Malou's body seemed to know what to do before her mind did. Crossing the distance between her and the Legionnaire trying to kill Gavriel with hot magic coursing through her muscles, she put on the deer mask while imagining that it and the rapier were both visible again. She knocked the Legionnaire’s crossbow up right before they took their shot. As the Legionnaire turned toward her, she released her magic, unsheathed the rapier, and aimed it for the shoulder of their dominant arm. Somewhere that’d make it hard for them to keep fighting.

But then recognition hit her. Of course, she would recognize him after studying Laure’s recording of Brosch’s murder so many times. His subordinates had called him Juhnke, and he’d been the one who’d ordered Brosch’s murder. She’d heard him say kill him nearly a hundred times. She’d studied his features—fair-skinned, short brown hair, murky blue eyes, red cheeks, clean-shaven, sturdy jaw, a wide mouth that’d smirked while giving that kill order.

Malou had handled better rapiers, but this one went through the Legionnaire’s grey leather brigandine and the padded doublet beneath with less resistance than she expected. Pulling it out took even less effort. His brows knitted in confusion at her. He dropped to his knees first, clutching his bleeding chest, and then he fell backward.

Was he dead? Had she just killed him? She hadn’t meant to—right? When she looked to see if there was any other danger nearby, all she found was Gavriel moving toward her. How long had he been watching her? Could he see the blood on her blade?

“Reinforcements are coming,” Laure said in her ear over all the noise. It took everything in Malou to focus on her secretary’s voice and not the one in her mind asking if she’d adjusted her aim at the last moment on purpose. “The platoon from Ehlers is nearly here, and they are carrying firearms this time. You need to grab Gavriel and leave.”

“Why are you here?” Gavriel asked as he pulled her back away from the fighting, watching over his shoulder for anyone who might come after them until they’d crouched behind the nearest aisle of bookcases.

“Because you are,” she said. She hated the way her voice wavered, and she swallowed hard as Gavriel picked up a spare mechanical crossbow from the shelf and checked the top-mounted magazine for bolts. She sheathed her rapier but didn’t put it down. “There’s more coming—with rifles. You have to warn them. Everyone needs to leave.”

He didn’t bother asking how she knew and yelled, “Retreat! Back to the tunnels!” Within moments, his message echoed all around the library in different voices, and Libertines began to run past them toward the entrance to the tunnels. Then, to her, he said, “You too.”

Another Libertine, wearing a cougar mask, posted up across the aisle from them with another repeating crossbow. They took the first shot, then Gavriel lifted his, pulled its lever forward—the trigger catching the drawstring—and drew it back toward his shoulder until the magazine fed a bolt into the firing slot. He caught a Legionnaire in the shoulder, where Malou had meant to injure Brosch’s murderer. These types of pump-action crossbows weren’t particularly powerful, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be lethal if they found the right target. However, that didn’t matter if there were only two of them covering everyone else, even if they didn’t miss once like Gavriel.

With all the Libertines running in the same direction, the Legionnaires knew exactly where to focus their attention. The Libertines were all in masks as well, making them an easy target compared to the students hiding under tables and behind bookcases.

“Laure, trigger the fire alarms and sprinkler system in the whole building.”

The hiss of the sprinklers came first. Then the piercing shriek of the alarm cut through it until a roar of true terror echoed all around the library. The building quaked with it. The Libertines were no longer the only ones running, and a wave of scared students scrambling toward the nearest exit flooded around the remaining Legionnaires. They wouldn’t be deterred for long though.

Malou tugged on the back of Gavriel’s dampening uniform vest. “We can hide upstairs and wait it out. Take the staff elevator, discard the masks, pretend we were there the whole time. Please don’t make me leave without you.”

“Never. I’ll follow you.” Then he added, “Promise. Now go.”

Without hesitating any longer, she fought against the crowd of students—all of them panicked and crying and rushing toward the atrium’s three exits—back to the Lower Reading Room. Half a breath later, Gavriel leaned against a bookcase next to her across from the entrance to the basement and a growing pile of discarded masks. They checked down each aisle as they headed for the far side of the room and the staff elevator.

If Laure had warned Malou that the reinforcements arrived, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it over all the noise that followed the first rifle shot. Just one. Perhaps a warning shot? Her body and mind hummed with the redoubled sound of hundreds of hurried feet, hundreds of screaming students trying to make sense of what was happening, why now, why here, why them.

Malou reached the elevator first, nestling into the corner under the call button and pressing it. Gavriel squatted beside her as another too-loud crack of a firearm pierced through the mayhem. The Sea Legions shouted over even the shrieking of the fire alarms and the whistling sprinklers, their voices bellowing orders as the second platoon arrived.

Gavriel kept his crossbow raised, ready to shoot if a Legionnaire came at them. He probably wouldn’t have a clean shot though. None of the Legionnaires probably had one, either, but that didn’t seem to be stopping them. One innocent student would be a small price to pay to apprehend a few Libertines since she’d made sure they wouldn’t get their hands on what they actually came for.

