The instant one of the Ghosts locks eyes on me, I lunge for it. My good wing spreads out, fanning into dozens of steel blades. In a single twist, I slice through the Ghost’s arm and turn back around to stab it through its chest. It screams, crumpling against itself, before I finally cut its throat and move on. Another Ghost. I move like a creature of death, cutting through it before it can touch me.

Farther down the hall, in front of the cell where Talin’s mother must be kept, the guards are already on the move. They’ve been preparing for this ever since the Premier captured the woman—knowing that someday there might be a fight for her life. I clench my teeth and hurl myself into the third Ghost.

It doesn’t matter how quickly I can move to kill the monsters standing in my way. Talin said they’d been trained to kill her mother if there is any sign of a threat. And now they are unlocking her door, ready to point a gun at her face. I surge forward.

Through my bond, I call out to Talin, hoping she can hear me.

I love you. We are going to get your mother out. I promise.

I think of the moment I’d kissed her in the shadows of the sculptures on the thoroughfare, the moonlight in her eyes. I think of her tears through our link the night after the arena.

Soldiers rush toward me, blades lifted, but I cut through them. One of them manages to slice me deep in the arm. I wince, but the steel that strengthens my body holds up, and the cut that would’ve gone all the way to the bone instead bites into my muscle. I slash out with my wings—the soldier collapses. My eyes turn back to the cell at the end of the hall.

I hurtle through the corridor.

The soldiers unlock the cell door, shouting at one another to hurry up. One of them lifts a gun and points it straight inside.

“No!” The shout bursts from me, and I realize that it’s a shout of desperation for my sister, my father. For the family that I had lost. I surge forward. A shot is fired at me—it hits me in the shoulder. I twist to one side, dodging a second shot, then hurtle into the soldier who had fired at me. The cell door draws near.

The soldier’s finger tightens against the gun’s trigger.

I hurtle into the guard right as he fires the gun into the cell. My wings slash out, catching anyone in their path. I’m too late, too late—the refrain runs frantically in my head. I’ve failed to get to Talin’s mother. They’ve shot her.

They’ve killed her.

We’ve failed, and Talin’s mother has paid the price.

And just as I think this, just as I stagger to the cell door, just as I look in, fearing what I’ll see, that I’ll witness a familiar woman lying dead on the floor, gunshot wound to her heart—