Rafe pressed a finger to the inside corner of his eye, trying to kill what he imagined were the tiny elves who had moved in and kept jabbing forks into the back of his eyes whenever he so much as thought about closing them… Rot brew might keep you awake, but it was no substitute for sleep.

  And he’d been awake for what… more than forty hours?

  Thinking to check, he stared up at the empty hole in the city’s skyline where the Council Clock should have been. There was only the night sky.

  “Five past eleven,” Thelemule said from the driver’s seat as the carriage slowed.

  Up ahead, a line of white robed figures, clergy, walked in single file, holding candles in paper cones to shield them from the wind. They were chanting the first hymn, some better than others, and Rafe noticed a pair of nuns about his age having trouble keeping pace, giggling to each other. An old vicar behind them coughed, not unkindly, and the pair straightened up.

  A few minutes later, there was a break in the line, and as their carriage rolled through, the top of the Tower of Silence peeked out from the neighboring rooftops.

  Thelemule spoke, “Look, Rafe, do I really need to spell it out for you, why you’re the only one I brought along?”

  He knew the answer, but he didn’t like it. “You fancy me?”

  Thelemule choked on a cough.

  “Kidding.”

  “We don’t free Scaggs, you die, so I don’t have to worry about you whining over any unpleasant business,” the old wizard said grimly.

  “Unpleasant business.” Rafe’s stomach twisted. “Yeah.”

  As they rounded the corner, the plaza came into view. Dark and quiet, it looked abandoned.

  “The short of it is, I’m willing to kill, but I’m not willing to die,” said Thelemule.

  Rafe winced as an ‘elf’ took the opportunity to jab him. “And I have to be willing to do both.”

  “So, we understand each other?”

  Rafe nodded. “You got a plan?”

  “The princess said Scaggs wasn’t in bad shape. If you release her, she should be able to get herself out.”

  “What do you mean if ‘you’ release her?” Rafe glared at him.

  “Treat it like a burglary. Climb the tower, get in, and free her.”

  Rafe rubbed his temple with his middle finger, conspicuously. The tower was a six-story square, stone building with windows along the front on every floor except the first. Iron grating sat over the windows on the top two floors, presumably to keep the prisoners from killing themselves. The tower was old, stone crumbling in places, patched in others. So, lots of handholds and gaps for tools. It could be worse.

  “While you do what? Wait here? Climbing will take a while, and guards do look up from time to time.”

  “Not the dead ones.” Thelemule patted his spark rifle. “This is silent.”

  Remembering the old wizard’s joke, the one about ‘just missing you in the harbor,’ Rafe asked, “What if I fall?”

  “Then I’ll take Stephan and move to Orleasia.”

  “You know, they still hunt mages there?”

  “I am aware.” The wizard nodded, slowing the carriage to a stop across the street from the tower.

  “What if there’s guards up in her cell?”

  Thelemule dismounted the carriage, opened its door, stepped inside, and made a beckoning motion. When Rafe stepped through, the wizard slid the cushion off the front seat, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside, mounted against a blue velvet backing, were a collection of long brass tubes, copper coils, and ivory grips with silver triggers: spark weapons, some long, some short, about two dozen in all.

  “You know how to use a pistol?” asked Thelemule.

  “I shot my dad’s a few times, but I never loaded it.”

  Thelemule pulled a harness out of the compartment and handed it to Rafe. “That’s fine. Put this on. These…” he took down a pair of guns with large cylinders, “are revolvers. Just keep pulling the trigger, and try to hit above the heart.”

  “Why?”

  “It won’t kill if you don’t. A hit below, and they’ll just flop around a while and pass out.”

  “Ah… if that’s easier, why not just do that?”

  Thelemule sighed. “Fine, you do you, whatever.”

  “How many shots?”

  “Thirteen each.”

  “Unlucky.”

  “For them.” Thelemule smirked. “There is room for more cartridges, theoretically, but I could never get it to fire more than thirteen in a row, without exploding.”