More students packed into the first floor from the staircase near them at the back of the reading room looking for an escape that was likely blocked by newly armed Legionnaires. As the elevator door opened, Libertines shouldered through the students down the stairs with more than one Legionnaire tracking their retreating figures with steady crossbows. Two of the Libertines in bird masks seemed to be heading straight for her and Gavriel, probably desperate for help to get away from their pursuers.

Gavriel pulled her into the elevator at the same time a Legionnaire on the mezzanine shot a quiver into the back of one of the Libertines bearing toward them. The other caught them with a startled scream. What would happen to them if they were caught here? She had to help them if she could.

Thinking quickly, Malou pressed her arm against the door as it tried to close. Her other hand found the marble in her pocket, leeching magic from it as she watched them continue running toward the elevator. What could she do? Stopping time would be the best option but not a feasible one. She had to rely on what she already knew she could do—especially what she could do well.

Recalling how she made messages invisible, magic from the marble surged through her with the familiar warm comfort of power. She let it seep deep into her being and then sank into the renewed feeling of life as her awareness expanded. She imagined it radiating outward until she could feel the air around the two Libertines pulse with her magic. Then she braided the magic into threads, breading them together like a shield from the First Revernais Empire. Large enough to cover them completely from behind with thick, steel-strong strands that would be near impossible to penetrate with their bolts.

As she imagined the shield trailing closely behind them, her senses soaked in every detail around her. She could taste the magic in the air. She could smell its electric energy pulsing all around and feel its vibrating current dancing in the air like static. She could see its lightning threads branching out from her, from everyone and everything caught in her radiating magic. Her father's voice reminded her in a whisper in the back of her mind, Magic is everywhere and in everything.

The ripples of her magic seemed to slow time and distort the reality in front of her until the marble's slow seeping of warmth became a deluge of fire. Her senses fractured between the multitudes of pasts that had ever been, the here and now, and the vast possibilities of the future. She felt like she was being wrenched through the dissonance of the past unrolling like holograms in mutterings and laughter of people she'd never met, the library as she knew it deconstructing in front of her until it was replaced with the hilly grasslands the university was built on. At the same time, there was both a stillness—one that froze the two Libertines moving toward the elevator, the Legionnaires looking to take another shot at them, and the distraught students seeking escape from the chaos that'd descended on them without warning—and a speed that left afterimages of their collapsing figures already in the elevator beside her, the elevator doors closing, the crowd of students thinning out until there was emptiness.

Malou felt like she was existing in multiple planes of existence at once, in multiple moments across time. She felt like she could both let it wash power over her until she was strong enough to protect the Teir from anyone who dared take it from her and that it could rip her apart if she didn't know how to control it.

Not yet, a voice inside her said.

Her magic retracted back into her, and she released a staggered breath as she slammed back into the present as if no time had passed at all. She held tight to the shield as the Legionnaires took two more shots. She groaned when the quivers struck against her magic, feeling them fight to cut through its density, but she made sure its weave stayed strong with everything she had.

Her palm burned by the time two Libertines collapsed onto the elevator floor and the doors began closing. Even after she released the magic, her skin felt raw with blisters, stiff from swelling. Had she taken in too much magic at once? Why had that felt so much different than with Haddou?

The Libertine with a bolt in their back hunched over, grabbed it over their shoulder, and removed it with a grunt. “Why the fuck did they send the Sea Legions?”

“Because you’re terrorists,” Malou answered easily, taking her mask off and finally dropping the rapier. Unclenching her fist took effort, but if she wanted to try to heal her palm, she needed her other hand. If she couldn't heal it, she'd probably have to tell Haddou what happened. “Or at least that’s what Commander Nunziata called you. You’re students here?”

“They’re not,” Gavriel said, sinking into the corner opposite Malou and pulling his mask to the side of his head. So he knew who they were. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and continued, “They can escape through the closed basement stacks though. There’s that one entrance in the ground by the section with government publications.”

Any suspended disbelief that Gavriel was one of them vanished from Malou’s mind. Her chest tightened, and she leaned back against the elevator wall. Sliding down to the floor, she reminded herself that she kept secrets, too. This only felt bad right now because of everything else happening on top of it.

She clasped her hands together in her lap, hidden from the others, and held back her wince. “Laure, how does it look down there? And can you keep the elevator doors from opening once we get there?”

“Two Legionnaires are making their way down,” Laure answered while Malou’s burned palm tingled with magic she hoped would heal her and held her breath against the hiss that wanted to betray her composure. The panic in Laure’s voice from earlier hadn’t disappeared. “The locked door may only give you an extra minute or two. Just tell me when you want me to open the doors.”

“We don’t have much time,” Malou relayed, voice tight. “Will you two be alright to go alone?”

“Of course.” The Libertine with the injury took their mask off, too. Their messy, wet dark brown curls framed their face, and a spattering of freckles graced their cheeks and forehead. Their eyes were their most distinctive feature—a rich brown color but part of the right was a subdued blue—and they reminded her of Aaro, the son of Zeynel's cousin. Their hesitant grin was the true giveaway. “…Surprise?”

