I’m not sure why you’re trying to free me, but I—”
“Wait. Did you say wood?”
“Yes?” Cassia’s voice twisted in question and worry.
“I’m going to try something. Stand back.”
She heard Cassia shuffle away.
Ash backed up a step too. She sheathed her knife and shook her hands out by her sides. The igneia she’d drawn into herself would have to be enough.
The stone door on this side had a small iron lock. Ash focused on it, exhaling, relaxing.
A ball of fire filled her palms. She remembered the dance of the Great Defeat, the fire rope she twisted high into the arena. She made one now, lengthening the fire as thin as she could hold it. Sweat popped along her forehead with the effort, but she gritted her teeth together and slithered the fire snake for the lock. It eased into the hole, and Ash closed her eyes, swaying with each small, sparking flame and pulsing with every sizzle on the iron lock’s grime.
That tumbler. Her flames pressed on it. Click. Another. And another.
The exterior lock released.
Ash pushed her flames on. They met the wooden interior and crackled hungrily, burning away the connection that kept Cassia imprisoned. She knew when fire burst into the room by Cassia’s startled gasp. A pull, and Ash sucked the igneia back into her heart.
She opened the main door. The wooden one swung inward, leaving the lock in the frame, and Cassia gaped at Ash as she stepped into the hall.
Ash half smiled. “We should go. Elias is waiting at the east wall.”
The moonlight shifted. Cassia’s eyes weren’t on Ash.
Ash looked over her shoulder to see a hulking form in the middle of the hallway.
Petros.
“You seem to have a habit of inserting yourself where you don’t belong,” he snarled.
He heaved his arms, ripping two massive chunks of marble from his own floor. As he threw them, Ash swung around and tackled Cassia, landing them flat just before the boulders sailed over their heads.
“Go!” Ash ripped Cassia to her feet and the two of them took off, sprinting around the rocks and down the opposite staircase. Petros thundered after them and the floor shook, the ceiling raining dust, the walls groaning as geoeia shifted and re-formed and—
Instinct seized Ash with white-hot panic. She hit the first floor and spun around in time to see a wave of razor-sharp rocks slicing through the moonlight toward her. A cry, and Ash washed a wall of flame up the stairs. She couldn’t see anything through orange and shadow, but she heard the clatter of stones hit the steps and the sharp wail of Petros taking the hit of fire.
Outside, a horn sounded, calling Petros’s centurions to mobilize. Alongside it, the earth rumbled, and a narrow window showed the walls of Petros’s villa stretching taller.
A failsafe.
Even if Ash, Cassia, and Tor got to the wall, Petros likely had Earth Divine guards stationed all around, holding it secure. Elias would be unable to keep the small opening for them.
And where was Madoc?
Horror shredded Ash’s resolve and she kept running. She skidded on the slick floor, a beat behind Cassia as they spilled into an atrium. They raced across it, leaping over a bare firepit and empty banquet tables.
The doors at the front end banged open and centurions surged into the room.
Cassia flung out her arms, catching Ash, the two of them gasping.
Before Ash had time to gather her wits enough to blast igneia, Cassia stomped on the stone floor. A violent crack trembled the room. Hands out under hovering stones, the centurions lurched at the unexpected quake. Cassia wasted no time—she grabbed the collar of Ash’s armor and dragged her toward a smaller door set in the side wall.
They flew out into the night and stumbled to a halt at the top of a set of stairs.
Cassia panted in recognition. “The soldiers’ barracks,” she said as Ash’s eyes adjusted to the shadows.
Centurions raced across the side yard, hefting weapons, barking orders. The villa door banged against the wall and drew the attention of one soldier, two, three—
A dozen centurions faced Ash and Cassia, spinning rocks with geoeia, poised to throw.
Reaching for Cassia’s sleeve, Ash took a step back—but she bumped into someone.
Her skin prickled when she looked up and saw Petros, surrounded by centurions.
With one hand, Ash shoved Cassia down the steps; with the other, she washed flame in an arch that provided a cover. Her igneia was dwindling and all torches had been extinguished; she would be defenseless soon, but Ash pushed her