She rose gingerly, back aching and looked up at the walls of ice tombs, fogged over by the warm air seeping in from the theater. Still shaken by her run-in with the Dean, she squinted down long rows of glowing blue graves, extending right and left beneath the stage into dark oblivion. Clawing her hands into the shards of Professor Anemone’s old tomb, she stood on tiptoes, looking for a way out of the Brig, but the walls were at least eight feet high.

“Help . . . ,” a voice whispered. “Help me . . .”

Sophie turned to see Aric, hands and feet bound, stirring in a dark corner of the Brig. His temple was streaked with blood where the ice had bludgeoned him.

“Please . . . ,” he croaked. “I’ll get us out of here. . . . Just cut me loose . . .”

Sophie had no fondness for the boy, but she didn’t have much choice.

Without hesitating, she bent down and burnt away his binds with her glowing fingertip. Aric stretched his legs, growling with pain.

“Give me a boost off that broken tomb, so I can get to the stage,” he said. “I’ll pull you over once I’m up there.”

“No, you give me a boost. I’m going first,” Sophie retorted.

“There’s no way you can pull me up over that stage,” Aric shot back.

“Aric—”

“We don’t have time for this, Sophie.”

Sophie exhaled angrily. She dug her shoe tip into the edge of Professor Anemone’s old tomb. “Use my leg. Hurry.”

Aric placed his heel on her thigh, gripped on to a broken spear of ice, and propelled himself up the ice wall. Sophie gnashed her teeth in pain, sustaining his weight on her thigh for a split second, before he muscled his way over the edge of the ice and crawled onto the stone platform above.

“Pull me up!” Sophie barked. “Hurry!”

Aric bent towards her. Then he stabbed out his glowing finger at the dungeon ceiling, which instantly started closing again, faster than before—

“What are you doing!” Sophie cried.

Aric’s violet eyes flashed through the mist. “If it wasn’t for you, I would have led training. And the war would already be won.”

He bounded off and out of sight, the sound of the east doors slamming behind him.

As the Brig hemmed in on her, Sophie felt her finger burn with fear. She shot a blast of light at the dungeon ceiling to keep it open, but the sides were closing too fast. She tried again, but she couldn’t focus her emotion like last time. Lady Lesso had left her unsteady—panic and doubt were making her fingerglow flicker—

You’ve never been more alone.

She couldn’t get the words out of her head.

“Help! Someone help me!”

But the stage was seconds from sealing over. She’d be trapped in the tombs. No one would know where to find her, even Rafal, even . . .

“HELP! SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE—”