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The clash of the two crude forces of nature made crossing the Academy grounds impossible. The Tangle might’ve had a brain, if I counted the modified warbeast that served as its head, but destroying that brain wouldn’t stop the Tangle. It would only render it impossible to control.

The jellyfish seemed so heavy it had difficulty moving without making its gelatinous self ripple and roll in a direction, but it had the advantage of being big. It rocked itself back and forth, building up momentum, and rolled into the Tangle, gripping it and pulling it down onto its side. The sound and the ‘splash’ were muffled.

I could see it start to build up strength, and to use similar mechanisms to get itself moving, now that it was agitated. All of the water within the Academy and much of the water beneath our feet, extending into the ditches and onto the roads leading down from the Academy was an extension of the creature.

“How?” I asked, turning around.

Mary turned. “Rifle!”

Bea tossed her a rifle.

With the bayonet, Mary sliced it across a puddle. The gap widened as the larger mass pulled one part through the gate and toward its fumbling struggle with the Tangle. The remainder was pulling together into a mass outside of the gates.

“Hag Nerve,” Duncan said.

“I don’t know that one,” Lillian said.

“Superweapon,” Duncan said. “Mucin glands, they spin out collagen-axon chains-”

“The nerve in the hag nerve,” Lillian said.

“-And filament chains. To form skeins that catch the water.”

“It’s actually made of water?” I asked.

“Ninety nine percent,” Duncan said. “Water, filaments like spider web, and the translucent organs that make the webs. It’s a blob of the slime you’d get if you dumped enough spider web into the water to keep it all collected into one mass.”

The Tangle went on the offensive. It struck out, trying to sandwich the hag nerve blob between itself and the wall, and it slammed its body into the damaged gate, just a short distance from us. Harvesters were knocked loose, many thrown into our general direction.

Mary moved to the rear of our group, tossing a rifle our way so it remained more or less upright, bayonet pointed skyward. There was no intended recipient, she simply trusted that one of us would catch it.

I caught it, and used the weapon to stab a harvester that was getting too curious about us.

The things were swarmers, though. They were gathering together into a mass. That would be uglier, if they veered our way instead of heading back to the Tangle Prime.

Lillian opened a paper packet, pulled it over the top of a vial, and shook it, before tossing it at the swarm.

It exploded in a small, five-foot diameter puff of dust, encompassing the building swarm. The cloud of dust was quickly beaten down by the rain.

It seemed to keep the swarm from building. They didn’t dissipate, but it was something.

“More problematic-” Duncan said.

“The Hag Nerve thing is big,” I said.

Duncan gripped his rifle, then said, “It’s spreading.”

The Tangle waded through the Hag Nerve, and it was as though it was wading through gloopy slime. Over the course of several steps it went from being immersed to what amounted to its ankles to being immersed to its knees.

The Hag Nerve began sloshing. It rocked, building momentum with each movement, and the Tangle’s feet were dragged across the slimy cobblestones, left, then right, until it fell over.

In the course of its rocking, it rolled up against the side of one house, striking the gutter. The water that spilled out over the surface of the blob slowed and congealed as it rolled, not even spilling out and over to the sides.

“Will explosives work?” Mary asked.

“Some,” Duncan said. “But I don’t know if it would be worth it.”

It’s just water, I thought.

“We need to get around it,” I said. “Unless there’s a way to stop it?”

“Horrendous amounts of digestive enzymes?” Duncan suggested. “Probably how they clean it up.”

“Can we get access to their cleanup method? Wherever they went to get the acid rain going?”

“It’s probably one of the most guarded locations.”

“Given the protein focus, salt would work,” Lillian said. “Ion chains.”

“Yeah,” Duncan said. Then he perked up. “Proteins! That gas Sy had Junior make would work nicely.”

“I really didn’t want to use it so soon,” I said. “Really didn’t.”

“He’s not back yet,” Mary said. “And I don’t think we want to wait.”

“Salt then,” Lillian said.

“We’re a long way from the ocean,” I added.

