Rain had begun to fall steadily, the day darkening the further they walked into Arcadia. It reminded Clara of the last time she had set foot in the city, although not quite as torrential, at least not yet. So much had changed since that night that it was almost too much to comprehend. Her mind lingered on the memory of finding her mother.

The city had been dead silent, with the group behind her keeping quiet for fear of alerting anyone to their presence. It hadn't been until they reached the central street that led up to the palace that they had first seen movement. Half a dozen figures huddled in heavy cloaks trundled along towards the palace. None of them turned back when a gold coin fell to the ground with a clink from the pile of things they were carrying. Even in the dull afternoon, it glinted slightly.

As they had moved further along the side streets, they had come across more pieces of gold. Coins and small pieces of jewellery, for the most part. She had tried to speculate on what was going on with Arthur, but there wasn't anyone like Thomas with them who often seemed to be able to come up with an answer.

For the moment, Arthur held back in one of the ruined houses with the rest of the group as she moved ahead to scout out the best route forward. The closer they got to the palace, the more people they came across, all of them with the same goal of bringing anything of value they could find to the palace. Something seemed off about them, though, with the way they moved. Rather than walking with purpose, they seemed to shamble along, unaware of what was going on around them.

Here and there, broken braziers held small fires that seemed to ignore the rain as they continued to burn, casting long shadows down the street. In the light of one of them, she watched a man pass by, huddled over a clutch of gold and silver coins. His skin was as pale as marble but blotched with blue and purple bruises, and his dirty, matted hair was missing in clumps. He twitched his head slightly to the side, as if he had felt her watching, a single white eye looking around, the other missing.

She recoiled, just about managing to stop herself from shouting out in surprise. The eye lingered in her direction, seemingly unfocused and twitching around as it searched. Slowly, she sank down, crouching behind a broken chunk of brickwork, her eyes never leaving the man in case he decided to move in her direction. One hand twitched towards her belt, where her mother's dagger was sheathed, with an array of different alchemical vials beside it. Clara knew she wasn't much for fighting, at least not like any of the others she was grouped up with.

Over the weeks of travelling south, she had picked up the odd bit here and there, but she was nowhere near as accomplished with a blade as she felt she should be for something like this. Even some intensive training with a couple of the Blade Masters that Thomas trusted in between helping Robyn with the alchemical weapons hadn't seemed to help much.

There was a chink of something striking the stone behind her, a small broken piece bouncing across the cobbles past her and in the direction of the man who continued to linger. She whipped around to find a woman dragging one leg behind the other as she hobbled along, the odd piece of rubble bouncing away when she hit it with her blackened, rotting bare foot.

Clara let out an involuntary squeak as she pressed herself back against the brickwork. The woman stopped in her tracks, soaked and dishevelled hair flying across her face as she looked around frantically for the source of the sound without seeming to know exactly where it had come from. She crouched with baited breath before the woman's milky-white eyes found her. ‘Mum?’ she breathed.

With a clatter that seemed deafening in the silent city, gold coins and silver cutlery tumbled from her arms as she charged towards Clara. For the briefest of moments, Clara thought she was running to hug her before the dead eyes dawned on her. Her intent was quite the opposite.

Hampered by the leg she was dragging behind her, it gave her those precious extra few seconds to squeeze out from between her and the broken wall, vaulting through the broken window of the building next to her and into the almost pitch-black room. In the darkness, there was a rattling breath and the sound of bones creaking—far more noise than a single person could make.

She grabbed one of the vials from her belt, uncorked it, and tossed it into the room in front of her, having no idea where it would land. With a crack, it shattered on the stone floor, a ball of flame bursting forth. She felt the warmth rush over her face, but that was quickly replaced as she saw the remains of twenty or thirty skeletons clad in battered armour, weapons at the ready, all staring at her with dark, empty eye sockets.

'Clara, time to go!' Arthur shouted from behind her. She turned to see his blade sever the head of, unbeknownst to him, their mother, who had clumsily climbed through the broken window and tumbled face-first onto the floor in the process.

She nodded numbly, her eyes locked on the fallen and unmoving body of her mother. She backed away from the skeletons quickly. 'Shit!' she ducked just in time as a rusty arrow shot out from somewhere near the back of the room and hit the wall beside the window. Hands over her head, she ran for the window, leaping through and into the street as Arthur ducked out of the way. Pulling her aside, he uncorked a vial of his own, hurling it through the window.

