over her cheeks as she stares across the park at a blue speck in the distance.

The ground seems to shake. I can’t tell if it’s my tweaked sense of balance or if it’s actually moving. Fleur looks down at her hands where they dig into the grass. Her eyes become glassy and distant. I feel the tug of her magic as it reaches out from her body, spiraling into the ground. My own chases it, painfully slow.

Our eyes lock.

Tremors.

Deep.

“Come on,” she says, nearly dragging me to my feet. “We have to get back. The north portal is close.”

Arm thrown over her shoulder, we hobble north. Halfway across the long stretch of green, Fleur pauses, her hand digging painfully into my rib.

She tips her head toward the heavy rumble of footsteps we both sense vibrating through the ground. I follow her gaze as a swarm of bodies spills into the gate from Park Row. Winters. Dozens. No. Hundreds of them. Fleur whirls, gasping as a wave of Seasons thunders toward the center of the green.

Springs, Autumns, Summers . . . they crest the rolling hills toward us. They’re all running, exploding from every cardinal direction, converging in the center of the park. Among them, I spot the khaki uniforms of Guards—my Guards—breaking up the Seasons and dividing them into groups as they arrive, directing them in clusters toward the portals on each end of the park.

“Lixue,” I mutter, “what the hell are you doing?”

“What’s happening?” Fleur asks, searching the distant faces of the Seasons on the green. “They’re evacuating. Something’s wrong.” She starts toward them, but they’re headed right for us. For the north portal behind us.