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“What?” Hadrian asked. He was straining his neck. “There’s some kind of light ahead.”
Fordham followed where he was looking. “Fire.”
And then the screams began as the last rays of light died on the horizon, plunging them into near total darkness. People jostled all around them, but they were stuck.
Kerrigan grabbed on to Clover’s hand. “Stay close.”
Fordham put his chest to her back protectively. “We need to get out of here.”
“Lead the way.” She slid her hand into his.
He nodded and pulled the four of them through the crowd. It was slow going. Everyone was trying to escape at once, but there were no exits. They were trapped in a part of Central district with high buildings on either side. The alleys were clogged. Fordham tried to move them back the way they’d come but stalled when he saw what awaited them.
Red Masks.
Kerrigan’s stomach dropped. The Guard had vanished from their posts, and in their place were men standing in all black with red masks over their faces. Or… the guards were Red Masks. That thought was chilling.
A loud bang exploded behind them. Screams grew to a deafening volume. And to Kerrigan’s horror, she watched one of the buildings shift. Rubble rained down on the crowd. The building listed sideways and collapsed, trapping countless people.
Kerrigan gasped. “We need to help.”
Another building exploded nearby. Kerrigan ducked to the ground, ash and rock falling down on her. Her eyes darted left and right as the world that she knew and the city she loved dissolved into chaos. Fear crept up her throat. She was paralyzed with inaction. All she could think and feel was that night so long ago when she’d been trapped by Red Masks. When she’d seen her life flash before her eyes and known it would be her last.
“Kerrigan!” Fordham yelled. “We have to get out of here. Help me get through the Red Masks.”
She stared up at him with tears in her eyes. “How?”
“Call Tieran. I’m going to get Netta here. We can bust through them ourselves while we wait and get people out of here,” he said, calm in the face of danger.
A plan. Yes, she could execute a plan. She wasn’t helpless here anymore. That was in the past.
Kerrigan braced herself to slip into the spirit plane and call Tieran, but then the Red Masks lobbed black orbs into the crowd. One fell right in front of Clover and Hadrian, who had been huddled together, waiting for direction. Black smoke exploded out of the shattered orb, wrapping around Clover and Hadrian and the people nearest them.
Fordham jerked her cloak up over her face. “Don’t breathe it in.”
Kerrigan couldn’t see anything, but she could hear the shouts as Fordham wrenched her backward, away from the smoke.
“Clover,” she screamed, pulling the cloak down.
But Clover and Hadrian were gone.
Kerrigan turned in a circle, panic seizing her. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t know,” Fordham said. “Gods.”
More buildings were coming down. Kerrigan couldn’t see anything in front of her. The smoke was everywhere. More of the orbs being lobbed into the crowd and taking out the demonstrators.
“I can’t reach Netta. She must be too far away. Tieran?” Fordham asked as he continued to pull her away from the smoke and toward the opening.
“No,” she said. Her throat was scratchy and painful. She must have inhaled some of the smoke because, suddenly, she was coughing and couldn’t seem to stop. Her eyes itched, and tears welled in them. “We need to get out of here. We need to get the others out.”
“Charge the line with me,” he said.
She pulled her magic to her, weak with terror, and followed behind Fordham as they approached the Red Masks at the entrance. But they must have seen them coming because one threw an orange orb into the nearest building. People screamed as it tilted sideways.
“Fordham!”
His eyes widened in fear. Then, in a second, he had his arms around her. Black smoke enveloped him. This was an altogether different feeling, like being trapped in darkness. Secure and content. One minute, the building had been falling on top of them, and the next, she was in shadow.
She dared not breathe as Fordham’s magic swept them away.
33
The Smoke
CLOVER
Clover couldn’t breathe.
Smoke filled her lungs and burned her eyes and choked her throat. Everything was hazy with the substance. Fire burned in the distance, a fiery blur. Screams and screams and more screams. All around her. Coming from her.
“Clover!” Hadrian yelled next to her over the cacophony.
She coughed, trying to form words but she couldn’t manage it. Her hands were starting to shake. It made no sense. She’d had a loch cigarette before she arrived. A nice long one that should have left her buzzing for hours. But it was as if the black smoke was filling her up and pushing all of that healing out of her. Everything that kept her from the chronic, debilitating pain.
