wall. The interrogation block. Darin is down there. Right now. Yards away.
Kauf’s drums thud out the time: half past five in the morning. The hallway that leads to the Martial barracks, kitchen, and storage closets is far busier than the rest of the prison. Talk and laughter drifts from the mess hall. I smell eggs, grease, and burned bread. A legionnaire veers out of a room just ahead of me, and I stifle a gasp as he passes within a hair’s breadth. He must hear me, because his hand falls to his scim and he looks around.
I don’t dare to breathe until he moves on. Too close, Laia.
Go past the kitchens, Helene Aquilla told me. The oil storage is at the very end of the hall. The torch-lighters are always coming and going, so whatever you’re planning, you’ll have to move quickly.
When I find the closet, I am forced to wait as a sullen-faced aux wrestles out a barrel of pitch and rolls it down the hall. He leaves the door cracked open, and I eye the closet’s contents. Drums of pitch line its base like a row of stout soldiers. Above them sit cans the length of my forearm and the width of my hand. Blue-fire oil, the translucent yellow substance the Empire imports from Marinn. It reeks of rotted leaves and sulfur, but it will be more difficult to spot than pitch when I dribble it all over the prison.
It takes me nearly a half hour to empty out a dozen canisters in the back hallways and the rotunda. I stuff each can back in the closet when it is empty, hoping no one notices until it’s too late. Then I pack three more cans into my now bulging bag and enter the kitchen. A Plebeian lords over the stoves, bellowing orders at Scholar slave children. The children whiz around, their speed driven by fear. They are, presumably, exempt from the culling going on outside. My mouth twists in disgust. The Warden needs at least a few drudges to continue doing the chores around here.
I spot Bee, her thin arms shaking beneath a tray of dirty dishes from the mess hall. I sidle toward her, stopping often to avoid the scurrying bodies around me. She jumps when I speak in her ear, but covers her surprise swiftly.
“Bee,” I say. “In fifteen minutes, light the fire.”
She nods imperceptibly, and I move out of the kitchen and to the rotunda. The drum tower thuds six times. According to Helene, the Warden will head to the interrogation cells in a quarter-hour. No time, Laia. Move.
I bolt up the rotunda’s narrow stone staircase. It ends in a wood-beamed hallway lined with dozens of doors. Masks’ quarters. Even as I get to work, the silver-faced monsters exit their quarters and head down the stairs. Every time one passes, my stomach clenches and I look down at myself, making sure my invisibility is still intact.
“Do you smell something?” A short, bearded Mask stumps down the hall with a leaner companion, only to stop a few feet from me. He takes a deep sniff of the air. The other Mask shrugs, grunts, and moves on. But the bearded Mask continues to look about, sniffing along the walls like a hound that’s caught a scent. He stops short at one of the beams I’ve anointed with oil, his eyes dropping to the pool gleaming at its base.
“What in the hells . . .” As he kneels down, I slip behind him, to the end of the hallway. He spins at the sound of my footsteps, his ears keen. I feel my invisibility falter at the rasp of his scim leaving its scabbard. I grab a torch off the wall. The Mask gapes at it. Too late, I realize that my invisibility extends to the wood and pitch, but not the flame itself.
He swings his sword, and startled, I back away. My invisibility drops entirely, a strange rippling that starts at my forehead and cascades down to my feet.
The Mask’s eyes widen, and he lunges. “Witch!”
I throw myself out of his path, hurling the torch at the nearest pool of oil. It flares with a roar, distracting the Mask, and I use the moment to tear away from him.
Disappear, I tell myself. Disappear! But I’m going too fast—it’s not working.
But it must work, or I’m dead. Now, I scream in my mind. The familiar ripple runs back over me just as a tall, thin figure steps out