The hall collapsed behind them in pieces.
Sera did not remember the run back clearly. She remembered fragments. Cassian dragging Valerius under one arm while Delara threw ash over the silver path to keep the remaining statues from reforming. Isolde shouting directions through smoke as if she had been born under the estate instead of into court silk. Silas appearing at the entrance to the first kennel despite every injury in his body, his face white, his hands steady enough to cast ash from the bowl when the teeth in the pit began clicking again.
Mostly, Sera remembered Valerius’s blood.
It spread too quickly. Dark against his black shirt. Bright where it ran over his skin. The shard from the throne had gone through the upper left side of his chest, not his heart, not quite, but close en
