It was true. Savine was slipping. Her toes were off the roof, the parapet grinding into the small of her back. She could feel herself teetering, her balance almost shifted over the void.

She heaved in one last breath and kneed Judge between the legs, loosened her grip just enough to catch her around the back of the neck with both hands, so the cord between her wrists cut into Judge’s rash-splattered throat. “So are you.”

And she went over backwards.

Time slowed to a crawl.

A blur of clouds and sky. Her eyes full of Judge’s red hair.

She hoped her children would have good lives.

A glimpse of the burning Lords’ Round, wrong way up, flames stabbing downwards.

The world spun crazily, tiny buildings far below.

She was falling.

Then she gasped as something jerked at her ankle.

A stab of pain through her knee, through her hip.

She saw Judge drop. Just a glimpse of her bloody snarl before she was gone in a mass of clawing limbs and flapping cloth.

Then Savine crashed into something, hard.

But not the ground. Cut stones.

The side of the tower.

She heard Broad growling with effort.

Everything white. Her dress, fallen over her head.

She was upside down, and he had her by one foot.

“Pull her up!” Orso’s desperate voice.

She saw Broad’s straining face, spotted with blood. Orso behind him, arms around his waist, dragging him back.

She should have told them to let her fall, but all she could do was scream with every snatched breath. She should at least have stayed still and let them pull her up. Instead she tore at her dress, clawed at the soot-streaked stones with her fingernails, whimpering and coughing and choking on her own spit.

The wall scraped at her, scratched at her, cloth ripped, the parapet dug into her stomach.

They collapsed together onto the rooftop. Among the bodies of the Burners. Blood everywhere. Blood on the weapons and dashed against the parapets. Blood soaked into Broad’s jacket and streaking his hands. Blood trickling from Savine’s scalp, tickling at her eyelid, spattered on her white nursing dress, still turned half inside out.

She could not move. Her face throbbed. Her leg ached. One of her fists had a great hank of Judge’s orange hair wedged between the fingers. She could not seem to make them come open. Her breath came in whooping sobs.

It was snowing. Black snow. Ash, from the burning Lords’ Round, settling on the rooftop.

Orso held her tight. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, over the wild thudding of her heart. “I’ve got you.”

The lift dropped to the ground with a shudder, and Orso felt a surge of relief so strong he wanted to cry. He actually might have. A sentimental streak or two.

There were lots of soldiers at the bottom. Lots of Anglanders in dark uniforms. There were Burners, too, but on their knees, or having their wrists bound, or lying still, daubed with red, and not just paint. Figures of terror no more.