A moment later, there was a deafening bang that shook the building, and some of the brickwork that had come loose as it had deteriorated tumbled down into the street around them. The smoke cleared to reveal bones scattered across the room; at least half of the skeletons were no longer standing. 'They're going to know we're here now for sure.'

'Definitely,' he agreed, pulling her down the alleyway and back in the direction of the rest of the group. He took a swipe at the man who had come to investigate, catching him across the arm and sending him spinning to the ground.

They charged around the corner, almost crashing into Olivia and Achak, who were leading the rest of the group. 'We heard an explosion,' Olivia said.

'Lots of skeletons. We're going the other way,' Arthur said quickly, turning Olivia around and ushering the group back in the direction they had come.

'In here,' Clara said, pointing to the large building on the left where the heavy door stood open. Although Clara knew the city quite well, she had found herself getting turned around easily, as though someone had reconfigured it since she had last been here. She recognised this door, though; it still stood open from when she had fled the house many moons ago.

One after another, they piled through the door at her command. When they had set out for the city, she had never expected them to follow her orders without question, especially as she was half the age of most of them. Whether Thomas had said something to them or not, she didn't know, but they followed her unquestioningly.

'What's the plan from here?' Arthur asked as he helped her shut the door, barricading it with a table two of the Cimant warriors had carried through from another room.

'Lay low and keep watch for the moment. If it looks like they've passed us or given up following us, we'll go back out and try to find another way to get through the palace gates,' she said, peering out the window through the narrow gap between the moth-eaten curtain and the wall.

'Is there another way we can get in without having to go through the gateway?' Olivia asked. 'If they're taking things into the palace, then we'll have to fight our way through masses of them or try and blend in with the crowd.'

'The walls completely surround the palace, and they're far too high for us to get over, and the footings probably go down quite a long way. We could try blasting a hole in the wall,' she suggested.

'We've only got two of the powerful explosives, and we might need them to bring the archway down,' Robyn said.

'Are there any old tunnels that lead into the palace? That was how Lewis and Emily managed to escape the city when Anthony and George took them prisoner and held them in the castle.'

'I've never really explored anything like that. Thomas said there was rumoured to be one between the palace and the prison,' Clara said. 'There's probably an old sewer system under the city but you've seen the destruction on the surface; there's no way of knowing how much of it is intact still.'

'How much time do you think we have to explore? The other group must be getting close to the bunker by now,' Arthur asked.

'They can't be that far away now,' she said, holding a finger to her lips before he could reply as a shambling figure came into view at the end of the street. She watched silently, beckoning him to her side so that he could see as well.

Quiet footsteps echoed in the entrance hall as Achak appeared at the top of the stairs. Arthur, Clara, and Olivia all waved at him frantically before he could speak, Clara pointing to the window. He nodded, stopping in his tracks. From halfway down the stairs, he mouthed a single word: 'Lots.'

Clara looked back out the window to see at least a dozen others at the end of the street, all moving slowly in their direction. 'See what they do,' she whispered as Arthur reached for a flammable vial on his belt.

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'Maybe we can thin out the numbers at the gate by picking off groups out here,' he hissed.

Before she could respond, the sound of breaking glass in another room broke the silence. The group outside, which had now swelled to twenty or thirty, stopped as one, heads turning in the direction of the sound. There was a bang and a shout from the other room for help. 'Fine, destroy as many of them as we can but try not to attract any more.'

Achak darted back up the stairs, calling the new orders down the corridor to those who had taken up positions in the upstairs windows. Olivia dashed off to the side in the direction the cry for help had come from, weaving her hands together to create a cluster of radiant daggers. 'Fire in the hole,' Arthur said with a little too much enthusiasm for her liking as he opened the door, hurling the vial at the mass of people swarming towards them before closing it again and sliding the table back in front of it.

The flash from the fireball shone through the curtains, illuminating the room as it engulfed the mob. In its wake, the smell of burnt flesh drifted through the window as she saw half of them lying on the floor, what remained of their clothes feeding the flames. She hoped there were no more nearby who had seen the burst of flame. 'I said without attracting more attention!' She said it in exasperation. Shaking her head, she drew the dagger, hurrying after Olivia.

