“Yell,” I hiss at him, “and I will break every bone in your body. I swear it. What are you doing here alone, without the rest of your patrol?”

He shakes his head, his eyes wide with terror. I stare at him until he looks like he’s calmed down, and then move my fingers slightly so he can choke out a whisper.

“I just—thought I saw you,” he croaks. “My patrol’s not on rotation yet. I came down here on my own. I—I—”

I shake my head, furious.

I can’t set him free. He’ll simply alert everyone else.

“You know him?” Jeran asks.

I nod. “I do.”

Adena slips out from the shadows as she and Aramin step through the open holding room door. She scowls at the soldier before something at his belt catches her eye. Then she stoops down and unhooks a satchel from his side.

“What is it?” Aramin whispers to her in Maran.

She opens the sack. “Explosives,” she whispers, nodding at the tiny sticks. “Probably to light the way in the dark. Look at the fuse triggers on them.”

Then she nods at Jeran. “Give me that lock. If we’re going to get out of here without putting Talin in danger, make them think we did it some other way than using a code.”

There’s no time to hesitate. Jeran hands the device to Adena, who begins working it into the lock. Farther down the hall come peals of laughter from a group of soldiers. They are slowly making their way over here.

I look back at Danna. What am I going to do with him? He’s crying now, his sobs muffled behind my hand, tears streaming silently down his cheeks. All I see is him as a young boy, with those gangly limbs and comically large ears, asking me if I’d ever visited Basea before.

But I’d also seen him drag a Basean boy out of his home during that invasion and shoot him dead. I’d followed after him when he told me to leave that other boy in his cage.

The other voice in me rises.

You know he can’t live. You have to kill him.

Beside us, Adena finishes inserting the device and pulls the fuse trigger. A blinding light glows red and white inside the lock, and even half a dozen feet away, I feel the heat of it. Jeran backs away too. Beside us, Aramin shifts to a fighting stance.

Then a new thought occurs to me.

I turn back to Danna. “The east and southeast city patrols have been missing from the festivities,” I whisper to him. “Do you know where they are?”

At that, Danna’s eyes widen and he shakes his head vigorously.

I grit my teeth. Talin’s tortured expression comes back to me now. I remember our stolen kiss, the desperate need I have to see her again. “Tell me again,” I snap, my voice a low growl. “That you don’t know.” My hand tightens against his mouth, and I know with a terrible certainty that, if I wanted to, I could break off his entire jaw with my unnatural strength.