Gray’s breath snagged in his throat.

Several soldiers were following Killian, fanning out.

‘Griffin,’ called Killian. ‘Stay right there.’

His voice wasn’t loud but the library came to a hushed stop at the rippling disturbance in the steely edge of Killian’s voice, so out of place amongst the soft library murmurs and rustling pages.

There was no hesitation in Gray. No moment of deciding what to do or where to go. His body responded before he was even aware of what he was doing.

Gray ran like he’d never run in his life.

Nothing was going to stop him.

He vaulted over a table to bypass a group of students and something surged in his chest because this was more like it. This was how Gray should be able to move. His ankle was barely noticeable. The twinge of pain was nothing against the adrenaline flooding his blood.

Killian shouted a command to his soldiers. The Lismerian was too rapid, too clipped for Gray to understand.

Gray didn’t dare break his momentum to glance back.

He pushed himself to run harder.

His feet were flying over the stone floor of the library.

Gray’s list of creatures was crushed in his fist and he was sprinting too fast to do anything but hang onto it. Then, as he slammed through a side door of the library and out into the unexpected and startlingly red light of the rising sun, he skidded to avoid crashing into a group of young kids and he dropped it.

And he couldn’t do anything but abandon that list and keep running.

All that frenzied work.

Work that was inching him closer to finding out what and how Alistair had died.

His stomach jolted at the loss.

But he didn’t have time to process it, to think, as cool morning air tore against his face and through his clothes as he kept running.

The side door he’d torn through had brought him to a walled garden. It was open on one side, but that was fast closing up with a silhouetted line of soldiers.

Gray spent precious seconds scaling the garden wall. He balanced on the top, glimpsing a striking view of Sirentown spilling down the mountain, half in pre-dawn duskiness, half illuminated in red sunlight, and a sunrise beyond everything, blindingly brilliant as it rose out of the sea.

Directly below him, yawning like a chasm, a narrow well-kept street lined with tall townhouses. The drop was far enough to kill. Gray gripped onto the wall so tight the stone cut into his hands.

There was a curt command behind him, Killian directing his soldiers, ‘cut him off.’

Then, because he couldn’t allow himself to be cut off, because there were already soldiers entering the narrow street below Gray, he launched himself up.

And across.

It was as though the world had fallen away.

As though the air hung silent.

For a moment he was weightless, suspended in the air with nothing but cobblestones three stories below.

He slammed into the side of the townhouse, his breath forced out of him, his fingertips scrabbling for purchase. With a strangled gasp, Gray hauled himself up with shaking arms, swinging a leg over the gutter and rolling onto the turquoise roof tiles.

For a second, Gray lay there, staring blindly up at the sky, his blood roaring in his ears and his lungs refusing to work.

There was a soft thud directly underneath him.

Killian.

Fear spiked. Gray’s mouth was dry.

He scrambled to his feet and zigzagged across the slanted roof, dodging chimneys and loose tiles that threatened to send him tumbling. Past clotheslines filled with flapping laundry drying in the sea wind. His hands and knees stung from a hundred scrapes.

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Gray didn’t look around. The padding of Killian behind him was almost silent.

There was no roar of pursuit or pounding of boots. This was the run of a man who meant business, that was done playing around and was ready to end things.

Gray ran over the slippery rooftops, as the red dawn slipped into full daylight.

But he was flying. He was going too fast.

So fast his run was becoming uncontrolled.

He slipped.

Down, down a section of roof and he could see the edge coming.

Panic ripped through Gray.

He clawed at the glazed tiles.

There was nothing to grab on to, nothing to stop him falling over the edge.

Gray fell silently.

There was no primal scream, no shout for help.

He didn’t have time.

The ground rushed up to meet him, and then -

He stopped.

He’d grabbed onto a clothesline, without knowing what he was doing, without realising.

It cut into his palms and it snapped, and Gray continued to fall, in a pile of colourful laundry smelling like salty ocean and lavender and silversmith fumes.

It broke his fall just enough so that Gray didn’t die.

At least, as he lay winded on the ground, unable to breathe for the pain in his lungs and over the kind of numb throbbing throughout his entire body, Gray didn’t think he'd died.

Gray pushed himself up and tried not to puke.

Assessed his legs, his back, his arms.

He was OK.

He staggered into the wall of the alley he’d fallen into. An ancient woman in a knitted shawl watched from her front doorway, and then, as though in slow motion, she looked up.

So did Gray.

Killian peered over the edge of the rooftop.

Gray made himself keep running.

Badly.

He’d messed up his lungs, his body was shaking, shutting down, going into shock.

He turned down a skinny alley, and it was surprisingly busy.

Gray yanked his hood up.

Kept going, alternating between brisk walk and hunched stagger.

And then he stumbled out into the main thoroughfare.

-

The main thoroughfare twisted down the mountain, and was already bustling with enough sound and colour to assault Gray’s shutting-down senses.

His lungs burned as he tried to regain his breath. Blending in with this throng was his best option, there were masks, hoods, costumes, and kohl everywhere.

People swarmed and vendors cried out, thrusting wares at the crowd. The press of people made Gray’s head spin.

Summer food stalls and stages lined the steps down, and shops had their doors flung wide open, their wares on display on the street to tempt buyers. Smoke curled from the stalls and the air was thick with the scent of roasted meats, vegetables, fried dough and spun sugar.

Gray didn’t dare pause.

His chest tightened with the urge to move, to slip through the current of people.

Someone elbowed him, someone else trod on his heel. He was getting jostled.

Voices mixed with the beat of drums from stage performances and buskers playing the fiddle. Masked dancers and fighting displays caused crushes of spectators and sharp bellows of cheers.

‘GRAY.’

Killian’s shout was so cutting that Gray involuntarily turned around, and he stumbled as his momentum broke, his toe catching on an uneven rock on the ground.

The soldiers had fallen way behind. For a split second, he glimpsed them high on the street, bellowing at the people to make way. Killian was close enough to Gray to see in detail, to see his face pulled into hard lines and his battle scars stark in the rising sunlight.

Killian wasn’t out of breath.

He wasn’t struggling.

Someone thrust lemonade samples at him.

Killian knocked it away.

Another tried to pull Killian aside to have his fortune told.

Killian elbowed them back.

Gray’s chest burned, his blood roaring in his veins.

Killian’s anger and power was growing more tangible with each step, and the crowd was starting to part for him.

Starting to stare.

Getting his feet underneath him, Gray kicked up into a painful sprint again, his hood flying back, weaving through a parade of dancers and ducked behind a cart piled with steaming buns. The tang of salt and spices hit him like a wave as he approached The Salty Dog’s Spices spice shop with open casks of brilliant red, yellow, and brown powders.

And then, a flash of a memory of Longwark droning on in alchemy classes.

Gray had an idea.

Because Gray would not be able to outrun Killian.

Gray needed cover.

Something to give him a moment to disappear.

His breath ragged, Gray skidded to a stop beside the Salty Dog’s Spices display. He snatched a fistful of saltpeter and then a fistful of raw sugar.

The owner came out of the shop, shouting.

But Gray was already gone.

Long ago, Gray had learnt the quickest and easiest way to make a smoke bomb was to combine saltpeter and sugar and fire.

With a flick of his wrist, he hurled the powders into the open flame of the closest food stall.

The flame roared to life.

There was a burst of brilliant sparks.

Then, thick, choking smoke billowed out in all directions.

Shouts erupted as people scattered, coughing and shouting, the festival thrown into chaos.

Gray didn’t wait to see if Killian had been swallowed by the smoke.

He kept running.