I don’t think. I just move.

I’m running, gathering speed before I even realize what I’m doing. I reach the edge of the roof and leap. Nearly missing the next roof, I crash hard to my knees. The edge of one of my knives nicks my palm and blood flows warmly down my arm. I shove the blades back into their sheaths, push myself up, and start running again.

In the distance, screams mingle with the mindless roar of the beast. I tune them out and take a flying leap onto the side of a tent. The canvas sways precariously, and I snatch the metal pole that braces the corner closest to me. Swinging over the pole, I run and jump, slamming into the side of the next stall.

As I climb onto the roof, I hear hoofbeats pounding behind me and turn to see the Commander thundering down the road, heedless of the panicked people desperately trying to get out of his way. The gate is a mere thirty yards ahead. Oliver’s tent is at least eighty yards to my left. I’m about to make the turn when a flash of brilliant red near the gate catches my eye. I strain to see past the running people, and for one second, I have a clear sight line.

Fear seizes my chest with icy fingers, and my feet move before my brain can finish telling me I’m looking at Rachel. Caught in the crush of panicked, screaming people at the gate. Close enough to the beast that if the Commander is wrong about his control over it, she’ll be one of the first to die.

I hit the roof next to me, skid across it, and leap into the air without pausing for breath.

If Rachel is there, surely Oliver is with her. My heart pounds, a desperate rhythm driving me forward. I nearly fall on the next leap, and slide to the ground. Time to start fighting my way through the crowds.

The beast outside the Wall bellows and the ground shudders, nearly throwing me to my knees. Quiet descends, sharp and unnatural, punctuated only by the sound of sobs and the distant crackling of fire. I skirt two men who stand, cloaks still smoking, shining pink skin blistering along their arms. They’ve just come from outside, and now they stand frozen, looking around as if wondering where the beast will attack next.

I don’t know if it will surface again, but I’m going to be standing in front of Rachel and Oliver if it does.

I see her now. She’s clinging to Oliver, and though her body trembles, she looks fierce and ready for battle. A handful of people pass between us, and when I see her again, she’s staring at the gate with furious eyes. I follow her gaze, and see the Commander stepping over a man’s prone body. He meets Rachel’s eyes, and dread seizes me at the speculative look he gives Oliver.

He knows we love Oliver. If we don’t leave on the Commander’s schedule and bring the package back to him, he’ll sentence Oliver to death for our crimes. My heart aches, sudden and fierce.

Oliver will just have to come with us. I have four days to figure out how. I hurry across the cobblestones as the Commander disappears into Lower Market and gather Rachel and Oliver to me. Oliver claps me on the back, and I see the relief in his eyes that both of his surrogate grandchildren are still alive.

Rachel leans into me, but the tension vibrating through her resonates with me as well. I pull her closer, and watch the flames eat through the remains of the highwaymen’s wagons and gutter into nothing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

RACHEL

We don’t leave the cottage for another two days while Logan tinkers with his invention and works on a plan to smuggle Oliver safely out of Baalboden, and I brush up on my knife-wielding skills. When we talk, we focus on how to leave. How to deal with the Cursed One if he attacks while we’re in the Wasteland. And what might be inside the package the Commander wants so badly. We leave alone both the topic of our almost-kiss and the way we clung to each other in the wake of the beast’s attack, and I’m grateful. I don’t know how I feel about any of it, and I don’t want to be the one to ruin things by talking about it.

In addition to a pair of guards, the tracker Melkin haunts the orchard near the house at night, and another tracker watches the cottage during the day as well. We can’t do anything about the constant surveillance, so Logan works harder on his gadget, and I move on from my knife to practice with Dad’s Switch.

The Switch is one of Logan’s more useful inventions. It looks like a solid wooden walking staff, but one end is weighted enough to crush a man’s skull, and the other conceals a spring-loaded double-edged blade. It takes hours of work before I can balance the heavier end, swing it like a mallet, and knock Bob, our practice dummy, flying. Even so, I’m still off balance enough that if I have to deal with two foes at once, I’ll find myself skewered at the end of a sword before I can regain my footing, and I’ve yet to manage springing the blade after the initial hit without getting knocked to the ground.

Bob is about Logan’s height and weighs in at an even one hundred seventy pounds. He’s got me by forty pounds and five inches. Dad always said if I could take out the dummy, I could handle any man who tried to give me trouble.

I doubt he was thinking of Commander Chase when he said it.

Last year, Logan strung a heavy wire between two trees and hooked Bob to it. The dummy slides, swings, and moves with my own momentum, and while it isn’t the same as fighting something with intelligence, he keeps me on my toes. I can run him through with my knife, yank the blade free, duck, and spin around to bury my weapon in his back while he slides toward me. The Switch is another story. I slam the weighted end of it into Bob’s side, but can’t spin the blade side around before my sparring partner swings back and sends me sprawling.