  Rafe gulped. “Got anything else?”

  Ignoring the question, Thelemule continued, “They’re experimental, not for sale. Once it starts making a funny noise, you have three, maybe four, seconds to toss it.”

  As Rafe finished buckling the harness, Thelemule shoved a pair of revolvers in, just above the waist.

  “What kind of funny noise?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll know.”

  Rafe exhaled, his eyes feeling heavy, just as an ‘elf’ jabbed at the back of them. “You got any knives?”

  “Guns are better.”

  “For the climb and to get past the grate.”

  Thelemule’s hard expression dropped, dumbfounded. “I have screwdrivers?”

  Rafe held out his hand, and the wizard handed him two. He stuffed them into the harness.

  And as the pair stepped out of the carriage, and Thelemule rubbed his eyes, Rafe asked, “How about you, how you doin’ on sleep?”

  “Maybe an hour last night.” Thelemule was opening his mouth to yawn when a burst of firelight came from the top of the tower. The window glowed brighter than any lighthouse, and a shrill cry echoed from the building: a woman’s.

  “Was that?” Rafe asked.

  “No, not Scaggs.”

  “What do we—”

  A flash and a bang came from the other side of the plaza. One of the carriage windows shattered.

  Footsteps, boot heels crunching in the snow, raced toward them from the alleyways on the side of the street away from the tower.

  Thelemule dove through the carriage door. Two more flashes, bangs, this time from the tower itself, and another carriage window shattered as pain ripped across Rafe’s left bicep, blood flecking his face. The horses whinnied and bucked.

  Guards appeared from the alleys, four on each side, and Rafe froze just as one leveled his musket, giving him a view down the barrel. He always knew he was going to go out like this.

  A flash of blue spark lightning snapped from the far side of the carriage, from Thelemule, and hit the guard before he could fire. It sent him sprawling like he’d been hammered in the face.

  A metallic bark followed, and an iron ball flew into the next guard, planting itself in the man’s gut. Blue sparks exploded as the group flew apart, two smashed backward into a building, and the other flung into the street.

  Another metallic bark, and Rafe whipped around to see a shower of sparks as the guards on the other side went flying.

  Thelemule emerged from behind the carriage, holding what looked like a much larger version of one of the revolvers he’d given Rafe. He leveled it, aiming across the plaza and, with a burst of lightning, a ball rocketed out of the barrel and exploded in blue spark from where the first shot had been fired at them. A yowl echoed, then fell silent.

  Thelemule closed in on Rafe, looking at him like he was a child.

  Rafe’s gut twisted. “You running then? To Orleasia?”

  Scowling, Thelemule shook his head. “Those sons of bitches,” he nodded to the corpses of the guards smashed against the building, “were aiming for my horses. Storm the tower.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “They know we’re here. They’ll have the streets blocked. The only way out is through.”

  As the sounds of more marching boots grew closer, Thelemule flung the carriage door open. He hopped up, grabbed two more revolvers, and tossed them, one at a time, to Rafe.

  The wizard flicked a snuff box open, held it up to his nose, and inhaled deeply, coating it with brown powder, then held it up to Rafe. “Rot-brew concentrate.”

  “Is it safe?” Rafe asked.

  “Hells no.” Thelemule gave a cackle.

  Rafe was sniffing at the box apprehensively when he found it pressed against his face. His nostrils filled with foulness, like a sewer pipe had been jammed into them.

  And then the tiny elves went all out on the back of his eyes, jabbing like crazy. The gash across his bicep throbbed… and everything, the whole world, intensified: the sight of the tower seared his eyes, the chill of the snow bit his feet, and with every breath, the night air stung his lungs.

  His vision widened. His hearing sharpened. The pain wanted him to move, to act.

  Thelemule slung a bandoleer of spark grenades over his shoulder as more gunshots came from the tower. Somehow Rafe saw an incoming musket ball and hopped back just as it split a cobblestone beneath his feet.

