“Bitterblue!” shouted Giddon, because the queen was there too, leaning over Nev, using her sword as a cane, trying to look into the hole. “Get back from that edge!” He thumped the poor guard on the head. Then he ran after Davvi, as fast as he could.

Inside the storehouse’s back entrance, piles of rubble blocked his way. Giddon pushed through it, stepping into broken barrels, scratching himself on nails. By the time he reached the operation at the edge of the hole, Davvi was on his knees, anchoring Nev’s legs.

“Bitterblue!” Giddon grabbed her, dragged her back from the crater. “You are not well enough for a rescue operation!”

“You’re right,” she said, tears running down her face. “But what about—”

“You stay there,” he said, dropping beside Davvi onto a painful hill of splintered wood and taking one of Nev’s legs. Nev had hold of Lovisa’s arm, but Lovisa was gripping some sort of broken post, some pillar that had used to be part of the storehouse floor, with both hands. She wouldn’t let go.

“You have to,” said Nev. “Lovisa. You have to let go, or we can’t pull you up.”

“I’ll fall in!”

“I will not let that happen,” said Nev fiercely.

All at once, the lip of the crater began to break. Lovisa screamed, released her hold on the post. For one horrible moment, Lovisa dangled over empty space by one arm and Nev plunged in after her. Giddon and Davvi dragged on Nev’s legs as hard as they could, harder, back, away from the edge, across a floor that snagged and cut them. Giddon got hold of Nev’s shoulder, yanked. His hand closed around Lovisa’s arm. He pulled. They all fell together, scrambling back as the crater continued to widen. Someone else had Lovisa. Giddon grabbed Bitterblue, who still hovered too close, trying to see into the hole. He spun her up and pushed himself over the rubble to the back door, burst out into the air with Bitterblue in his arms, running, putting distance between them and the storehouse.

In the yard, Lovisa dropped onto the ground, gasping, crying. Nev dropped beside her and wrapped the smaller girl in her arms.

“But what about Hava?” said Bitterblue. “Does anyone know where she is?”

“She fell in,” said Lovisa. “She fell in.”

—

Their shouts yielded no response.

“Hava!” they repeated. “Hava!” Bitterblue’s cries were the most piteous of all. She kept drifting toward the hole, crying “Hava” with tears running down her face, to the point that monitoring her safety became an exigency of the group. Someone was assigned to the intoxicated queen at all times.