Our rebels were apparently in position now.

“Explosives out!” Mary called out. “Ready! Stand clear!”

We were between two blobs. The one in the plaza was large – and I was seeing what Duncan meant about how it was spreading.

Every body of water in the Academy grounds, some of the bodies of water beyond. All were interconnected now. All were part of this particular, deceptively simple weapon.

“I hate enemies without brains,” I said. “I can never outsmart them.”

“There’s something to be said about that, Sy,” Mary said.

“Probably,” I said, my attention on the path before us. I could see the water recede, in its way, leaving the stones of the road through the gate almost dry. “Probably.”

The Tangle was being smothered.

“First throw!” Mary called out, pointing with a fresh rifle she’d borrowed.

Someone threw a grenade. It detonated and didn’t fully divide the blob. As if time had frozen, the mass of water with dust, sticks, small stones and countless splinters stuck in it split, splashing out, and then stopped, the edges blurring and slumping into one another.

“Second throw!”

Each detonation made me jump, my teeth rattling enough I worried I’d bite my tongue. The tower-top artillery hadn’t been shooting. Too many of us were too close to the base of the wall to be aimed at, and nobody, Junior included, seemed to be comfortable approaching.

“Hurry!”

With the blob divided, our rebels made a break for it. There were eight of them, and two slipped on the slime.

I jumped forward, reversing the rifle in my hands. Holding the barrel just behind where the bayonet blade was attached to it, I extended the rifle-butt their way. They grabbed it, and I hauled the first one out. The second was grabbed by the people who were mostly clear.

The Hag Nerve’s slime didn’t pull away so much as it simply stretched out, hampering their movement even once they were free. The girl I’d helped fell as she came more or less free. She hissed as she turned around, so she was sitting instead of lying down.

“You alright?” I asked.

She moved her leg around, raising one of her pants legs to expose her calf. Red.

“Plague?” I asked. I was aware of the change in expressions.

She shook her head. “Acid. It’s mild. Diluted, but the Hag Nerve grips you. Like an indian burn with something caustic on your hands.”

“Good to know,” I said. I tried to wrap my head around that, what it meant for us. “How is it to walk on?”

The Hag Nerve around us was shifting. The divided portion was trying to reconnect, outside the gates and we still had soldiers on the far side of it.

The Tangle, fighting to find a way to escape, moved at the other side of the gate, dragging itself against the damaged door. The door swung in, and slammed against the frame, hard. More harvesters and a few scattered harvester-riddled bodies were shed, landing around the partially closed set of doors.

Of the large set of double doors, only half of one of the two doors was now held closed, but it was enough to narrow our exit into the Academy itself. The path beyond- I could see the Primordial Child standing in the puddles and the runoff from gutters. The drains that were supposed to vent out the rain were clogged with Hag-stuff.

Duncan, Lillian, and Ashton stepped forward to deal with the harvesters and their hosts. Ashton had only a knife, but he did his part, presumably, with his innate abilities.

Neither of the threats could easily be stopped. Most attempts to wound or stop them would only divide them.

“Next round, third throw!” Mary called out. Nobody was close enough to get caught in any blast.

I braced myself. The detonation wasn’t as bad as the two prior ones. A bad throw- the road was raised with ditches on either side, and the explosive had landed on the far slope of the road. If anything, it blew a portion of the blob in our direction.

But it slipped away, the two halves sliding into the ditches on either side of the road. The rest of our small army was free to follow.

The Tangle bludgeoned the same partially intact gate door it had struck before, threatening to batter it free of the hinges.

“The Hag Nerve is neat to look at,” Ashton said, looking back. “That’s nice, at least.”

“It’s massively inconvenient,” I said. “Can you get the Tangle to move away from the door?”

“It’s trying and it can’t. It’s all Hagged up,” Ashton said. “Try harder, Tangle! I’m cheering for you!”

I looked at Mary, “Do you see Junior?”

“No sign,” Mary said.