  Lifting his gun, Thelemule fired two shots at the windows. Neither sailed through, but one came close, exploding just below. He sprinted toward the statue of the Song Mother in the center of the plaza, yelling, “Piss yourself on your own time, boy. Come on!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As the snow popped with incoming fire, Rafe dove behind the statue after Thelemule. There was a pause in the shooting, and Thelemule peeked out, firing another shot. This one sailed through a window, and was followed by the sound of cracking stone and falling masonry.

  “Still playing with your toys?!” a voice boomed from behind.

  Thelemule turned and fired.

  Blue lightning arced from a shadowy figure, detonating the grenade between them, and in the flicker of spark, Rafe caught the image of a tall pale man with long dark hair in a yellow and black robe.

  Thelemule whispered, “Go now, get Scaggs!” And then he stood up, calling out, “Masarie, what are you going to do… powder my shorts?”

  Heart pounding, Rafe leapt up, his eyes locked onto the tower door, and as his feet pushed off, he felt like he was running through honey, like time itself was moving too slow.

  The ground cracked as a musket ball took a chunk out of his right boot heel, and Rafe lunged at the door. He overshot and rammed into it, the brass of his revolvers rattling against solid wood. He fell back, sprawling.

  “You do realize snow is a powder?” Masarie called out smugly. “You always were an old—”

  “Don’t you say it! Don’t you Song Bloody Mother say it!” the old wizard screamed.

  “Thele-fool,” Masarie proclaimed.

  “I warned you!” Thelemule raised his gun.

  As Masarie lifted his arms, a great groan came from below, and the snow between the two wizards rose. Thelemule fired, but the round hit the icy mass as it formed, exploding closer to him than Masarie. And then the icy mass smashed into Thelemule, shattering as it shoved him to the ground.

  Rafe was still on his knees, staggering to get up, when the tower door flung open. The head of a halberd jabbed through, hacking blindly before its wielder, a guard, rushed out.

  The world still moving too slow, Rafe dragged his gun through the air, bringing the sights to bear on the guard’s chest, safely below his heart.

  As the guard’s head twisted, shock filled his eyes, and Rafe pulled the trigger.

  A high-pitched whine came from the gun, but it didn’t fire. The guard was still standing. The grip vibrated, flares of spark popping from the cylinder.

  “Thirteen shots my arse!” Rafe tossed the gun, aiming for the door. It exploded on impact, sending spark and metal flying in every direction.

  The guard fell to his knees. Twitching, he dropped flat on his face with two brass spikes flickering blue in the back of his head. Rafe’s gut twisted with realization: he’d just killed someone.

  As the ‘elves’ poked him, he ran through the door, trying not to think about it.

  Glancing back, he caught a glimpse of Thelemule being lifted into the air on a tendril of snow, while inside, four guards were convulsing on the floor with spikes in them, one with it in his neck. Another kill shot—

  The image of Oliver bleeding to death on the rocks popped into his mind, and Rafe wanted to throw the guns away, to run and never look back, even if it meant dying alone in some back alley. But he knew what was at stake, knew what would happen if he failed, so he sucked in a ragged breath and forced himself to go on.

  The first floor of the tower was an empty stone room, maybe twenty feet square and two stories high with stairs along the front that ran by windows and a long hall that extended into the adjoining building.

  He ignored the hall and ran for the stairs. A guard, a young man shaking with fear, was waiting at the top with his musket pointed down. Rafe could see the process: The man’s eyes narrowing, building to a shot, before his arm began tensing to pull the trigger.

  But Rafe pulled his trigger first, and the gun sparked with an ear-splitting whistle that cut through the air. A brass spike hit the guard’s gut, and he tumbled forward. His musket went off and sent a metal ball cracking between Rafe’s feet.

  Stepping over him, Rafe breathed more easily when he saw the man was still breathing. He sprinted up the stairs, propelled by rot brew, onto the third story.

  Three guards were peering through the window with their backs turned, while sounds of spark explosions and groaning ice echoed from the plaza below.

