They rounded another corner, leaping over servants unconscious from the gas. <Stop wasting the godsdamn ammo and fly the ship to the south side of the hangar. It shares a wall with a wing of the palace.>

<Uhhh. And then?>

<Blast your way inside,> Nyx snapped, as if the answer were obvious.

<What?> Ariadne asked in shock at the same time Clo asked, <Excuse me?>

<Break. Down. The. Godsdamn. Wall. Clo.>

<I heard you.> A pause. <This is bogging marshbrained. I can’t believe I’m going to do this.>

Up ahead, a door opened, and royal guards burst through. Nyx and Ariadne ducked down and Nyx shot at them in a hail of Morsfire that forced them to retreat. Ariadne felt powerless, dragged along by Nyx, keeping close. She was useless. She couldn’t think her way out of this. If more guards came, they’d be trapped.

The ones coming up from the rear were gaining on them. The Oracle was around them. In the walls. How long until One saw through Ariadne’s flimsy disguise? Ariadne wanted to cry, to scream—anything but this helpless cowering.

<Get out of the way of the wall!> came Clo’s mental shout. <Get out of the way of the wall! Out of the way, out of the way—>

Nyx tackled Ariadne behind a cabinet just before their ship exploded through the wall. Ariadne covered her ears at the screech of metal, the crash of furniture and debris around them, and the yelling of soldiers as Zelus mercilessly barreled into the once-pristine palace hallway. Clo mowed down the soldiers who had been chasing them, leaving an empty hallway and a big, gaping hole to the inside of the hangar.

Before, they were traitors. Now they were palace-destroying traitors.

The latch to Zelus’s cockpit swung open. Rhea appeared, gesturing them inside. “Hurry.”

Ariadne was trembling so badly that Nyx practically carried her into the ship. The door swung shut behind them.

Clo was sitting in the pilot’s seat, her hand in a death grip around the joystick. “Got out of the way, I see.”

Nyx brushed dust off her uniform. “That was an entrance,” she said.

Clo laughed. “Well, we’re about to make one flame of an exit. Strap in.”

Cato was sitting in the copilot’s chair. He returned their shocked look mildly. “Pray she doesn’t kill us.”

Ariadne collapsed into her seat and buckled the belt as tight as it would go. She said a small prayer as she clung to the armrests. Nyx managed it all with a lot more composure.

Alarms blared even louder than before, screeching through the entire compound and in the streets of the Macellan capital. Ariadne shut her eyes. Shit.

“Tertiary protocol,” Cato said. “Oh, we are fucked.”

“Be quiet, Cato,” Clo snapped. “Everyone strapped in? Good.” Clo shoved the stick forward and Zelus jolted upward. “Hold on, dipwells.”

Was she really going to . . . ? Oh gods, she was.