“You must go with him,” Travis tells me.

“But what about you?”

“Please, Mary, don't argue. Please do this for me.” Sweat beads in the flour dust on his face and I can see how rigid his muscles are. How scared he is. And so I nod my head and crawl into the barrel, holding the squirming Argos to my chest.

“Duck,” Travis shouts to me and I pull my head into the barrel just before hearing a loud thunk.

I inch my eyes over the rim and see an arrow sticking out of the barrel where my head had been moments before. Argos lets out a deep bark as if offended by Harry's terrible aim. Tied to the arrow is the rope I had braided and Travis tucks it into my palm, the other end stretched to the platform.

“Hold on tightly,” he says and then he pushes the barrel off the porch and we are swinging in the air before I have a chance to scream or protest or kiss him good-bye. I have to fight against Argos as he kicks and whines and scrabbles against me. I almost lose my grasp as Harry tugs on the braided rope, pulling us across the divide.

When we get to the other side Harry lifts me from the barrel and Argos skitters around us, sending up puffs of flour with every step. I'm still coughing, great shudders that rack my entire body, when I hear Cass gasp as she looks at the house I just came from.

I turn to look. Travis is pulling himself onto the rope, awkward and ungainly.

He struggles to wrap his bad leg around it for support and then slips, both legs falling from it so that he's only holding on with his arms.

And then his fingers slip and he falls back to the porch. He wipes his palms on his pants, clouds of flour appearing.

“We need to send the barrel over,” I say.

“There's no time,” Jed says.

Even from here, on the edge of our platform, I can hear the insistency of the Unconsecrated as they bang through the walls of what used to be our sanctuary. I watch as Travis glances over his shoulder and I can see the color drain from his face and his whole body shudder.

My throat closes as he reaches a hand to the rope, as he wraps his fingers around it for a second time.

Harry grabs my shoulders, as if to comfort me or to protect me or to hold me up, and I want to shrug him away as an unnecessary distraction, as something that pulls me from the task at hand which is to focus all my attention on Travis as if I can will him across.

He stumbles and instantly he is dangling out over the space, his two legs kicking and spinning.

Behind him the Unconsecrated emerge from the door of the attic, pushing their way out onto the porch. Travis bites his lip and I feel as if we are holding the same breath.