“I’d hate for him to get cut off,” I said. “Some people should stay behind, keep an eye out for him. I think we can get partway to where we need to be, but this would be a lot easier if we had a good answer.”

“I’ll handle it, I’ll stay, make sure he has a route. You get as far as you can,” Mary said.

“I don’t like leaving you behind,” Lillian said.

“It’s the best way,” Mary responded. “Bea, you and yours with me. That’s- fifteen?”

“Fifteen,” Bea said. She made a face. “Marcus didn’t make it, Fang couldn’t come. Plague.”

“Everyone else, with the Lambs,” Mary said.

“You’ll catch up?” I asked.

“I’ll catch up,” she said.

I gave her a lingering look.

“Look after each other,” Mary said.

Radham was a city of perpetual rain. Everything was wet, and the Hag Nerve operated by extending itself through that interconnected wet. There was no safe route to take except the high ground, and I knew Radham well enough to know that there wouldn’t be a good way to get from the walls to the places we wanted to be.

My mental picture of Radham Academy was shifting. A mire, a bog, every step being one we had to fight for.

“Sy?” Lillian asked.

“It’s not a very Lamb sort of problem, is it?” I asked, taking in the scene. The Tangle was still close to the door. “It’s… a pretty perfect way to tie our hands. Slow us down, keep us rooted. It would mess with Mauer, too, but it really messes with us.”

“It’s not great,” Lillian said.

“Kind of drives home that we’re dealing with Fray and Hayle, who know us,” I said.

“Kind of,” Duncan said.

I turned around.

Mary had her contingent keeping the Hag at bay. They worked to keep it from lapping its way up the slopes that led up to the main road. But there was a large group, otherwise. Our rebels, our soldiers.

“You guys have weapons, you have tools,” I said. “Our goal is to get up through the Hedge-”

“The hospital,” Lillian clarified. “We’re actually smack dab in the middle of it. It’s the building to either side and above us, integrated into the wall.”

“And to the tower,” I said.

“High ground?” Ashton asked.

“Yeah, but not for reasons you’re thinking,” I said.

“The Hedge is going to be defended,” Mary said. She was a distance away, but listening in.

“Yeah,” I said. “But first, we’ve got to get to the door.”

“That’s our job?” the Treasurer asked.

“Please,” I said.

“Which way is the door?” he asked.

Lillian pointed. “About a hundred paces.”

“I think the Tangle won’t come after us,” Ashton said. “But it can’t move further away either.”

“Grenades first, then,” the Treasurer said. “We’ll need to clear a way, we move in a tight group.”

“There’ll be enemies on the other side of the door,” I said. “You need to be able to hold out while we work.”

“Fire?” the Treasurer asked.

“It’s made of water,” Duncan said.

“A ring of ignited oil?”

“I don’t know if we have enough, but yes,” Duncan said.

“Then it’ll have to do,” I said.

“Once we move,” Duncan said, “There’ll be no safe ground, no place we can stop where we won’t be fighting.”

“We get to the Hedge. Then-”

Then what?

Claret Hall or the Tower?

Which would Hayle go to? Claret Hall was technically the headmaster’s office. It was where he could go to coordinate with the rest of his people.

As Mary had done, the Treasurer was arranging the soldiers into a relay of grenade tosses. We’d stagger them out.

“Then the Tower,” I said.

“What are you thinking?” Lillian asked.

“A message,” I said.

I punctuated the statement with my signal to the Treasurer.

“We’ll only have a couple of minutes of oil at best,” Duncan said, as the Treasurer called out. He and Lillian had their bags out. They were examining their stock.

The first grenade was thrown.

“Maybe less,” Duncan said. “Whatever you’re going to do, you’ll need to be fast.”

“I’ll do my be-”

The explosive detonated. To pass through the gate, we had to pass beneath the nose of the Tangle, which had reared back from the noise and light. We had to move within range of a claw swipe.

Ashton lingered, while we moved forward as a group. Lillian, Duncan, myself. Jessie and her stitched, the Treasurer, and one rebel with the next grenade. We went around the corner, stepping into the Academy grounds, and I could see the distant door.

