Part 27 (1/2)

Sylph songs turned to screeches a heartbeat later. Bra.s.s objects skittered into the room. Sylph eggs. Lids open. My sylph poured into the eggs like smoke through a flue.

Cras.h.i.+ng sounded from the storage room, then footsteps.

Sam and I scrambled for our pistols as a dozen people in bright red burst into the room. Half of them dove toward the sylph eggs, flipping the lids shut before the sylph could escape. From the others, blue targeting lights shone across the room and turned on Sam and me.

A sylph peeled away from the shadows, burning through wool and skin and tissue. The stink of cooking flesh filled the room as another guard withdrew a sylph egg, twisted it, and flipped open the lid. Cris darted toward the hall where Stef and Sarit were coming, their weapons ready.

Everything was chaos. I fired my pistol, not thinking about a person there, only that they'd come to kill us. Trap the sylph. Take the key.

People screamed as lasers threaded the room. Wood burned and cracked. Machinery came cras.h.i.+ng to the floor, and the reek of smoke permeated the room.

Sam dragged me behind one of the burning looms, then pushed me down so we were both crouching. ”First chance you get, grab your bag and get out of here. Don't wait for anyone.”

”Buta””

”No. You have the key. You know the plan. It must succeed, no matter what.”

I clenched my jaw and peered through the flames, which licked across the old, polished wood of the fallen looms. The smoke caught in my throat, making me cough.

Stef and Sarit shot more guards, using a door in the hallway as a cover. Cris burned through people, struggling to open the eggs scattered across the floor, but he was incorporeal. He couldn't touch anything.

”We need to get the eggs open,” I hissed.

Sam stood and shot the last guard before she could trap Cris.

The fire grew quickly, so we waited only a moment before the four of us crept from our hiding places and reached for the nearest eggs to free the sylph. Just as my hands closed around one of the bra.s.s devices, more guards poured into the room, targeting lights s.h.i.+ning everywhere.

I flipped open the lid of my egg and let it go. Hot pain flared across my right arm as I grabbed for my pistol, but I ignored the sharp bloom of heat. My pistol was ready. I aimed at the door and shot. Someone dropped, clutching their burned leg. Around me, Sam, Stef, and Sarit were shooting too, though they had better aim.

A couple of sylph fluttered from their eggs, disoriented from being trapped for even a few minutes. But Cris rallied them and they dove in front of us, acting as s.h.i.+elds, absorbing the laser blasts, as they had the acid from the dragons.

Smoke thickened in the room, searing my lungs. The fire licked the ceiling now, roaring as it grew. There was nowhere to hide.

With a sylph guarding me, I pushed forward and reached for another egg, but blue lighta”immediately followed by paina”shot across my fingers. I jumped back.

”Ana!” Sarit's voice pierced the cacophony of fire and screams and sylph song. Red marked her bare arms, and her face was flushed with heat and pain. She shook back the black tendrils of her hair as she hefted her pistol and shot another guard. ”Get your bag and go.”

Not without everyone else. I searched for Sam in the smoke-choked weaving room, but I couldn't find him or Stef. ”Sam!” Smoke burned my lungs and made my voice crack. ”Stef!”

One of the guards near me dropped, pistol burns crisscrossing his face. My sylph s.h.i.+eld stretched as I bent to open another egg, but the heat of sylph and fire and pain made my head swim. I fumbled for the lid. My fingers caught with one another, feeling disconnected as the metal bit into them. My thoughts felt thin and faraway as I staggered toward the door and my bag there.

But I couldn't leave without my friends.

”Stef!” I couldn't see her. ”Sam!” The smoke was too thick, and the fire too bright as it ate through the old wood of the mill, consuming walls and support beams and crates of woven fabric. My vision swam, fogging at the edges. When I searched for Sarit, she was gone, too.

Guards still flooded through the building, coming in from the door at the other end of the mill. Blue speared the smoke, aiming right at me, but my sylph caught the blast, then s.h.i.+fted around me where fire burned a loom. Heat poured into the sylph, smothering the fire a fraction before the sylph had to guard me again.

”Cris! Sarit!” My foot b.u.mped something soft, and I stumbled over a body, the blackened corpse of a guard. I screamed and scrambled over him, toward the bags piled by the door.

Someone knocked me over as I reached for my backpack. My elbow and shoulder and head hit the floor, and the sudden pain shocked me back into alertness. I turned around and found a giant of a man bearing down on me.

Merton.

My sylph roared up between us, thick and black and burning. At the last second, Merton must have realized the sylph would block his shot. He turned and the blue targeting light beamed across the room, landing on Sam as he stumbled from the wreckage of a torched loom.

Stef shoved Sam aside.

Red and black welled up across her throat. A chunk of her hair seared off. Her eyes grew wide as she and Sam crashed to the floor.

My sylph surged up and wrapped itself around Merton. Three more shadows left their mostly dead targets and pooled over Merton, who screamed as his skin blistered and sloughed and blackened. The stench of burned flesh and hair overpowered the smoke. As Merton's screams fell into gasps and gurgles, I looked away. I didn't want to see him die.

Head spinning from the smoke and pain, I groped for my backpack and hauled it over my shoulders.

Bodies littered the floor, most of them burned beyond recognition. But the guards were gone. Either dead or dying. The fire still blazed, roaring across the weaving room and through to the other areas. I had to get out. But first I had to gather my friends.

”Sam.” I coughed out his name as I staggered over corpses. ”Stef. Sarit.”

The sylph formed a line against the fire, absorbing what heat and flame they could to keep it from spreading, but it wouldn't be long before the building collapsed further.

Stef's eyes were wide and gla.s.sy. She wasn't moving, but she gasped a little. The burn on her throat made a heavy dark line, surrounded by red.

”No.” I stumbled and dropped in front of her as Sam and Sarit approached, too. ”Stef, come on. We've got to go.”

She blinked, long and slow, and her eyes rolled toward me, though she seemed unfocused. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out.

Sam reached for her, stopped, reached again. Tears dripped down his face. ”You're okay. We've got a lot of work to do, and we need you.”

She closed her eyes and mouthed, ”No.”

Sarit leaned over and hugged me. Her voice was ragged as she spoke by my ear. ”You have to go. Get Sam and go. I'll release the rest of the sylph and tell them to follow you.”

Fire rushed around us, licking toward the door and the bags there.

”You have to come find us, too.” I took Sarit's shoulders and held her at arm's length. ”I'm not losing you. Come find us after you set the sylph free.”

She glanced at her arms, speckled with burn marks. Her face, too, had dark bruises blooming, or smoke stains. I couldn't tell. ”Okay.” Her cough was deep and dry, and blood dotted her arm where she tried to cover her mouth. ”You have to go. Promise you'll stop him.”

”I promise.” Tears ached around my eyes as I hugged her again, then touched Stef's cheek. Her skin was warm, but the heat wasn't from within her. It was the fire's. I searched for the words to tell her how much she meant to me, but nothing came. Nothing big or important enough. ”I love you.” The roar of the fire crushed my whisper.

Somewhere else in the mill, wood crashed to the floor, and flames rushed through the hall.

Sam was petting Stef's hair, repeating something that was lost in the cacophony. I wanted to let him stay with her, but Sarit glared at me and I grabbed his arm. ”Let's go.”

He struggled against me. ”No.”

Footsteps clomped through the mill. More guards. ”Come on!”