Io runs straight for an iron and its teeth lift out of the ground as we get closer. She slides beneath the creaking metal. As the rest of us follow, she looses two knives toward the arena in quick succession. The soldiers who meant to attack us from behind don’t even have the chance to aim, let alone fire. Their bodies slump to the ground.

Now on the other side of the gate, I see another warrior at the winch that powers the gate. Once we’re through, he lets it go, and it falls with a resounding thud.

“Jai!” I call, my blood pounding with adrenaline and relief.

“Nice to see you, Callen,” he replies, picking up his pace to match the rest of us as we blindly follow Io forward. In the moment, I can’t recall who else was on his team, but he must not have been their only archer. Sentinel Renna gave different kinds of teams to different commanders, I realize. All the better the odds that at least one team would succeed.

I don’t know much about Io, other than that she terrifies most first-years and revels in her reputation. “Please tell me Io knows where she’s going,” I say between breaths.

“We got into the city, didn’t we?” he replies. “Same way back out.”

We follow Io’s lead as she makes a break for an open street ahead. Flashes of light reflect off a river on the other side of the city wall. Rowan looks over her shoulder at me. There’s relief in her eyes, but pain, too. I know why she is hurting.

Despite our new numbers, we are running scared. The prince’s death is days away, and we still don’t have the cure. If we escape, the best we’d have to hope for is a chance to defend our city as she fell. We’ve faced death once today, and something tells me that from here on out, death is never going to be far from us.

37

ROWAN

Io turns down an empty alleyway with a dead end. The sound of water calls from the other side of the city wall. In the ground, a square metal drainage hole reveals the steady rush of the river below us. Jai and Io lift the grate up, with Seth adding his strength once he puts together what’s going on.

“What about the rest of your team?” Seth asks.

“They have orders to run in the opposite direction from here as a distraction,” Io says. “This river stretches to the north until it turns some half mile beyond. The current is against us, but we’ll have to make do. Now let’s move.”

Sethran ushers me forward, and before I lose my nerve, I leap into the waters.