The plan was to move along the wall. A hundred paces. I gauged the amount of space we’d carved out with the first throw.

Twenty paces. But as hard as we pushed, it was already pushing back. Faster, initially, then slower.

Those twenty paces shrank to fifteen by the time we were in position. After a minute or five, it might shrink to five or ten.

We moved fast. Another throw. The rebel who’d thrown didn’t move ahead with us, instead standing with their back tight against the wall.

It wasn’t the best way to move forward. The explosions drew attention, we carved out little space, we couldn’t stand close to the detonations, and the Hag Nerve was retaking ground.

There was a window nearby. I had dim recollections, of being on the other side of those windows. When I had my appointments at a young age, before Lillian felt equipped to see to them, I’d had them in the Hedge. In offices and doctor’s rooms. I would be without any Lambs, in pain I didn’t yet know how to deal with, staring out through the bars of my cage.

The others would make their way forward. They’d buy themselves time with oil and fire.

I’d get a headstart on my own role in things.

“Jessie,” I said. “Come with.”

Lillian and Duncan looked at me with surprise.

Ashton was Ashton, like Helen had always been Helen.

“I love you all,” I said. “Make sure Mary doesn’t use Junior’s gas unless she absolutely has to.”

“What-” Lillian started.

I grabbed the bars, and I started climbing.

“Oh. Be safe, Sy.”

The rain poured down around us, onto the Hag Nerve, onto the Tangle of dead bodies. It drenched an Academy that had gone quiet, making my every move a precarious one, where a finger or the toe of a boot could slip from wet metal.

Jessie’s stitched followed, after brief direction from Duncan. It was large enough to reach where I had to jump. It managed its slow, inexorable climb, Jessie on its back, piggy-backing it. My climb was more precarious, and I was in a hurry.

A nice climb was one where I had three points of contact with the wall, two feet and one hand, or both hands and one foot. I could reach with the free limb. This wasn’t a nice climb. There weren’t two points of contact here. There oftentimes wasn’t even one.

There were gaps between windows large enough that I had to make little jumps, where I touched nothing but air and rain, before reaching out to grab at another set of bars.

One set would be rusty. Another would rattle as I grabbed it. Another leap had a loose stone in the sill.

The group below used the weapons we’d brought with us from the ship to carve a way forward. They were just at the door now.

I spotted what I was looking for. The branches reinforced the wall higher up, grown into the architecture, supporting parts that had started to crumble. Those same branches provided a wealth of handholds and security that stone alone didn’t.

As multiple sets had overlapped, they made it harder to set up the bars.

I’d hoped to find a place where Jessie’s stitched could help rip the bars away. I found better. The bars had been done away with entirely on one of the upper floors, where the branches almost completely enclosed one window.

I worked the window open, slipping a knife through the gap to flip the latch, and I climbed within.

Patients were arranged on beds. Two were asleep or in too dire a shape to move. Five more were awake. An old woman, one with a long face and her hair curled, glasses making her eyes hard to make out. Two injured men who might have been soldiers. A woman who might have been a mother, sitting in the bed with her child.

This would be long-term care.

Water dripped from me as I walked down the row between the beds. “How many doctors on the floor?”

“Two nurses, they rotate. One is always a shout away,” the old woman said. “Doctors are two shouts away, if something happens.”

“Hey,” a soldier said. “Quiet now.”

“He has a knife,” the old woman said. “I’ve come this far. I’d like to live.”

“The fighting’s over,” I said. I glanced out the window, then leaned out a bit further, waving my arm so the stitched could see.

“Is it? I hear explosions,” a soldier said.

“Cutting through the mess,” I said. “The fighting is over, but the outcome hasn’t been decided.”

“You’re here to influence that outcome?”

“I’m here to decide,” I said.

Jessie’s stitched ripped away the branches. I put one hand on Jessie’s arm, holding it, so she wasn’t scraped free & left to fall to the ground far below as the stitched climbed through the window.

