Alina was already screaming his name before she reached the window.
She hit the sill so hard it knocked the breath out of her. Gripped the frame. Leaned out into the wind, her hair whipping across her face, the whole bright, terrible drop of Durke Tower opening beneath her like a mouth.
"*Avery!*"
The wind took his name and threw it away over the city.
*Daxy,* she thought, and her mind was a white roar. *Daxy, Daxy, where is he, where—*
*Look down,* her wolf said. *Not all the way down. Just down. Look.*
Alina looked.
The tower wasn't a straight sheer wall below the window, the way it looked from the street. One level down, it stepped out. A wide ledge of a terrace wrapped around the floor beneath, lined with stone planters and climbing roses and a row of potted lemon trees. A priva
