she was all right, her Kind could handle far worse than this—when she spotted something out the window.
A flash of silver.
A face.
“Rowan.” The name slipped from her tongue in her shock, before she could stop it. She threw back the velvet curtains even as Crier shrank into the seat, staring in horror at the furious humans surrounding the carriage, a sea of hands and faces, teeth and wild eyes. Behind them, oily black smoke rose up from the rooftop of a nearby building. The humans stared into the carriage—stared at Crier—with white-hot hatred, screaming things Ayla couldn’t make out, slapping at the carriage windows, shoving themselves bodily against the wheels and sides.
“Rowan!” Ayla cried out again. Because there she was: a woman standing stock-still at the center of the mob, staring at the carriage. Her silver hair stood out like a beacon against the writhing crowd, her mouth forming a silent word: Ayla.
Ayla pressed both hands to the window, nothing but a thin pane of glass separating her from the mob. She didn’t care. “Rowan!”
Crier crawled across the seats and grabbed the collar of Ayla’s shirt, trying to drag her away from the window, but Ayla squirmed out of her grip. “Let go of me!” she snarled. “Let go, that’s my friend out there—”
The sound of a horn cut through the shouting. The innkeeper’s guards must have arrived. Ayla couldn’t see them yet, but she saw the moment the crowd realized what was happening: she saw some of them scream with new anger or fear, she saw a few peel away from the edges of the mob and make a break for it.
Another one pulled out a wooden club.
“Ayla,” Crier said urgently, tugging at Ayla’s arm. “You have to get away from the window.”
“No! We have to get Rowan out of there!” Ayla struggled, almost panicking. “She can’t get captured, she’s important, we need her, we can’t do any of it without her! Rowan!”
“Ayla, I’ll have the guards take her to a safe place, just get away from the window.”
Ayla swiveled to Crier, panting. “You’ll protect her? You’ll make sure she’s okay?”
“Yes,” said Crier. She looked out over Ayla’s shoulder. Rowan was waving her arms and shouting to the other rebels, gesturing at something. Trying to calm them? Or rile them up further? “I promise you,” Crier said. “Just get down, get your face away from the glass!”
Another rock hit the glass, this time breaking through; Ayla got a faceful of shattered glass. She felt the impact first and then pain, white-hot and searing, radiating through her entire face. Her lip and forehead were bleeding; blood dripped down her chin; she could taste it.
Crier was pulling her down to the floor, while outside the carriage, there was a flash of black. The guards had arrived. Hazily, she could see a line of them closing in around the mob, swords drawn. Automae. Their faces were different, but all wore the same expression: blank as new parchment, cold as ice.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion, even as Ayla scrabbled against Crier, pushing her way back to the now-broken window, because she needed to break free, needed to reach Rowan—
First, the guards were at the edges of the mob, making it impossible for any of the humans to escape. Then, there was a burst of movement near the center, and the man who’d drawn the wooden club reappeared again, brandishing it above his head.
Rowan wrapped her arms around him. She was trying to make him lower the weapon. But it was too late. The guards had seen a threat.
Ayla couldn’t hear the noise the sword made when it pierced Rowan’s back. But she saw it happen, and so her mind produced a terrible, gut-wrenching noise. The noise of a blade pushed through flesh and organ and spine.
The guard pulled his sword out of Rowan’s back. Slowly, so slowly, inch by inch, the metal dark with blood. Around them, the other humans were beginning to realize what had just happened; new screams, of fear and anger, tore the air. Red human blood spattered the man with the club. It dripped from the hilt of the sword. It bloomed, a growing patch, across the center of Rowan’s spine. Her dress was forest green. The red looked black.
Rowan swayed and fell.
Only then did Ayla scream.
Ayla barely remembered returning to the palace, the imagined sound of metal on bone still echoing in her head. She hadn’t even looked at Crier for the rest of the