House of Flame and Shadow: The INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER third instalment in the Crescent City series

All Ruhn knew was blinding light, and the blast of gunshots.

Three bodies hit the floor. The Hawk, followed by two dreadwolves. And before them, lowering her gun to her side … Lidia.

“What the fuck!” Baxian shouted.

He didn’t know—Ruhn had never told him. Even in his rage and loathing, he’d never dared risk sharing the knowledge of Daybright’s identity with another person who could betray her.

Using her good hand, Lidia hit a button on the elevator. “We have one minute and thirty-five seconds to get to the car.” She yanked a ring of keys from her pocket and knelt in front of Athalar. Fumbling a bit with her bandaged hand, she freed first his ankles, then his wrists from the gorsian shackles. Then Baxian’s.

Ruhn blinked and she was in front of him, eyes bright and clear. “Hang on,” she whispered. Her slender fingers brushed his skin, and gorsian stone fell away. His magic swelled, a tide of starlight rising within him.

It stopped at the end of his arm. He was missing his fucking hand—

He swayed. Lidia caught him, hauling him upright with ease. But he didn’t miss the grunt of pain from whatever it did to her arm, now free of its sling.

Her scent hit him, wrapping around him, holding him awake as surely as she wrapped her arm around his middle to help keep him standing.

“How long, Lidia?” Baxian asked. “How long since you’ve turned?” His face was slack with shock.

“There’ll be time enough to trade rebel background stories,” she said shortly, watching the changing floor numbers. “When the doors open, go left, then take the first door, then down two flights, take the door after that, then jump into the car. It’s large enough to fit all of you—and the wings.” She glanced over a shoulder, gaze sweeping over Hunt, then Baxian. “Are they healed enough to fly? Did the firstlight injection work?”

She was the one to thank for the angels’ healing—in anticipation of this escape?

“Weak, but functional,” Baxian panted. “But you’re insane if you believe we can get out—”

“Shut up,” she snapped, her good arm tightening around Ruhn’s side before she angled him toward the door. “We only have one minute now.”

The elevator dinged, and Ruhn knew he should be bracing himself as Hunt and Baxian were, but he couldn’t move his body, his agonized, weak body, even when the doors opened—

Lidia moved him instead. She charged into the hall, half dragging him, and cut left, Athalar and Baxian behind her.

Sparks flickered in Ruhn’s vision, blackness creeping in at the edges. It was all he could do to keep his feet under him, keep them moving, as Lidia raced them down the corridor to that door she’d indicated, then the stairs—

Ruhn stumbled on the first step, and she was there, heaving him over her slender back, lifting him. Fucking carrying him, despite that injured arm. He might have been mortified had each movement not set every nerve in his arm screaming.

Down, then through the glass door into the above-ground parking garage. An imperial open-air jeep with an unmanned gunner mounted in the back waited at the curb.

“Baxian: gunner,” Lidia ordered as she dumped Ruhn into the front passenger seat, pain threatening to tear his fragile consciousness from him.

The Helhound needed no further explanation before crawling up to the machine gun. Athalar threw himself across the back row, wings barely able to squeeze in with him. And then Lidia slung herself into the driver’s seat. A stomp of her feet on the pedals as she slammed the stick shift into place, and the car rocketed off.

The many-tiered garage was crammed full of military vehicles. Someone was going to see them, someone was going to come—

On a downward turn, Ruhn collided with the side paneling, and the impact reverberated painfully through his body as Lidia let the car drift, drift—then punched it forward, flying down a ramp. Hunt let out a broken laugh, apparently impressed. Athalar cut it short, though.

Ruhn saw why a second later. The guard station. Six guards had been stationed around it: two angels, four wolves. They’d heard the racing car.

They hardly had time to notice Baxian at the gunner. They didn’t even manage to raise their rifles or summon a spark of magic before the Helhound unleashed a hundred rounds of bullets. With the angle of the down-ramp, they stood right in his line of fire.

Blood sprayed in a mist as Lidia sailed through them—the car bumping over their bodies with sickening thuds. She shattered the barrier.

They burst into the sunlight, but there was no relief. They were now in the middle of the city, with enemies all around. Ruhn couldn’t get a breath down.

A voice crackled over the radio—Declan Emmet’s voice. “Daybright, you read?”

Hot tears began to streak down Ruhn’s face.

