With a gasp, he jerked himself back against the wall, pushing like he could shove himself right through it and back to the Outskirts. Maybe this was all an awful idea. His breath froze in his throat and for a few seconds he couldn’t breathe at all—or didn’t dare to try.

Then he noticed a ladder continuing his path downward.

It wasn’t the usual kind of ladder—rungs and sides and whatnot—and it wasn’t a rope ladder like the one he’d climbed to the platform. This ladder was made of iron, and bolted to the side of the wall.

Rector crouched and reached for the top rung. His bare hands were already warm and reddening with a rash brought on by the Blight, but he ignored the discomfort and tried to give the bar a good, solid grip.

Gripping was trickier than it sounded. The metal had been coated with … tar? Pitch? Glue? He didn’t know, but it was thick and mucky, and probably intended to work against the corrosive power of the tainted air. And indeed, he could see how some of the bolts without this protective goop were rusting with alarming vigor.

The metal groaned under Rector’s boot. He pivoted so that he faced the wall, then brushed the side of the ladder with his free hand until he could reach, and lean, and get a good hold.

With his back to the ruined city, his arms and legs shaking with effort and fear and the unfamiliar posture of the forced vertical … he began to descend.

As he dropped himself one rung at a time, not knowing what was at the bottom—or how far away that bottom might be—he watched the rusting bolts scroll past his visor. He winced and squeezed tighter as the iron’s covering made his hands gummy; he flinched as the fixtures wobbled in their settings, puffing soft red dust into the yellow air. Finally, after what felt like forever, the ladder came to a stop—giving Rector another fresh infusion of terror when he realized that the rungs had run out, and nothing but open air awaited his dangling foot.

Now it was time to look down. He did, and he gave a wheezing bark of relief: Below him, just a short hop away … he saw a flat surface.

With something akin to joy he released his grip on the nasty ladder and spun, dropping himself down. It was farther than it looked, enough to throw off his balance when he hit, landing oddly on one set of toes and the back of his other heel. He stumbled, swore, and recovered—then stood up straight and proud, feeling accomplished for the first time in recent memory. He’d made it to the roof.

“Now what?” he asked himself, and the words echoed wetly around in his mask. “Got to sort myself out, that’s all. Got to find which way’s north.”