Because that was exactly who he was. His name escaped her quietly. "Aaro..."

“You two know each other?” Gavriel asked.

When her parents used to travel to Rielha every summer for her father’s research, she would follow around Aaro en von Winther everywhere he went. Three years older than her, he had seemed to know everything there was to know about Lourquera’s sweltering streets, how to get a good deal at the market, how to sneak into the theatre or the opera when it was too hot. He’d been the main reason she’d enjoyed her time at Estravenza University, especially without Gavriel.

After her father had died, her mother only traveled there every other summer up until four years ago. Back then, Aaro had felt more like her cousin or brother. She’d really missed him. Even now, despite how crushing it was to know he’d probably been to campus a handful of times and not ever tried to see her, she couldn’t find it in herself to be anything but worried.

“Terrible surprise,” Malou said but didn’t move away when he shifted closer to sit next to her. If they’d been reuniting under any other circumstance, she would’ve hugged him. Instead, she took his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice if there was any evidence of the burn left, and tried to imagine how she could heal his injury instead. She probably couldn’t. “There’s not even time to be surprised. There are two Legionnaires headed to the basement stacks, and although they’re locked, it won’t take them long to hack it or just break in. Maybe we can make up some story why you’d be here?”

Aaro’s eyebrows lifted at her, and he smirked in the same way he used to when he was preparing to make fun of her. At the same time, he squeezed her hand to relay his seriousness. “A believable story though? Don’t joke.”

Malou scrunched her nose in frustration. While they could say Vice-Premier Kåre had sent his son to Tousieux ahead of their consultation call yesterday, his name wouldn’t be on any visitor log. It’d be more suspicious if the Sea Legions knew he was here at all. She didn’t want to part from him, though. Not while he was injured. Not while there were Legionnaires all over campus. What would happen if she let him leave her here and she never saw him again?

“Don’t worry about us,” the other Libertine said, tone soft and sympathetic. She knew that voice, and so she recognized him before he finished removing his mask. It was Senna. He was flushed, his wet hair was slicked back, and perspiration glistened above his lips. “Really. We’ll be fine. I’ll keep him safe even if we’re caught.”

All three of them were Libertines and hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her. She shouldn’t let it hurt her, but the realization was crushing all the same. The worst thing about it was that she couldn’t spend time dwelling on any of it—not her father’s message to Gavriel, not her conversation with Haddou, not Zeynel’s decision to abandon the Teir, and not that three people she thought she knew were hiding so much from her.

“Gavriel and I will cover for you then,” she decided, then stripped off her soaking wet coat and her uniform vest because they both had been bloodied. Another thing she couldn’t let herself process. At least her blouse was dry. “If we can convince them even for a second that we’ve been hiding down here the whole time, that should give you both enough time to leave. Unless there’s another option I’m not seeing?”

Senna shook his head. Gavriel held her gaze, jaw tightening for a moment as if he wanted to oppose her plan. Aaro released a needlessly long sigh. At least he hadn’t changed in the last four years, other than being slightly taller than before.

She added, beginning to wring out her long hair and twist it into a bun, “I’m guessing you know where the entrance is?”

“You could come with us,” Aaro said.

“Get your injury looked at, will you?” Malou handed the rapier to him. They’d definitely been talking for far too long. “Laure, where are they now?”

“You have maybe another minute.”

She studied Aaro’s familiar face, then gave in and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Part of her did want to go with him, but she couldn’t go with the Teir in her pocket. Coming to Alloula Library had been one mistake and letting two Libertines into the elevator had been a second, but she didn’t regret either choice. She’d make them again.

Aaro chuckled quietly but held her close. “You really missed me, huh? And here I was afraid you wouldn’t recognize me. This isn’t goodbye though. Don’t worry.”

He didn’t know that for sure, but she had to believe him right now.

Malou stood and offered Gavriel help up. “We’ve only got a minute,” she said. “Any ideas on how to approach the Legionnaires?”

“Not any you’d like. You’ll probably be more convincing than me by yourself.” He picked up the crossbow, checked the magazine again. “So either you distract them so I can put a quiver through them or we can lean on the rumors about the closed stacks being a prime spot to fool around and hope they believe our acting.”

Aaro scoffed while Senna helped hauled him up from the floor. “Another joke? Are you both comedians? Don’t give them any chance. Be quick.” He retrieved a pocket knife from his black greatcoat and dropped it into Malou’s pocket. “Just in case. Let’s go.”

“Laure, dim the lights in the elevator.” Malou didn’t like the idea of Gavriel putting a quiver through anyone on purpose, but this didn’t seem like a situation she could get them out of with magic or charm alone. The bolts might not kill them. This wouldn’t make him a murderer, too. “Open the door.”

“Be careful,” Laure whispered as Malou stepped out.

The closed basement stacks spanned the entire length and width of the library, but with the dark wood bookshelves spaced so narrowly apart and the ceiling of exposed dark wood beams and parchment-covered light panels dropped so low, the space felt more like a cage.