Four infants. They could save only four. Twenty more children of varying ages lay in cradles or stood clutching the bars of their cribs. She and Nicolene had agreed they would take only as many babies as they could comfortably carry, but one child in particular—a little girl with a cap of wavy brown hair and solemn eyes—made Melliandra ache to change that plan. That child didn’t cry or reach for them, as some of the others did. She just stood in her crib, small, baby-plump hands holding the rails, watching them with those unblinking blue eyes—not the pale brilliant blue Shia’s eyes had been but a deeper, richer blue, like the sky Melliandra imagined each night in her dreams. Blue sky eyes, the color of freedom.

She couldn’t take her, of course. The toddler was too old, too heavy. They couldn’t carry the infants and her as well. And if they let her walk, she would slow them down so much, recapture would be all but certain.

Melliandra hardened her heart. She’d known she couldn’t save them all. Save as many as she could but leave the rest: That was the plan. It was a good plan, but she hadn’t known how hard it would be. Leaving these children here to die—or worse, to live as slaves of the Mages—hurt more than any wound ever had. The children—their eyes so old in faces so young—deserved so much better.

“I’m sorry,” she told them. “I’m so sorry.”

As if they understood, several of the children began to cry. The sound alarmed Melliandra. This place had been one of the High Mage’s most closely guarded secrets. Boura Fell might be falling down around their ears, but other Mages, seeking power of their own, would want to take his treasures for themselves. The crying would lead those Mages straight to them.

“Ssh,” she whispered. “Hush, babies. Hush.”

“Las, ajianas, las,” Nicolene of the Fey soothed.

“We need to go,” Melliandra said. “Now.” Before the crying brought someone to investigate.

A whiff of an unfamiliar scent raised the hairs on the back of Melliandra’s neck. She froze, falling silent. Ears strained. There, beneath the squall of the children, she heard it: a whisper of sound, footsteps in the hall leading to this room.

Someone was coming.

She grabbed the shei’dalin’s wrist in a steely grip, but the other woman had already sensed something, too. Nicolene pressed a hand to her heart, her face pale as milk. The girl child began to whimper.

“Dahl’reisen,” the Fey breathed.

The dread in the woman’s eyes told Melliandra all she needed to know. Whoever was approaching was foe, not friend. A threat to their plans of escape. She jerked her head towards the door at the back of the room, the High Mage’s secret escape route the shei’dalin had pulled from the umagi attendant’s mind.

They had nearly reached the door when two men rounded the corner. Clad in black leather, and bristling with weapons, the men gripped unsheathed blades in their hands. Melliandra recognized the look in their icy eyes: the promise of death.

Before Melliandra could act, Nicolene gave a cry and flung out her hands. Green sparks shot from her fingertips. The room rocked and shuddered, and the ground beneath the two men gave way. “Gana!” she barked. Run!

Shock kept Melliandra frozen in place. She’d heard the umagi whisper about Nicolene’s fierceness, but she’d thought the Mages had raped and beaten it out of her.

Nicolene scowled. “Va!” she commanded. Go! And with a slash of her hand, an invisible force shoved Melliandra towards the escape route. “Dai ema!” Now!

“Kem’falla, parei!” The men’s magic had stopped their fall. They soared up, out of the hole in the ground. “Bas shabei mareskia. Bas veli ku’evarir.” Mareskia was the word for friends. We are friends. We’ve come to rescue you.

“Fossia!” Nicolene screamed. “Dahl’reisen fossia!” Lies! Dahl’reisen lies! She flung her hands towards the ceiling. More bright green magic shot from her fingers, plunging into the rock above the dahl’reisen. With a shriek, she yanked, and the ceiling came down on their heads.

Nicolene screamed and fell to her knees as if the ceiling had fallen on her as well as the warriors, but she managed to pull herself back to her feet and stumble towards Melliandra.

“Sal ne shabei desrali, to ke war desral,” she cried, waving her hands in a frantic gesture.

Melliandra didn’t catch half the words, but it was something about the dahl’reisen not being dead.

Sure enough, the pile of rubble was already shifting, starting to bulge upwards as the buried dahl’reisen fought their way to the surface. Instinct kicked in. Melliandra bolted for the High Mage’s emergency exit, pausing only when the shei’dalin snatched the little solemn-eyed girl from her crib and shoved her into Melliandra’s hands.

“What are you doing? We agreed—“

“Seya veli eva bos! Ke nei suya heberi eva dahl’reisen.” Melliandra’s mind filled with an image of the baby screaming in torment in the hands of dahl’reisen. The vision winked out. The shei’dalin’s jaw set, and she glared at Melliandra, daring her to object.

“All right!” Melliandra capitulated with a show of ill grace, even though she was secretly glad not to abandon the child with eyes the color of freedom. “Now, let’s go! Veli! And stay out of my mind, do you hear? “

Together, they raced into the narrow tunnel the High Mage had built as his secret escape route. Nicolene pulled the walls and ceiling down behind them as they went.