Page 168 of The Amber Sunburst

“How do you know that?”

“We know a lot more than you believe we do.”

Lazarus wants to ask her to elaborate, but he holds his tongue.

“Let her leave. She isn’t what you want,” he says, his voice even.

Lazarus isn’t sure where his panic went between two seconds ago and now, but all that’s left in his heart is confidence. He’s happy to suffer if it means Arete gets to leave. If it means all of his friends escape together. They won’t mind leaving him behind, surely.

Apollonia shrugs. “Come here,” she commands. When he does, she quickly switches the gun from Arete’s head to his own. “Run along, child.”

Arete stares up at Lazarus with terrified eyes.

“It’s okay. Go. You know what to do.”

“Laz—”

“Go. I’ll be fine,” he says, resolute. And he will be.

Well, not fine. But he will have done this for a good reason. And if he dies, he will die for a good reason.

“Okay,” Arete says, then she runs.

“I thought you could be something, Lazarus,” Apollonia says. “But I was wrong.”

Her gun is cold against his forehead. Her eyes are colder.

“You’re going to kill me right now?” Lazarus asks, voice shaking. Okay, maybe he was a little too hasty in saying he’s ready to die. He would really, really prefer not to die.

“As much as the Priestesses would love to get their hands on you, given your thievery, I have my orders.”

Arete better make it to the group because his ghost will be pissed if he did this for nothing.

“Goodbye, Lazarus,” Apollonia sighs, and Lazarus squeezes his eyes shut and tries to remember the floating. He finally had it, for a moment. And he can take that to his grave. He’s no longer Icarus falling from too high, burnt up by the sun. He’s just a boy who died doing what was right.

The buzz of electricity fills his ears and he can almost feel it behind his closed eyes. Is this what death is supposed to sound like? Or did he mess it up? Only he could manage to die wrong.

“Lazzy,” Arete says, and Lazarus opens his eyes to find Apollonia’s limp form on the ground in front of him.

Arete victoriously holds up his taser.

“Did you⁠—”

“Yes.”

“Are you alright?”

Arete smiles, eyes shining with their usual crazy glint. “Totally.”

Lazarus blinks slowly. “I’ll set off the alarms if I try to leave,” he says.

Arete scowls at him. “So set off the alarms.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but he can’t beat that logic. Screw the plan. They should have just done this in the first place.

He throws Arete over his shoulder and breaks out into a sprint so fast he barely hears it when alarms start blaring behind him.

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