“You know, I have a project in the back. I could use some help with it. If you don’t mind?”
The girl glanced nervously at the door. “What if they come in?”
Petal knew better than to ask who ‘they’ were. That meant whoever was outside, causing problems and trying to get to them.
“They won’t. The Champions won’t let them.”
Lotta sunk into her collar, muttering, “The Champions are gone.”
“No, the Champions are out there. Fighting for us. And they never lose.”
Urzaia had claimed that he was undefeated in the Izyrian arena. She tried to focus on his smile and his confident laugh, and not on the fact that he had been killed himself in the end.
Lotta looked up and met her eyes…
…and then someone kicked the door in.
Both Petal and Lotta jumped and screamed at the explosion of the door hitting the wall, but Tyria was the first one through. “Table!” she shouted. “Where’s the operating table?”
A few of the others scrambled to lead the way down the hall, and the Champion pushed past Petal carrying something. No, someone.
Petal’s breath stopped when she saw who Tyria carried.
White armor. Red hair.
And a wound on his back, slowly dripping blood.
Rosephus charged through the door afterwards, the Emperor’s full-face helmet clutched in one hand. He glowered at no one in particular as he walked through, and she saw that he had a shallow cut over one eyebrow.
“We need you to get the armor off the Steward’s body without breaking it,” Rosephus said to the room. “Who among you are Readers?”
Lotta tugged at Petal’s arm, but Petal was beyond caring. She drifted down the hall as though in a nightmare.
Two of her peers had already started busying themselves around Calder’s body, strapping on goggles and aprons and preparing scalpels to cut the armor free.
Calder’s body.
Petal found herself standing over him. His face was waxy and fake, like a mask. His eyes stared up at nothing.
Someone called her name, but she shakily felt for a heartbeat in Calder’s throat. He wouldn’t die here. Not yet. He still hadn’t succeeded the Emperor, not really.
The Champion snapped her fingers in front of Petal’s face, and Petal jerked back to reality. She didn’t move her hand, but she looked up, startled.
Tyria gave her an exasperated look. “You think I didn’t take his pulse? He’s gone.”
One of the other alchemist’s tugged on Tyria’s arm and then whispered something in her ear. Tyria’s face fell.
“Light and life…sorry, Petal, I didn’t know. Could somebody take Petal…yeah, thanks.”
One of Petal’s colleague’s gently tried to steer her away, but she didn’t move.
There was no pulse. What did that mean?
“Petal,” Tyria said, “We’re on a clock here. If we’re not out of the Capital in an hour, we’re not getting out.”
Calder’s death would mean the fall of the Imperial Palace. Tears welled up in her eyes. She shouldn’t have stayed away from him. That was when everything had gone wrong…
Something thumped against her fingers.
She jerked away from Calder’s throat, staring at it as though it had bit her. Then the meaning of it sent a lightning thrill racing through her, and she grabbed his neck as though she meant to strangle him and shoved her ear up against his lips.
It was faint…so faint and so irregular that she almost couldn’t hear it over the chatter of the others. But air whispered into his mouth.
Tyria spoke again, less gently this time. “Petal, we can’t work with you standing there.”
Petal tried to speak, but the words were all jumbled up on her lips. Instead, she did something that she would usually never have dreamed of doing; she reached up and grabbed Tyria’s head, pulling her ear up to Calder’s face.
If the Champion had resisted, not all of Petal’s body weight could have budged her an inch, but the woman sighed and relented. “I know he was your Navigator, but I—”
She cut herself off. Her eyes widened.
An instant later, she stood up straight. “Rosephus! Seal the door! Nobody gets in!” She looked around, taking in the rest of them. “I don’t know how he’s held on this long and we’re still running out of time…but do what you can to save his life. No one leaves this building until he stabilizes or dies. We can’t let word get out that he’s here.”
Petal’s thoughts whirled around one another like a flock of confused birds…but she clung to one thing.
She needed help.
Without explanation, she scurried back into the hallway, where Lotta cowered behind her high collar. Petal grabbed her, pulling her