“I’m a soldier,” one of the patients said. He moved like he was going to get out of bed, and I could see the pain on his face.

I drew my gun. Not for him.

A nurse came to respond to the sound Jessie’s stitched had made. I pointed the gun at her.

“The Infante is dead. The armies on all sides have been devastated,” I said. I motioned for the stitched to follow. “The people who got us to this point, myself included, need to get some things out of the way. Either it’s me against them, or all three of us have different opinions on how this should go. Now… where is the man in charge?”

“Headmaster Hayle? I imagine he’d be at Claret Hall,” the old woman said.

“The man in charge of the Hedge.”

“He’s downstairs,” the nurse said.

I glanced out the window. They were just setting up the ring of fire now. The fire would keep the Hag Nerve from creeping in around them, at least for a bit. The water would seep in, but the Hag part of things wouldn’t come with it. They presumably had a way to manage the water lapping in around them.

Duncan had said there would only be a few minutes of reprieve.

“She’ll be safe as long as you don’t kick up a fuss,” I told the patients. I approached the nurse, gun still pointed at her, and motioned for the stitched to follow.

“Whatever you’re doing this for,” the old woman said. “Surely it isn’t a world where you’d hurt someone like her, who treats us kindly?”

“I think everyone who has a say would say the world they’re fighting for is the best one,” I said. “That they’d want to preserve the good people. The innocents. But want as we might, we don’t always get a chance. Don’t make me shoot her.”

“It’s your choice,” she said, to my back. I was already out in the hallway.

It was dark. The lights dimmed, at an hour when patients were supposed to be asleep. But the city was under siege, and anxiety ran high.

We all say we’d want to preserve the good innocents, the voice said. Reflecting on my statement a moment ago. There isn’t single one of us who wouldn’t put a bullet in an innocent to bring their ideal world one step to fruition.

This is the world you live in, Sylvester.

You are the embodiment of that sentiment, that world.

I kept the gun out of sight. The Nurse walked with me. Jessie followed, a short distance behind. The stitched carried her properly in its arms, now that it was done climbing.

The Nurse led me down the stairs.

The others were outside. How much time had passed?

But I couldn’t rush. Not at this stage. I had to appear calm.

She indicated the door.

I looked down the length of the long, empty hallway.

“Grab her,” I said.

The stitched caught the nurse, clapping a hand over her mouth, holding her against the wall.

“Thanks Jessie. Stay put for now.”

I opened the door, letting myself into the room. A patient’s room, luxury, but the person who lay on the cot with an arm draped over their eyes was a Professor.

I put the knife to their throat. They stiffened in alarm.

I used my hand to move the arm. He was relatively young. Thirty-something. He hadn’t shaved recently, but he was well-groomed, even to the eyebrows.

“I expected a knock at the door. Someone saying we’d lost. Ever since I saw that vessel out there,” he said.

I heard detonations. Was that my signal?

“You guys are dragging out the loss. It’s going to hurt all sides,” I said. “Let’s expedite things.”

He considered that.

“Every second counts. The patients and refugees in this hospital, the soldiers near to the ground floor, defending the entrance, the staff. If you want them to live, make this easy.”

“What if I make it hard?” he asked. “I’m not saying I will, but knowing might make the decision that much easier for me.”

“The artillery up above. The shells and explosives they’re raining down on the attackers are stored somewhere. I’d head to a tower, not too close to here, and I’d blow it up, and myself with it. I want to give them a way through, that doesn’t mean they’re wading through the Hag Nerve. I’ll sacrifice myself if it means giving them that.”

“It’s that bad already?”

“Yes. And I want through. Either you give us and them a way through, or I’ll take myself and everyone in the Hedge out to pave a way for my colleagues. Decide fast. You do not want to see what happens if they don’t make it.”

It wasn’t my voice that had made that warning.

He met my eyes. It was gloomy, the only light from an oil lamp turned to its lowest settings.

He seemed to read something in my expression.

I’d always been bad at being sincere when it counted. I came across as dishonest.

“Alright,” he said. “What do you need?”

