Page 50 of Claiming Glass

I let my mage light blaze above. Secrecy no longer mattered.

A red ribbon bookmarked one of the finely drawn maps, the lines swimming before my panicked eyes. We needed an exit close to here, but I did not even know whereherewas.

“We move on ten,” Yahontov said as the dead spread to surround us. “Or not at all.”

My mind screamed for me to face the threat. Adrenaline shook my hands. Cold locked down my magic.

“Nine.”

Focus.

“Eight.”

Wishmaker, help me.

“Seven.”

There’s the palace walls. The Temple District.

“Six.”

The compass wobbled as I turned the map to align with the tiny needle.

“Five.”

But where are we?I could no longer feel a direction without death. We needed to get out. To find the end of the green lines.

“Four.”

Running through Tal the night of the fire with magic blazing, then walking its streets these last three-days, I had listened to each neighborhood’s song. The places I knew best—Lowtown and Rivertown—had no tunnels, but each day, I had dreamt of the music that I wished to dance to. One of the lines came to an end next to my borrowed home and favorite place in the world.

“Three.”

Up, I begged the magic with closed eyes,away from death or we join them,then reached for the delicate notes from the strings, the pounding of the drums, the dancers’ steps across the Royal Theater stage.

“Two.”

In my mind, I danced with them, twirling the magic around me like Dimitri did the wind.There.

My eyes snapped open. I traced the lines back to where I thought we were based on the distance and direction of the theater and compass. The dead were only five feet away, each tick of the clock bringing them closer.

I fixed the lines in my mind.

“Left. My left!” I pointed, then realized Yahontov was not listening, but screaming his resistance, blade lifted. Well, fighting the dead his way had already failed. Running, I knew how to do.

I grabbed Dimitri’s wind-wrapped hand, jerking him forward.

The energy screamed for me to move and released as I spurted to the side, rolling between two stumbling, once-handsome men.

They reached for me, fingers snagging on my coat.

Somehow, I shrugged out of it, losing Dimitri’s book and tearing buttons. Then I was through. The others must follow. Dimitri must follow. But I could not turn around to look. If they were a step behind me, they counted on me to lead the way.

White flowers crushed under my feet. There was nothing to do about it.

The rough end of the cavern approached. No tunnels.

More light.

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