  Rafe lined up the iron sights on the first of them. Then thinking better of it, he crept up, and shot them all in the ass, thankful when all the men fell to the floor, alive, and even more so when the gun didn’t explode.

  Shoving a guard aside with his foot, Rafe looked out the window. Two walls of ice were on either side of Thelemule, splintering into shards as they closed around him like a zipper. The old wizard was frantically reloading his gun.

  Thelemule fired a single round and burst one side of the ice zipper, but only momentarily. The snow reformed itself, closing in on him again. The old wizard went back to loading, but he wasn’t going to make it.

  Rafe sighted his revolver on Masarie and pulled the trigger. A high-pitched whine came as spark popped from the cylinder. The grip vibrated. Rafe pulled the trigger again, nothing. He pulled it again, and spark shot from the barrel, sending a spike whistling through the air.

  He dropped the gun out the window, and it exploded a few feet down, just as the spike hit Masarie in the back.

  A shock of electricity pulsed through Rafe’s body. His shoulder spasmed, then his entire right side cramped up as he dropped to the floor.

  A spike was sticking out the back of his right hand. “Unlucky for them my arrrrse—” his jaw clenched.

  As the pain pulsed again, Rafe doubled over, feeling it rip at his heart.

  And then the elves were back at it, jabbing his eyes, and everything was in slow motion.

  Rafe slammed the hand with the spike into what was there, a guard’s forehead, and it held fast. On the next pulse, his arm pulled away, freeing the spike.

  As Rafe stood up, the guard’s eyes popped open, and his pupils rolled back, disappearing. He’d seen a sailor do that once when he was knocked out, but he’d seen a dead man do it too. Rafe kicked the spike out of the man’s head, hoping, wishing, it wasn’t too late… But he didn’t stop to watch for a breath.

  When he went to climb the next flight of stairs, something felt off. It was quiet… too quiet, and when he rounded the bend in the stairs, he saw what was waiting at the top: A heavy iron door with a government lock.

  It wouldn’t have been a problem if he had his tools, but he didn’t. What he did have were two freaking screwdrivers. He knew these locks, he’d picked them maybe a dozen times before, and screwdrivers wouldn’t cut it. This type of door could withstand a blast from a cannon. Spark or not, his pistols were useless.

  He checked the door frame, hoping it opened towards him, so he could just pry up the hinge pins, but it didn’t. His last hope, he supposed, was that the door wasn’t locked.

  Rushing up, Rafe pulled on the handle, but it didn’t budge. It might as well have been a wall. Then footsteps, the beat of marching feet, and a lot of them, closed in from below.

  The hallway door burst open and a troop of guards from the adjoining building flooded in.

  A volley of musket balls passed between Rafe’s legs as he jumped out the window. Twisting, he jabbed a screwdriver at the stone exterior and silently thanked the Bastard when it found purchase in a gap. He swung himself up and jabbed the other screwdriver in, above the first, and pulled himself higher.

  Down in the plaza, Thelemule was frozen waist-deep in a block of snow. “Going well!?” the old wizard yelled up. Not waiting for an answer, he fired his grenade launcher, and a ball of sparking metal sailed into the window Rafe had just jumped out of. Blue light flashed, and a boom shook the building.

  Below, a spike of ice on a tendril of snow, like a scorpion’s tail, raised as Masarie closed in on Thelemule.

  Rafe let go of the top screwdriver, catching his weight with the lower. He grabbed his third revolver with his free hand, took aim, and pulled the trigger four times, quick as he could.

  As Masarie howled in pain, Rafe had to let the gun drop, only one remaining, to catch the upper screwdriver in time.

  “You know that’s cheating!” the master of powder shouted.

  “Noted!” Thelemule shouted back, and Rafe, with his back now turned, heard a series of booms from below.

  Pulling himself up, Rafe planted his feet on the ledge above the window. Then he dug a screwdriver into a gap and pulled himself up again, then dug the other in, yanking out the first. When his hand touched a metal grate, he knew he’d reached the fifth floor.