As she entered the room, a cloud of radiant daggers shot through the air, lifting a hunched person from their feet and slamming them against a wall. One of the Cimant warriors scrambled backwards, blood pouring from a wound in his neck. 'Help him,' Olivia said, glancing over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps. 'I'll hold the rest of them back.'

With a pulse of light, a pale green cloud swirled up from the ground around Olivia as she lifted her arms. The darker spots within it grew, sprouting wings as they took on the form of hummingbirds—dozens upon dozens of them. They encircled her, diving towards the undead mass, trying to all fit through the two large windows at once. It was captivating, Clara's attention only being pulled away when a bloody hand grabbed at her leg, the Cimant warrior trying to pull himself up.

'Let me,' she said as he tried to grab one of the vials filled with a thick, milky white liquid. Quickly, she detached it, uncorking it and tipping it onto her fingers. 'This might sting; I don't really know.'

From the wince, she could tell it did as she spread it over the deep wound with her fingers, the blood and healing salve mixing until it was pale pink. He seemed to grow a little steadier as the blood flow slowed, the thick pink paste smothering the wound.

'Thank you,' he muttered with a nod as he looked around. 'My weapon—I don't see it.'

With a clatter, the flint-tipped spear landed on the floor nearby, Olivia's outstretched hand returning to its raised position, directing the hummingbirds. 'It takes a bit of time to heal properly; get upstairs and rest for a few minutes in case the wound opens up again,' she called.

'What do you want me to do?' Clara asked. With a crash, the rotting wooden sashes over one of the other windows were ripped away, lifeless hands smashing the glass.

'There are too many of them; we need to find a way to funnel them or get out of here,' Olivia said, backing away towards the entrance hall a few paces so that she could direct her hummingbirds across the room as the undead bodies began to clamber through the third window. Just as quickly as they fell under the swarm of spectral birds, another stumbled forward, trampling over them.

'They're coming in this side!' Arthur shouted from the hallway as he drew his sword, still trying to hold the table against the door as fists pounded on the other side of it.

'Get upstairs; we might be able to get across to one of the houses next door,' she said, throwing her weight against the table so that Arthur could bring his sword down, the blade severing three of the hands that were trying to reach through the gap they had managed to make in opening the door. 'Achak, how many of them are there?' She shouted as she and Arthur threw their weight against the table again, forcing it closed again.

'A couple of hundred maybe? Give or take,' he called from somewhere upstairs.

She looked at Arthur. 'We can't fight off that many of them.'

'What if we draw them all inside and use that powerful explosive to bring the house down on top of them?' He said this as Olivia backed into the doorway.

'We need it for the archway,' she argued.

'If we die here, then it won't matter. They're going to know we're in the city now; all we were was a distraction for Thomas and the others to break into the prison,' Arthur said. 'That's why he let you and Emily go and try to find Ikore; he knew Emily would never go along with it.'

'Why are you here if you knew it was basically a suicide mission?' She demanded, moving away from the table to stare him down.

'You don't know Lewis like I do; you haven't seen what he's capable of. He's the only hope any of us have of making it out of this alive. I don't plan on dying in this city, but if I have to, if that means getting Lewis out of that prison, then so be it,' he said as the door pushed the table back a couple of inches. 'Now, either help me hold back these undead bastards or get upstairs and find us a way out before we have no choice but to blow this place to bits.'

She froze, the desperation in his voice hitting home, just like their mother's pleas for her to run. 'Clara, he's right; we all know what we signed up for, but that doesn't mean we're going without a hell of a fight. I can't hold them back much longer.'

'Fine!' She snapped. 'If we can get to the rooftop, we might be able to escape further down the terrace. We keep the big explosive for now but we can blow the staircase with the smaller ones and then try and pick as many off from the balcony as possible.'

'That's better; I'll hold them as long as I can, Arthur. Get an incendiary in that other room to slow them down a little bit. Don't worry about the door; I can manage,' Olivia said. Backing into the middle of the hallway, she lowered her arms, the hummingbirds fading from existence.

Clara sheathed the dagger quickly, pulling the half-dozen tiny red vials from her belt and placing one by the banister every other step as Arthur lit up the entrance hall with the incendiary he had chucked through the door. 'Get everyone to the back of the house!' He shouted as he turned and raced up the stairs, passing Clara just as the table in front of the door screeched across the stone floor, the door bursting open.