He seemed to believe this, when I was as honest about what I was willing to do as I’d ever been.

“Announce the surrender. Say Hayle sent the message and he’s spreading it around. The people outside the door get to come in. They pass without incident. All weapons get put away.”

He stood from the bed, swinging his legs down.

“What happens after?” he asked.

“Go,” I said. “After all of this is over, we talk. And that’s only if all of them out there are fine and healthy. Hurry.”

He left. He seemed bewildered, as he stopped in the hallway and saw Jessie, and more bewildered still when I didn’t follow to ensure he was doing what I wanted him to do.

I stood in the small, luxury patient’s office, and I had a sensation that I’d been cooped up in here, once upon a time.

I touched the window, looking at the bars of metal and the wood that wound its way across. I could see the water that ran down the glass and the flame reflected in the individual droplets.

“Let her go,” I told Jessie.

The nurse was released. She stumbled a few steps away, and it looked like she was about to run. She didn’t.

“Did you hear?” I asked.

“We lost,” she said. “I don’t know who won.”

“Nobody,” I said. “That’s not how this plays out.”

I moved at a more leisurely pace. The stress from carrying Jessie around had worn out my legs, and I was only now feeling it. The climb had only exacerbated the stress and exhaustion.

“Can I- are you letting me go?”

“Don’t cause trouble,” I said. “We still have to see how the dust settles, and who is left when it does. If you stay quiet, you’ll be fine whatever happens. If you stir things up and the wrong set of things occur, it only hurts you and others.”

“I came here tonight with only the plans to look after my patients.”

“Do that,” I said.

She fled. Going back upstairs.

“How was that, Jessie?” I asked.

Jessie was silent.

“Yeah,” I said.

We moved briskly toward the stairs. I had to trust the Lambs were doing their best.

I made my way up, Jessie following, I opened the door just enough to peek, then stepped back, staying in the stairwell with Jessie.

The Lambs appeared. Lillian and Duncan supported Mary.

“You took too long,” Mary said. She sounded different.

“The fire went out,” Ashton said.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She looked up at me. One of her ribbons had come loose, and her hair had fallen down on the one side.

“She pushed herself too hard,” Lillian said. “Fighting back a rising tide with knives and wire.”

“And drugs,” Duncan said.

“Not much. A burst of movement when I needed it,” Mary said.

But she’d needed it. I wanted to say something and I couldn’t.

The others were coming. Rebels. They ascended the stairs.

“We should hurry,” Mary said. “People recognized us. Not everyone is keen with us just walking through, our guns raised while theirs were lowered.”

“I imagine it’s hard for them to process. Most haven’t considered being in a situation like this, even in wartime,” Duncan said.

Mary continued, “The dissenters will find those of like mind, and they’ll follow. Or they’ll do something to work against us.”

“I puffed at them to get them to hold back, but that won’t account for much,” Ashton said.

“Everything helps,” Duncan said.

“We’ll have to act before they pull themselves together,” I said. More of our rebels were collecting. Junior was with them, I saw. He held up a canister.

Let’s give them a message, drive reality home.

I gestured.

Our rebels mounted the attack. They moved through the doorway at the top of the stairs. They stepped onto the rooftop, rifles bristling.

The artillery team was on the roof. The great cannon was set in place, the crates of artillery were stacked neatly nearby, and the soldiers were divided. Half were keeping watch while holding onto their tea and hip flasks. The other half manned the cannon, many with binoculars in hand.

Our side fired first. They fired back, but it was scattered.

I could see lanterns flaring to life on neighboring rooftops. Concerned. Their focus seemed to be on the ground, a concern of an attack from across the fields, or from within Radham.

Mary pulled away from Lillian and Duncan, and she stumbled a little before dropping to her knees, moving her rifle around from where it hand dangled at her back. Her focus was on the nearby towers.

Our cannon was loaded. Our team was able to reorient it.

“Attack the other tower,” she said. “I need rifles here, fast!”

The cannon turned, slow and heavy, aiming at the tower to our north.