Lidia shot the car down the long, wide stone bridge between the palace and the towering iron gates at its far end. Another guard station threatened ahead.

“Copy, Emmet,” Lidia said into the radio, wincing as she had to take the wheel with her bandaged arm. Whatever had happened to her had to be brutal if she was still in pain. Something in his chest twisted to think of it. “We’re approaching the bridge gates.”

“Camera feeds are wonky. We lost track of you in the elevator bay. All there?” Dec said.

“All here,” Lidia said, glancing at Ruhn.

“Thank fuck,” Dec said, and Ruhn choked on a sob. Then Dec said, “Camera’s showing twelve guards at the gate. Do not stop, Daybright. Go. I repeat, go, go, go.”

They sped toward the guard station, headed directly for the array of soldiers with guns aimed at them. They looked uncertain at the sight of the Hind driving the car. Everyone knew that to piss her off was to die.

“Lidia,” Baxian warned. There were too many to shoot at once, no matter how uncertain they were.

Lidia punched the jeep into the highest gear.

The nearest soldier—an angel—catapulted himself into the sky, aiming his rifle down at them. Athalar’s lightning sparked, a feeble attempt to halt the death about to come down.

But it was Baxian, unleashing the machine gun again, who downed the soldier. The angel’s wings flared as he plummeted, blood showering them in a ruby rain.

Lidia charged through the fray, ducking low as bullets flew. They careened through the barricade, wood exploding, the crystal palace of the Asteri looming behind them, a grim reminder of what they fled.

Then they were past the gates, splinters of wood still falling into the jeep as they cut hard down the nearest avenue. Tearing out of a nondescript alley, a white van fell in line with them, the sliding door open to reveal—

“Where the fuck is your hand?” Tristan Flynn shouted to Ruhn over the gunfire, a rifle at his shoulder. He fired behind them, again and again, and Baxian pivoted the gunner to the rear, unloading bullets onto the pursuing enemy.

Ruhn was well and truly crying then.

The van veered, and Flynn shouted, “Shit!” as it narrowly dodged a pedestrian—a draki female who shrieked, falling back against the wall of a building.

The radio crackled again, and a stranger’s voice filled it. “Daybright, we’re a go at Meridan.”

Another voice: “We’re a go at Alcene.”

Another: “Ready at Ravilis.”

On and on. Eleven locations total.

Then a soft female voice said, “This is Irithys. Set to ignite at the Eternal City.”

“What the fuck is happening, Lidia?” Hunt breathed. They raced through the narrow city streets, the van with Flynn falling into line behind them. Hunt grunted, “Those are all places on the Spine.”

Athalar was right: Every single city mentioned was a major depot along the vital railway that funneled imperial weapons to the front.

Lidia didn’t take her eyes off the road as she picked up the radio. “This is Daybright. Blast it to Hel, Irithys.”

Ruhn knew that name. He remembered the three sprites telling Bryce just a few weeks ago that their queen, Irithys, would want to hear of Lehabah’s bravery. The lost Queen of the Fire Sprites.

“Consider it done,” Irithys said.

And as they took another sharp turn onto a broad street, Ruhn’s body bleating with pain as he again collided with the car door, an explosion bloomed on the other end of the city. An explosion so big that only someone made of fire might have caused it—

In the distance, another eruption sounded.

Ruhn could see it in his mind’s eye: The line of exploding orange and red that raced up the continent. One depot after another after another, all exploding into nothing. The Hind had broken the Spine of Pangera with one fatal blow, ignited by the fire from the lost Sprite Queen.

Ruhn couldn’t help but admire the symbolism of it, for the only race of Vanir who’d universally stood with Athalar during the Fallen rebellion to have lit this match. He caught a glimpse of Athalar’s face—the awe and grief and pride shining there.

The entire land seemed to be rumbling with the impact from the explosions. Lidia said, “We needed a distraction. Ophion and Irithys obliged.”

Indeed, not one pedestrian or driver looked at the jeep or the van racing for the city walls. All eyes had turned to the north, to the train station.

Angels in imperial uniforms flew for it, blotting out the sun. Sirens wailed.

Even if word had gone out about their escape, the Eternal City—and all of Pangera—had bigger things to deal with.

“And Ophion needed a shot at survival,” Lidia added. “So long as the Spine remained intact, they couldn’t gain any ground.”

