The thunks continued, and Kip arrived at the lift shaft in time to see huge iron doors slam into place over the shaft at each level.

“It’s part of each tower’s defenses,” Cruxer said. “Parents told me about it. They’re hinged one way, so soldiers can be sent up the lifts, but no one can get down.”

“Surely we could draft levers and pulleys or something,” Ben-hadad said.

Cruxer said, “They estimate five minutes per floor for drafters to break through. We gotta go down the slaves’ stairs. The exits may be barred, but we can break through. Follow me!”

Ben-hadad grimaced. He clearly thought he could break through each level in far less than five minutes. But he followed orders.

They reached the stairs, and found the doors bolted. Ben-hadad moved to the front, locating the mechanism and studying it.

“Move,” a voice said behind them. It was Daelos. He was carrying two blunderbusses. He handed one to Cruxer as Big Leo returned.

“Big Leo?” Daelos said, lifting the matchlock.

Big Leo drafted sub-red to his fingers and touched each slow match, lighting it.

“Daelos, I thought you said you weren’t coming—” Kip started.

Daelos pointed his blunderbuss at where the hinges would be on the other side of the door. He fired.

“They killed Goss,” he said. “I’m coming.”

Cruxer’s matchlock misfired, and they all waited, tensely, while he cleared it. “What are you, rookies?” Cruxer demanded. “Defensive perimeter! Teia, get us two more from the barracks.”

Chastened, they did. Kip immediately saw a few curious heads poking out of doorways. Not everyone got out of the tower by dawn, not even on Sun Day. “Get back in your rooms!” Kip shouted. “Look out for the Lightguard. They just killed our friend.”

Two of the three ducked back immediately. But one just kept looking. And then Kip recognized him. Magister Jens Galden. He was the asshole who’d punched Kip the very day he had first arrived at the Chromeria.

The man obviously hadn’t forgotten Kip, either.

“I know a passage out,” Jens Galden said loudly. “I could save you all.” He smiled unpleasantly.

“Let’s go!” Big Leo said. He turned to the squad. “Stop shooting the door, we can go this way. This magister has—”

Several of the squad members started jogging over.

Jens Galden waited until he saw they were coming, then announced, “But Kip is with you, and I’d rather you all die.” He slammed his door shut. They heard a bar being slid into place on the other side.

Big Leo stared in disbelief.

A young woman poked her head out in the hall to see what was happening.

“Back in your room!” Big Leo roared.

The young woman’s eyes went wide, and she said something, but it was lost in the roar of the blunderbuss behind them.

Kip flinched hard, though he should have been expecting it. Cruxer wasn’t one to waste time cursing about a plan that didn’t work out.

Cruxer and Ben-hadad and Winsen grabbed and pulled the shattered door. The central bar was still in place on the opposite side of the door, but it was only anchored on one side, and they were able to rip the door open and slip through.

Teia came jogging back up. “Both loaded,” she said. She tossed one blunderbuss to Big Leo, and the other to Ferkudi.

They all squeezed through the door.

“I’d rather—” Ferkudi said.

“Shhhh!” Cruxer said. He’d been holding his hand up for silence. The squad hadn’t even seen it. In some ways, Kip thought, talented rookies were still very much rookies.

But they quieted immediately now.

Then they all heard it. From far below, the sound of many footsteps coming up the stairs toward them. The stairs were not quite three paces wide, curling around one of the great lightwells, lit dimly by a few small windows into the lightwell itself. Whatever resistance they encountered would be hidden by the curvature of the stairs until they were right on top of it.

If the Lightguards were smart and disciplined enough to set up a spear wall or a few ranks of musketeers arranged so they could fire a volley into the squad, the squad would die.

They all looked at each other.

“If we can hear them coming up, they’ll hear us coming down,” Ben-hadad said. Surprise was impossible.

A chunk of wood from the door they’d just pushed through shot out into the stairwell as a musket shot rang out. The wood hit Big Leo. He yelped in surprise.

“Down one,” Cruxer ordered. Better to only face attacks from two directions than from three. Kip emptied himself of green luxin, reinforcing the door. It wouldn’t stop pursuit, but it would slow it.

He caught up to the rest of them on the next landing, not running into any opposition. The door here was locked, too. Big Leo was patting his body, searching to see if he had a wound from the musket ball.

“Light’s weak in here, everyone fill up now,” Cruxer said.

But even as he said the words, the slaves’ stair dimmed. Kip looked at one of the windows into the lightwell in time to see it slide shut, plunging them into utter darkness.

“Oh hell,” Ferkudi said.

“Winsen?” Cruxer said.

A yellow luxin light bathed them weakly. “I can keep this light for thirty seconds at the most, Captain.”

“We’ve got to get out of the stairwell,” Big Leo said.

“The stairs are our only way out,” Kip said. “If we leave the stairs, we just give them more time to surround us.”

One flight down, someone knocked loudly on the door. The doors had all been barred, but they were barred on the squad’s side. Kip froze.

Muffled by the wood and the distance, he heard someone say, “Kip? Ben-hadad? Adrasteia?” Kip wasn’t certain, but the voice sounded familiar.

“Nothing to lose by going down one more flight,” Cruxer said.

They ran down the steps and took up defensive positions as they unbarred and unlocked the door. They threw it open.

A woman was standing on the other side, alone. At the sight of the squad’s raised weapons, she threw her hands up. “I’m here to help!” she squeaked.

For another moment, Kip didn’t recognize her. She was in her mid-thirties and had bad posture, and still wore her green spectacles on a gold chain around her neck, but her wiry black hair had been combed out and oiled glossy, and she was smiling.

“Magister Kadah?” Kip said, disbelieving.

“I read their code in the room crystals. Not even a code, really. It’s an old maritime mirror signal. They think you’re on one of the upper floors, and they’ve got only one squad double-checking that every door to the slaves’ stairs is locked. But it’s the only way out. I knew you’d be coming.”

“Magister Kadah?” Kip repeated. This woman couldn’t be the same one who’d hated and humiliated him.

“Not a magister, not anymore. I’m doing research now, as I’ve always wanted.” She smiled, and looked ten years younger than Kip had ever seen her look. “I brought you these. They were all I could find.” She handed him a bag. It had half a dozen mag torches in it. “Now go. There are people on this floor who would betray you.”

“Is there no other way out?” Cruxer asked, as Teia grabbed the bag from Kip and distributed the mag torches.