Mary’s group aimed a battery of rifle fire at the tower to our south.

They opened fire before we did, this time. Rifle shots. We ducked behind cover, crouching, as our cannon fired at the other tower.

The towertop exploded, violent, a flare of orange flame and heavy smoke. All of the ammunition they had been carrying went up with them, and the towertop began to crumble.

It was an attack from within that they hadn’t been fully equipped to deal with. They’d clued in, but it had been late.

If Mary’s rifle battery hadn’t killed most or everyone at the other tower, it had cowed the survivors enough that they weren’t poking their heads up.

That was fine. If they were being crafty or if they were running in anticipation of the cannon being turned their way, that would be alright.

“Remind me which corner of Claret Hall had the especially fancy staff room?” I asked.

The Lambs turned to stare at me.

“We might as well,” I said. “Like I said, delivering a message.”

I didn’t need to give the order. Our rebels began working as a team to slowly rotate the artillery turret. It stopped partway, the structure of it not allowing it to fully turn inward.

It was our mechanically inclined girl from Junior’s group, coupled with the muscle of Jessie’s stitched, that helped us get it turned the way we wanted it, infrastructure pulled away, safeguards pulled out, mounts loosened.

It was a slow process. We got the cannon aimed at the heart of Radham Academy.

The team worked to fix its housing so it wouldn’t go flying off the tower, taking several of us with it, with the recoil of its shot.

“What if Hayle is there?” Lillian asked.

“He isn’t,” I said.

“You can’t know for sure.”

“I know the direction Fray ran, and she’d run to him. I know that our prior headmaster-”

“Briggs,” Duncan said.

“-him. He would’ve gone to the nice staff room with the nice curtains and rugs and gold-inlaid furniture, and he would’ve had his tea or his brandy there, talking with his fellow black coats. Hayle wouldn’t.”

“You can’t know,” Lillian said. “Not for certain.”

“As badly as you want your confrontation,” I said. “I want my answers. I wouldn’t do this if I thought there was any chance we’d miss out.”

“Alright,” Lillian said.

“He’s the third god, he wouldn’t make it that easy.”

“All good to go,” our mechanic said.

“Thanks, Posie,” Duncan said.

“Would you like to do the honors?” I asked Lillian. “Considering what happened with your black coat?”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’ll do what I have to do in wartime, but… not like this.”

Not like this.

“Alright,” I said.

I gestured.

Posie and the Treasurer managed the firing.

The staff room of Radham was obliterated. A hole through the wall, a shockwave followed, tearing through that enclosed space. The windows blew out in rolling fire.

It was a shame that it had to happen, but we needed to break their backs. To make it clear to those who remained that this was over.

Removing some of their leadership. Some of their superiors and mentors.

There.

“We hold a position here, use the artillery cannon to open a way?” Mary asked.

“No,” I said. “We leave nobody behind.”

“You’re sure? You said you wanted to reach the tower.”

“We will,” I said. “Shoot down the walls.”

I pointed.

Break their backs, then scar them. Make it clear, above all else, that they’re no longer safe, whoever they are.

The cannon was loaded, and it fired once more.

One shot, to the base of one of the walls that surrounded Radham.

It mostly held up.

With the second shot, however, that section of wall collapsed. It broke free, it twisted, unpinned, and it dumped half of the resulting rubble on the outside of the Academy, half on the inside.

Our rebels secured the door from those below as we made shot after shot, targeting the walls.

Tear it down. Give them nothing. If they would drown the battlefield, tear down their walls and walk over the rubble.

Lillian approached me. She took my hand. Speaking was impossible with the deafening boom after deafening boom.

We watched, hand in hand, as the cannon fired, tearing down the Academy that had given birth to me, to her, to Jessie, Duncan, Ashton, Jamie, Gordon, and even Mary, in a roundabout way.

When the ammunition ran out, we waited. We let the dust settle and the rain wash that dust away.

Our retreat covered, we started on our walk to the distant Tower, where Hayle and Fray no doubt awaited us.

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