“I hope you clean quickly,” I shouted, pushing more furniture between us. “It no longer looks like much of an accident.”

The door shuddered.

My breath caught, and I took a step back, then another, knowing she was playing with me. Knowing she could tear the whole manor apart if she wanted. My back pressed against the wall, and I gripped the soft velvet of the curtains as I watched the mess of door and furniture slowly shift inward.

Curtains. Window. A way out.

I whipped the fabric aside, flipping open the lock so that the pane swung out. Below was the atrium, the glass foggy with condensation. It would never hold my weight.

Which might just work in my favor.

Picking up a heavy chair, I lobbed it out the window, not bothering to watch as it crashed through the glass and into the atrium below. Instead I ran to a closet on silent feet, easing the door shut behind me and then taking a deep breath and forcing myself to relax.

Breathe.

My magic softened and diminished, only that which always burned, that which kept me alive, still present and tangible. And, I prayed, negligible enough that Lessa wouldn’t notice it.

Door and furniture were flung aside, and the other girl stormed into the room. Her eyes latched on the open window, and in a blur of motion she was leaning out over the edge, expression panicked. “Pénélope?” she shouted, mockery vanished in the face of my potential escape. “Bloody stones and sky, you better not be dead!”

Then she jumped out the window.

Go.

I flew from the closet, leaping across broken furniture and out into the smoldering hallway. The smoking walls were a blur as I ran, faster than I ever had before, because I had to beat her. Had to make it out the front and into the streets before she realized I wasn’t bleeding and broken in the atrium.

Run.

I leapt down the stairs, relying on momentum over balance, my magic throwing open the doors so I didn’t lose my pace. The soles of my feet slapped against the paving stones, and I coated them in magic to protect them as I raced toward the gate, the guards watching me with astonishment. “The upstairs is on fire,” I gasped. “Go help.”

Then I was running in the street.

But where would I go? Who would help me? Who cared enough about my life to risk my father’s wrath? The answer was, and always would be, the same.

Marc.

Ignoring the startled expressions of those I passed, I zigzagged my way through the city, down carved white steps, over the river, and into the Dregs.

The tavern where I knew he was meeting the half-bloods appeared ahead, and I drove toward it, certain that despite my circuitous route, Lessa was behind me. Certain that she’d catch me and drag me home to my father.

The flimsy door swung on its hinges, and I shouldered past the proprietor, seeking the sense of power that only a full-blooded troll would possess.