  Climbing the grate like a ladder, Rafe expected to be shredded by a volley of musket balls, but when he looked inside, he saw half a dozen women wearing white robes and red masks, nuns from one of the creepy-as-shite orders. They were frantically working on some bit of machinery, gears and chains that stretched into the ceiling.

  He got halfway up before they saw him. Then one of them, the smallest, ran for the door while another, the largest, grabbed a knife and ran at him.

  The big nun sliced at his hand, but the knife glanced off the metal grate as Rafe pulled away. The next slice hit the back of his wrist, drawing blood as it shot through with pain. Maybe it was the rot brew, but Rafe’s grip held and he yanked himself up, grabbing the next bar. He pushed off with his feet, just as the angry nun slashed at them, and then swung back and planted a heel into her forehead. She dropped cold.

  “Definitely going to Hell for that one,” he muttered.

  Inside the room, guards began shoving through the door, and Rafe swung to one side as their gunfire sparked off the iron grate.

  He dug a screwdriver into a gap above the window, yanked himself up, and again and again, until he got a footing on the ledge above.

  Down in the plaza, Thelemule dove out of the way of an ice boulder, then scrambled to dig his gun out as Masarie threw another.

  Reaching up, Rafe’s fingers gripped a new set of iron bars and, half-laughing, half-crying, his body numb from pain, he knew he’d made it to the right window at last.

  As he climbed his way up, he saw Scaggs bound, chains stretching her tight against the wall. She was even scarier bald, and that she was half-naked and fully pissed-off, with flames flickering from her nostrils, didn’t help either.

  Some sort of creature, like a man with gray skin over a sinewy frame, was in there with her. The creature was braced up against the door, pushing on it, trying to keep someone on the other side from forcing it open.

  An armored hand shot through the door, and the creature chomped on it, audibly crunching bone. Whoever it belonged to, screamed as he yanked his hand back.

  “Hey! How’s it going?” Rafe called to Scaggs.

  The creature twisted towards him, snarling.

  “Reuben, stick with the door!” Scaggs yelled at the creature, then snapped her gaze back to Rafe. “Burglar?”

  “Yeah,” Rafe groaned. “Here to rescue thee, fair maiden.”

  “Where’s Liv? Is she with you?”

  “She would have but ah… she had to go to a party.”

  “A party?” The witch’s face contorted. “Really!?”

  Rafe shook his head. “It’s important, trust me.”

  “All right… What’s the plan?”

  “The plan, ah… crawled up my arse and died. We’re improvising. I’m here with Thelemule,” he said as an explosion rumbled from below.

  “Can you get these off?” Scaggs rattled her shackles.

  “If I can get in there.” Rafe pulled out a screwdriver and examined the grate, searching for screws. There weren’t any. “Ummm….” He jammed it in at the bottom and started prying.

  “Reuben!” Scaggs barked. “Can you pull the chains out far enough so I can get my hands pointed at the window?”

  The creature, ‘Reuben’, slammed against the door, shutting it momentarily before it bucked again, shoved from the other side. “The guards…” he groaned.

  “Got any better ideas?”

  “Not really.”

  “On three,” Scaggs shouted, “You, burglar, get clear… One!”

  Rafe stretched his arm out, off to the side of the grate. The wall shook as the creature landed above Scaggs.

  “Two!”

  Rafe dug a screwdriver into the wall as he heard the creature, ‘Reuben,’ let out an inhuman groan, followed by the sounds of a chain ratcheting loose.

  “Three!”

  Rafe swung to the side as flame erupted from the window. The grate glowed yellow, its bolts popping off as it tumbled to the ground.

  As the window frame sizzled with heat, Rafe was trying to position himself to swing through when he saw Reuben standing horizontally on the wall above Scaggs, he was gripping her stone chains in his hands to hold them slack.

  The door flung open and a guard charged in, planting a halberd spike into Reuben’s shoulder.