She’d once told Ruhn that Ophion had been trying and failing to blow up the Spine for years now. Yet she’d done it. Somehow, she’d done it … for all of them.

They turned onto an even larger avenue, this one leading right out of the city, and Flynn’s van pulled up beside them again. “We’ll cover the highway. Get to the port!” he shouted. Lidia saluted the male, and Flynn winked at Ruhn before the van peeled away and the Fae lord slid the door shut.

But ahead of them, at the gate through the city walls, a light began flashing. An alarm blaring atop another guard station.

From the massive stone archway, a metal grate began to descend, preparing to seal the city. Trapping those responsible for the station attack inside—or trapping them.

The guards, all wolves in imperial uniforms, whirled toward them, and Ruhn winced as Baxian unleashed his bullets before they could draw their weapons. People shrieked along the sidewalks, fleeing into buildings and ducking behind parked cars.

“We’re not going to make it,” Baxian called as Lidia zoomed toward the guard station.

“Lidia,” Athalar warned.

“Get down!” Lidia barked, and Ruhn shut his eyes, sinking low as the grate lowered at an alarming rate. Metal screamed and exploded right above them, the car rocking, shuddering—

Yet Lidia kept driving. She raced onto the open road beyond the city as the grate slammed shut behind them.

“Cutting it a little close, don’t you think?” Hunt shouted to Lidia, and Ruhn opened his eyes to find that the gunner had been ripped clean off. Baxian was clinging for dear life to the back of the jeep, a manic grin on his face.

They had made it, and the closure of the city gate had sealed in any land-bound cars or patrols. Precisely as Lidia had planned, no doubt.

“That was the easy part,” Lidia called over the wind, and the jeep sailed out into the countryside, into the olive groves and rolling hills beyond.

Ruhn stirred from where he’d collapsed against the side paneling. His wrist bled—the wound had reopened.

Declan said over the radio, “Let me talk to him.”

For a heartbeat, Ruhn met Lidia’s bright, golden eyes. Then she extended the radio to him. It was all Ruhn could do to clutch the radio in his good hand. Good being relative. His fingernails were gone.

“Hey, Dec,” he groaned.

Declan laughed thickly—like he might have been holding back tears. “It’s so fucking good to hear your voice.”

Ruhn squeezed his eyes shut, throat working. “I love you. You know that?”

“Tell me again when I see you in an hour. You’ve got a Hel of a drive ahead. Put Daybright back on.”

Ruhn silently handed the radio to Lidia, careful not to touch her. Not to look at her.

“This is Daybright,” Lidia said, and Ruhn glanced behind them. A pillar of smoke rose from the part of the city where the glass domes of the train depot used to gleam.

“You want good news or bad news first?” Dec asked over the radio.

“Good.”

“Most of the imperial security forces are at the train station, and the city is under lockdown. Irithys made it out—she vanished into the countryside. Off to wherever.”

“I gave her instructions on where to go—what to do,” Lidia said quietly. But then asked, “What’s the bad news?”

“Mordoc and two dozen dreadwolves also made it out of the southwestern gate before it shut. I think they’ve figured out you’re headed for the coast.”

“Fuck,” Athalar spat from the back seat.

“Flynn?” Lidia asked.

“Flynn’s behind them. Mordoc and company are crossing onto your road. They’ll be on your tail within ten minutes at your current speed. So go faster.”

“I’m already driving at top speed.”

“Then you’ll have to find a way to ditch them.”

Cold washed through Ruhn that had nothing to do with his injuries or bleeding arm. He dared himself to look at Lidia—really look at her.

She merely stared at the road ahead. The wind ripped strands of her golden hair free from the chignon high on her head. Calculation swirled in her eyes.

Baxian said over the wind, “They’ll have every guard between here and the coast watching the road.”

And they’d just lost their machine gun. Lidia reached for the holster at her thigh and handed her sidearm back to Athalar.

“That’s all we have?” Athalar demanded, checking the bullets. Ruhn didn’t need to look to know there weren’t enough in the gun to get them through this.

“If I’d packed more, someone would have been suspicious,” Lidia said coolly.

Declan’s voice crackled over the radio. “What’s the plan, Daybright?”

Ruhn watched her beautiful, perfect face. Watched as determination set her features. “Have the ship at the planned coordinates,” she told Declan. “Ready the hatch for an aerial landing.”