Glancing to either side, Olivia took her hands and placed them palms down on the floor. With a deafening crack, the ground split open, revealing a jagged line shooting in the direction of each of the three doorways. Thick red bolts like lightning jumped from the newly formed divide, striking the walls and ceiling, sending chunks of plaster and brick flying around the room.

The bolts of red energy bounced around the room, seemingly out of control. One collided with one of the reanimated corpses, reducing it to a steaming pile of rotting flesh and splattering it up the walls in the process. Clara gagged, stumbling backwards up the stairs and banging into the banister as she did so. Even amid the noise and chaos, she heard the clink of a glass vial falling on the stone stairs as clearly as if it had been silent. She looked down.

Almost in slow motion, the vial that looked like it had embers trapped inside it bounced down the steps, threatening to break and send fire spewing into the entrance hall. 'Olivia, run!' she shouted, pointing to the vial tumbling towards her. Her eyes went wide.

The bolts of chaotic energy spewing from the ground stopped as she lifted her hands, running as fast as she could towards the stairs. No longer pinned back by the rampant red energy, the undead mass that had piled into the house charged forward after Olivia. 'Do it!' she shouted, throwing herself around the corner at the top of the stairs.

Pulling the cork off the last small explosive vial, Clara tossed it down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, one of the undead men picked up the incendiary vial. She was sure she heard a confused grunt from him as he uncorked it. Just as the explosive hit the ground, a fireball erupted from the other vial, engulfing the room as there was a quick succession of blasts from the explosives that shook the entire house.

Clara threw herself to the floor, covering her head as chunks of masonry collapsed into the hallway. She heard thuds as it hit the bodies below, eerily devoid of panicked screams. Smoke and dust engulfed her; the ringing in her ears was so loud that the shouts around her sounded like distant whispers. 'Clara, are you alright?' Olivia asked, pulling her hands off her head.

She nodded. 'Did we get them all?'

'What are you going to do now?' Arthur shouted, leaning over the banister and looking down.

Gingerly, Clara got to her feet, peering over the side where the staircase had once been as the dust began to settle. In amongst all the rubble stood twenty or so of the undead, a handful that had still been outside slowly making their way in. They all stood motionless, staring up at them. As one, they parted, forming a corridor from the door between them.

With a heavy limp, a woman walked in, her face heavily bruised on one side, her long black hair matted and filled with knots. She wore long red robes that were filled with holes and covered in dirt. The golden filigree around the hems catching the low burning light from the fire. 'What are they doing now?' Arthur said, backing up in panic.

The woman lifted her hands and the broken rubble that littered the entrance hall began to lift up. With a thrust, it flew in their direction, bombarding the walls behind them as the three of them dove for cover. 'Precursor!' Olivia screamed up into the rest of the house as she threw up a pale green dome of spectral vines over their heads to protect them. Where the balcony had ended just moments ago some of the rubble from the staircase was beginning to reform haphazardly.

'Olivia,' Achak said, appearing at her side, a bow in hand and an arrow already notched. With a snap of her fingers the cloth wrapped around the point burst into flames just before he released it, the arrow burying itself in the chest of the woman who didn't even seem to flinch. 'Again!'

'Get to the roof and get out of here,' she said as she ignited another arrow for Achak. 'Go! We'll catch up with you.

Clara allowed Arthur to drag her down the corridor, her eyes unable to look away, the eyes of the precursor woman following her as she was struck by another flaming arrow but still remained unwavering. The remaining couple of dozen undead swarmed towards the jumbled recreation of the staircase. 'We can't just leave them!' she pleaded, trying to pull against Arthur.

'They'll be right behind us, I promise,' he said, dragging her around a corner and up another flight of stairs, past two of the precursors who's names she didn't know that were running down them to help. 'We need to get out of here and to the archway while all eyes are on the house. Can you get us there quickly?'

She nodded. 'I think so.'

'Good, let's go,' he called to all the others who were waiting by a hatch that led out onto the rooftop. 'Follow Clara, don't stop, we're going for the archway.' He pushed her ahead of him as he turned back in the direction he had come, drawing his sword once more.

'Wait, where are you going?' she shouted after him but he had already disappeared from view. Two floors below them there was another bang that shook the whole house as all eyes settled on her, waiting for her to lead the way.

'Come on, we can't stay here,' Robyn said, grabbing her hand and dragging her ahead of the group and in the direction of the palace. Bangs and blasts echoed behind them through the otherwise silent streets down below as they splashed through the puddles on the rooftops.