It’s a trap. I can feel it in my bones, the tingle of something sinister and knowing from him. He doesn’t try to hide it either. He knows this is the only reason I’ve come inside, that everything about our plan centers around me getting close enough to kill him. Down below, the atrium floods with soldiers. Their boots echo down every path, and I hear them coming up every stairway. Ghosts scream alongside them.

From somewhere below, Red calls out to me in desperation. Don’t go! he shouts through our link. They’ll trap you up there!

But we don’t have the time to wait any longer. I clench my hands into fists and think about my mother outside with the other rebels, launching arrows into the melee. None of us should be here. It is all one big trap.

But I’m done being afraid.

I push away the feeling of Red’s terror and launch up at the stairway.

I burst through the door and onto the roof. It’s one vast expanse of flat stone broken by the glass ceiling in its center. No sooner than I emerge, another bullet hits my arm and sends me careening backward. My wings arc instinctively—I feel and hear the pings of more bullets against the metal. I close my eyes and let my Striker training take over. It is a midnight forest; I am hunting Ghosts by sound alone. I concentrate on the direction of the bullets, then paint in my mind a picture of where they’re coming from. I remind myself that his guards fear me more than I fear them. And I launch through the air at them.

I cut down soldier after soldier. Others run from me, dropping their weapons as they go. Even they must know that this battle can only end with me facing their Premier. My eyes glow as the fury within me rises.

And then I see him. He’s standing in the middle of the roof, from a spot where he can still see beyond the edge of the palace to the masses of rebels pushing back against his soldiers below. At first glance, Constantine looks alone. He stands straight, his hands folded behind his back, the black and scarlet of his uniform reminding me of the first time I’d ever seen him silhouetted against a burning sky.

His eyes, as piercing and fierce as ever, are focused directly on me.

He gives me a smile. Hello, Talin.

Something barrels into me from behind. It hits me so hard that my vision turns black for an instant before I shake myself awake and find myself hurtling through the air. I twist, landing on my feet, then crouch low.

To see two Skyhunters rushing at me.

40

RED

I feel the presence of the other Skyhunters confronting Talin without even seeing a vision through her eyes. The spike of her emotions tells me everything I need to know.

She’s going to face them alone up there.

They’re going to kill her.