“Perfect,” Tamani said, the slightest hint of relief on his face.
“Take Chelsea, too,” David said, and he reached out a hand to nudge her forwards before putting both hands back on the sword.
“Of course.” Laurel nodded and took Chelsea’s hand. “Come on. Let’s see if we can help everyone get going.”
“Thank you,” Tamani said softly, squeezing her hand.
Laurel squeezed back, but didn’t look up to meet his eyes — didn’t want him to see how hopeless she felt. She knew what Yuki had done at the apartment building, what Jamison had done to the trolls… how long could David and Tamani hope to last against a Winter faerie? Certainly not long enough for Laurel and Yeardley to revive Jamison and bring him here.
“We need to get all the sprouts out first,” Yeardley was instructing as they trailed him into the atrium. “Get everyone to the west exit!” Faeries went running to spread the word, most of them obviously in a barely controlled panic.
“Laurel!” Tamani came barrelling down the stairs, David close behind, as a series of shots sounded outside the front doors.
“Hecate’s eye!” Yeardley swore. “What was that?”
“Soldiers at the entrance,” Tamani said, panting. “They came from around back. Too small to be trolls, but they had guns. They’ve got to be Klea’s.”
“Klea’s?” Laurel asked, confused. “But she’s not even here yet.”
“She must have sent them ahead,” Tamani said, his voice flat and emotionless. “It’s what I would have done, held back until they were in position. I should have realised. We’re exactly where she wants us, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
As if on cue from Tamani, the decorative coloured windows five metres over their heads shattered, raining stained-glass shards and a half dozen cracked plastic jars across the furniture-strewn atrium. Translucent liquid pooled around the open containers, saturating the air with the distinctive odour of gasoline.
“What do we do?” Yeardley asked. “Gather? Spread out? I—”
His voice cut off as the deafening roar of an explosion filled the air. Flames licked under the battered front doors, charring their finish and igniting the gasoline, sending a searing wave of heat rolling across the room. Those closest to the flames ignited instantly, their screams cut mercifully short by the intensity of the fire.
“Spawn of Ouranos!” Yeardley yelled. “Run!”
They fled the atrium ahead of billowing black smoke as flames skated over the puddles of gasoline and began licking their way to the carpets and tapestries that adorned the room.
As they ran toward the dining hall, Yeardley was almost bowled over by the dark-eyed faerie he had sent ahead to get the west barricade cleared. Her eyes were wide with fear as she spoke, her words almost unintelligible in their rush: “Fire! The west barricade is burning!”
Sure enough, Laurel could see wisps of black smoke snaking their way along the ceiling down the passageway to the west exit.
“Students! Please, calm yourselves!” Yeardley shouted, but Laurel knew it wouldn’t do any good. Smoke was already gathering above them, thick, choking clouds spreading from the atrium and, she assumed, the other exits as well.
So panicked was the stampede of Autumn faeries that Laurel almost didn’t catch the strange hissing sound that came just before a reverberating explosion somewhere far above them.
“What was that?” Chelsea called, shouting to be heard above the noise.
Laurel shook her head and Tamani pointed at the ceiling. “What’s up there?”
“Classrooms, dorms,” Laurel rattled off automatically.
“No,” Tamani clarified, “right there, specifically.”
“The tower,” Laurel said after a moment’s thought. “Five or six stories high — you’ve seen it from the outside.”
Tamani swore. “Probably more gasoline. She’s got us trapped on all sides.”
When they caught up with Yeardley again, he had opened a large closet and was tossing buckets to several older faeries — professors and Spring staff, mostly. “Use the fountain in the dining hall. Aurora, if we can’t get the sprouts to the dining hall, we should get them to the windows. Jayden, take two faeries and get to the pulley deck — open those skylights.”
“Air will feed the fire,” Tamani countered.
“But it will also let the smoke escape,” Yeardley said, tossing out two more buckets. “The smoke will kill us before the fire. Once it’s under control, we should be able to organise an evacuation. We’ve plenty of windows and ropes, not to mention firewalls, throughout the Academy. Wouldn’t be much of a research facility if we weren’t prepared for a fire.”
Tamani’s brow furrowed. “Klea’s soldiers are waiting out there, with guns. What’s to stop them from killing anyone who goes out the windows?”
“I’m afraid that’s not my area of expertise,” Yeardley said with a meaningful look at Tamani’s spear.
Laurel breathed and her throat was instantly burning, as were her eyes; the smoke was getting lower.
“The dining hall,” Yeardley croaked, ducking low and waving for them to follow.
As they approached the double doors, Laurel caught sight of the bucket brigade, already passing water from the fountain down the halls to keep the fire at bay. Others were stripping the walls and floors of flammable material to halt the fire’s progression. But their work was hampered by the acrid smoke, and for every faerie doing something useful, three were running blindly through the halls, clutching books and experiments to their chests. Others gathered in stairwells, arguing whether they should go up or down. Laurel tried to yell for them to follow her, but she gulped in a chestful of smoky air and began coughing uncontrollably.
“Faeries! This way!” David’s voice rang through the murk like a lighthouse in fog. He was standing tall, seemingly heedless of the dark clouds that swirled madly round him and Laurel suppressed a gasp; the smoke was being repelled by Excalibur’s magic. The layer of clear air that surrounded him couldn’t have been thicker than an eyelash, but the air he inhaled was clean, and he shouted again. “To the dining hall! They’re opening the skylights!”
At first, the faeries crowded on the stairs seemed paralysed by indecision, and Laurel realised they were standing there, holding their breath against the smoke, wondering whether they should follow David’s orders.
Then a Mixer Laurel didn’t recognise began pushing his way down through the crowd in David’s direction. For a moment Laurel’s eyes widened and she wondered if he was about to pick a fight. But he simply stood in front of David for a moment, then nodded, and ducked down to enter the smoky hallway that led to the dining hall. The other faeries finally seemed to get the message, and slowly, so painfully slowly, flowed into the hallway, heading toward the dining hall, crouched low so they could breathe.
But not everyone was following. A handsome young faerie was fighting through the crowd to go the other way. He had placed a foot on the bottom step when someone called out from beneath the smoke, “Galen, stop!”
Galen paused.
Something dark was pouring very slowly down the stairwell. For a moment Laurel thought it was oil, but then she realised it was tinged red and had a strange wispy quality to it — not unlike the smoke gathering all around them. But it wasn’t like the sleeping gas at the gateways, which had expanded and risen into the air; this mist was heavy and crept across the ground, like slow-moving dry-ice vapour, filling each step like sludge before a stream broke free and poured down onto the next step.
Galen’s mouth tightened. “There are still fae upstairs,” he called. “I have to warn them.” And without another delay, he continued up the steps.
The instant the red, creeping smoke touched his foot, Galen staggered and fell, his face going blank, his limbs convulsing. As he landed on the stairs, the deep red mist swirled out round him. Even through the hazy air, from three metres away, Laurel knew he was dead.
Others saw it too; there were several shrieks as fae fled the creeping mist — some running straight toward the burning exits.
“Stop, stop!” Yeardley’s voice was muffled in the choking smoke. “We must stop panicking,” he pleaded. “The