  The creature howled in pain. He fell to the floor, letting go of the chains, and the witch bounced as they ratcheted tight, spreading her eagle.

  Another guard ran in and jabbed a halberd through Reuben’s gut, pinning him to the floor.

  Then a third person, a blonde woman in a fancy robe, strode in and announced smug as shite, “Gotcha!”

  Finally, Rafe got a firm handhold on both the screwdriver and the grip of his last revolver. He swung through the window and opened fire, popping the woman twice in the thighs and each of the guards once in the ass. The guards went down. The woman did not.

  Her face contorted as she turned and glared at him. He shot again, this time into her belly. She convulsed, but still managed to step forward.

  Rafe pulled the trigger again, and a high-pitched whine came as the grip rattled. He tossed the gun behind the woman. It exploded, and as she spun around, he saw three spikes in her back and one in her forehead.

  With an angry snarl curling her lip and blue spark flickering in her eyes, the woman pointed a hand at Rafe.

  There was a sickening crunch as Reuben ripped himself off the halberd. He pounced, and as his legs wrapped around the blonde’s torso, his jaws opened wide, exposing two rows of fangs.

  He bit down on the woman’s neck, and the air pulsed with an electric boom, a blinding flash.

  The blonde was still standing, but the creature’s body fell away, a smoldering husk.

  “Reuben!” cried Scaggs.

  The blonde fell to her knees and, eyes rolling back, passed out, still breathing.

  “Reuben… Reuben?” Scaggs called out as the creature’s corpse continued to smolder.

  “Help!” a cry, Thelemule’s, echoed from below.

  Through the now open doorway, Rafe saw a little nun, holding bolt cutters. He ran up, grabbed them from her, and raced to Scaggs.

  “Reuben? Reuben?” she repeated in a daze.

  Rafe put the bolt cutters to the chain and pressed with his full weight, squeezing them together. They stopped dead for an instant, before a crack sounded, and all of it: the bar, the shackles, the chain, crumbled to powder.

  Rafe rushed back to the window.

  Below, Thelemule was stretched out, his arms and legs held taught by tendrils of snow, pulling him in all four directions while the other wizard, Masarie, stood over him, gesturing like a puppeteer.

  “Masarie!” Scaggs yelled down. “Powder this!”

  She pointed both her hands, palms forward. For a second nothing happened, but then from one corner of the plaza, two faint lines of flame flowed out, extending perpendicularly. Two more lines sprung from them, and then two more, and two more, forming a grid until the entire plaza was covered with dim squares of fire.

  The icy tendrils splashed to puddles, fire hissing to steam as it died.

  Thelemule lifted his gun and sent a grenade into Masarie’s chest. It exploded, and the master of powder flipped end-over-end, out of the plaza, and into the night.

  “I didn’t say kill him!” Scaggs yelled.

  Thelemule called back, “He’ll be fine… fine-ish… probably… maybe.”

  Turning back to the room, Scaggs gasped at the smoldering corpse that had been ‘Reuben.’ “I don’t want to leave him. He deserved better.”

  Rafe stared at the thing’s remains. Its skin had turned ashen gray, and the thought of touching it seemed like… touching death itself. But he pushed that aside and slung the body, surprisingly light, over his shoulder. “Alright, we need to go. Now. Drake has the blooms.”

  Scaggs looked confused. “Is that bad?”

  “He’s the shiter who blew up the Council Clock, and he’s planning something. That’s what Liv…” It still felt strange saying that name. “…and Rina and Stephan are working on. They need you.”

  “All right.” She nodded. “But stay behind me. I don’t want anyone else dying tonight.”

  “Oh good, then you can fix me.”

  “You? What’s wrong with you?” She gave him a funny look.

  “Drake put a death spell on me.”

  “Why?”

  “He was aiming for Liv.”

  “Oh.”

  “How are we getting past the guards?”

  “I’ll melt their guns—or wait, they use gunpowder, right? That’s no problem.”

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