Page 111 of Of Flame and Fury

Bryna nodded, then glanced back. “The aviaries are open, but Cristo has his phoenixes well trained. If we want a distraction, we’re going to have to force them from their cages.”

“Get a water bottle and spray them a couple times,” Kel said, pointing the sancter to the ground in as loose a grip as possible. “They’ll flee their cages faster than if you’d shown them a rare steak.”

“I’ll grab us some water guns and divide up the aviaries with Bryna,” Rahn cut in. She turned to Kel. “You need to get to Sav.”

Kel’s pulse quickened. “Where are you going to find water guns?”

Rahn eyed her carefully. “The top floor, with the pool. We used them a month ago, when we went for a midnight swim. With Estra.”

Kel’s response lodged in her throat.

As Bryna fled down an empty hall, the Howlers divided into two groups. Kel forced Dira to accompany Rahn to the remaining aviaries. Whatever tension was brewing in Dira, the winger and technician still worked the best together.

Bekn, Coup and Kel started toward the diamond hall imprisoning Sav. They snuck through shadows and huddled in dark corners when guards strode past. Other figures in black leathers loped down nearby halls, and Kel hated the confidence with which the Fume moved, as if relishing the growing chaos.

It became clear when Dira and Rahn had succeeded in their own mission. The screeching of freed phoenixes began thundering across the building. Kel heard wood splintering and metal crashing, sending vibrations through the floor.

A smile curved her lips—and quickly vanished, as they tiptoed around the corner to the hospital wing.

They were heading toward the eastern end of Cristo’s buildings. She should have known they’d pass the hospital. There was no receptionist in sight; the room was empty of all but the distant cries of phoenixes stalking the halls.

Bekn stopped. When Kel and Coup looked back, his eyes darted to the hospital doors, behind the receptionist’s desk.

“You could wait in there,” Bekn whispered, pleading. He turned to Kel. “You could help us by staying safe.”

Coup reached for Kel’s hand and shook his head. “She can’t—not here. Estra’s in there. Kel’s spent the last week in the same infirmaryas another AB patient. It’s probably why her symptoms are so obvious.”

Though Coup’s tone was gentle, his words ground at her like sandpaper. No one had known Kel had AB, and so they hadn’t questioned placing her in the same infirmary as Estra.

Despite the number of heartbeats she had left, despite her desperation to free Savita, Kel couldn’t stop her feet. She glided toward the hospital doors in a trance. Neither Bekn nor Coup stopped her as she pushed open the doors and took in the empty rows of beds.

Empty—except one.

At the far end of the hall, shrouded by shadows and machinery, lay the girl Kel had passed the last time she’d been here, with black hair and an aura of familiarity as palpable as the sweat coating her skin. The green, hand-stitched blanket still swathed her, with the same flowery initials Kel had seen sewn into Bekn’s apron: E. C.

Though her eyes were closed, Kel knew that if she opened them, her irises would be near-black and speckled with brown. The same ones—so like Cristo’s—that had haunted her dreams.

“Estra,” Kel whispered.

The girl—Estra—was little more than a thin layer of skin stretched over jutting bones. Her breathing was a low rasp, her fingers twitching against her blanket. From the inner corner of her right eye, a drop of dark blood trailed down her cheek.

Kel leaned forward. Gently, she reached down and wiped away the blood. The scent of lilies flooded her nostrils.

Memories flashed through Kel’s mind. The dark-haired girl who had eaten with them their first day here. The extra plate Bekn had laid out for pancakes. The movies she’d seen scattered across their couch—for amovie night. The child’s drawing in Cristo’s office.Rahn calling Cristo a dorky dad. The figure she hadn’t recognized during their first day training in Cristo’s compound. The girl Cristo had been chatting with at the race with sprites.

This was Cristo’s daughter. But she still had no memories of Estra’s face, no threads she could tug on to reveal the missing fragments of her memories.

There was nothing. Just the knowledge that her friends had diagnosed her correctly.

Estra and Kel both had AB, and both would die.

“Do you recognize her?” Coup asked, moving forward to squeeze her hand.

Kel swallowed. Her breathing slowed to match the slowbeep, beepof the machine monitoring Estra’s pulse.

“No.”

Another inhuman shriek echoed across the walls, rattling Estra’s bed.

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