The force of Francis’ voice, magnified by the Angels surging around him, was enough to make Henry turn away without thinking. He saw Maggie do the same a few paces away, and they both started back towards the door when a thump shook the walls, and light strobed through the cracks in the door. A piercing shriek from out on the landing stopped everyone in their tracks.

Henry’s throat closed, and his ears popped as the air pressure suddenly dropped. He felt light-headed, and the heat on his back from Francis’ flames guttered and died. He took a step away from the door, but Maggie moved back towards it. She pushed the door open and leaned forward ever so slightly, edging up until she could see what waited back on the landing.

The space in the doorway filled with white light, and when it faded he could see that an Angel stood on the landing, its face bearing an expression of terrible disappointment, wings stretching to block their escape. Sybille fled from it, her stolen maids uniform ablaze. The light flashed again, and Maggie turned to run back up the corridor. The two collided. Panicked, breathless, and off balance, Sybille was unable to move Maggie. Instead, she bounced back into the landing. Turning, she opened her blistered mouth, a wide dark O of fear.

He cannot hear her, if she was even able to make any sound at all. His ears were ringing too badly. Henry closed his eyes, and he could see red blood through the lids. He raised a hand, sheltering his eyes, and opened them again.

Francis still stood in his doorway, hand outstretched to the advancing Angel. He looked back at them with tears running down his face. His old friend turned his back, but before he left he gestured with one hand, and the door at the end of the corridor crumpled inward as if struck by a bull. Beyond, a window stood open. Maggie was already running towards it. Henry sprinted, desperately burning blood to give him speed. He felt heat on his back and the lick of flames on the tails of his half-cape before he reached the window…

He threw himself head first, with no thought to his landing. As gravity took hold, he stared around and realised there was nothing below but the stone cobbled. Deep in his blood-trance, he channeled his power to reinforce the muscles in his legs. He jack-knifed his body, twisting like a cat to get his feet back under him, and when he hit the ground he folded, absorbing the impact with his knees, and then rolled, spilling across the stones. His knee still hit his left collar-bone hard enough that he felt the narrow bone snap.

His right hand hit the cobbles with enough force to tear the ligaments in his wrist, and two of his fingers were bent back and dislocated as his body rolled over them. When he forced himself back onto his feet, he could feel his ankles grinding. He looked up at the window, and saw that the light had gone. To his right, he Maggie was curled up in a ball. He rushed to her side, and saw that she’d landed even worse than he did. Her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and she cradled her knee to her chest as tears poured down her face.

“Come on, we need to go.” He couldn’t hear himself over the ringing, and he could see as she looked up blankly that she was going into shock. Henry burned more blood to keep his strength up and the pain at bay, and slipped his arms under her. With a grunt, he picked her up. He felt her scream, rather than hear it. His ears were still ringing. He started to run, his ankles sending spears of pain through the haze of his blood trance. A puff of plaster on a nearby wall marks the impact of a bullet, and Henry darted into a side alley, keeping his head down as far as he could. He sprinted on doggedly, using blood until he felt faint, running for what felt like hours before he collapsed in an alleyway. He managed to drag Maggie with him behind a stack of rotting barrels, and then blacked out.

Henry woke up on his back. He tried to open his eyes, and found that either he couldn't, or he had gone blind. His hearing was back, although the sounds around him were indistinct and confusing, and he was almost driven back under by jagged bolts of pain that seemed to come from every part of his body. He gasped, feeling air fill his lungs, tried to lift his arms and found himself being pressed back down. More noises, one basso horn near his left ear resolved gradually into a human voice. Byford.

“-awake. Keep him down, he must be kept still or his bones will mend crooked again.”

Henry tried to speak, but his voice came out a dry croak. He subsided, clenching one hand until the nails cut crescents into the palm of his hand.

“Be still, boy. You had a close call. You need to rest.” Byford’s words were kind, but there was a hardness, something Henry last heard in the Orphanage. Anger.

Henry tried to speak again, and this time he managed one word. “Maggie?”

“She’s next door. Her leg was shattered, fractures in her right forearm. Burns. She’ll live, but there will be scarring. We had to re-break her leg to set it straight.”

“Can’t see.”

“Don’t worry boy, you’re not blind. One moment.”

Henry felt something wet and coarse, and then pressure, rubbing across his face. It was surprisingly painful, but when the sensation stopped he found he could open his eyes. The room came into focus slowly, and the first thing Henry saw clearly was Byford's looming face, his bristly goatee and piercing blue eyes. He pulled back, and Henry realised he was in a bedroom at the Taylors Guild, the same one he had stayed in on his first night. In the corner, a man that Henry did not recognise was cleaning his hands in the washbasin. Judging by his long leather apron, he was either a surgeon or a butcher.

“You sustained minor burns to your face and hands, a number of cuts and abrasions. Fractured collarbone, two broken ankles. Torn ligaments in the wrist, dislocated fingers.” Byford stood, leaning into Henry’s field of view. “You are lucky to be alive at all. Sybille likely has not been so lucky. If Robert had not sought me out when he saw the lights in the windows, you would likely all be dead by now.”

“Sybille,” Henry croaked. “Where?”

“She did not make it out. We don’t know where she is. They sealed the compound after you broke out, and we have not had any word.” The anger in Byford’s tone intensifies, his voice turning gravelly. “Luckily it seems they do not suspect us, your incompetence served us well in that regard. I have to think that Sybille is dead. If she were not, she would almost certainly have talked by now.” He turned on his heel, and walked to the door. “Regardless, there is nothing we can do for her. Remember her the next time you feel tempted to engage in something so selfish and rash.” He paused in the doorway, stiff with anger, then sighed, and his shoulders drooped slightly. “You have a week until training restarts. Do not disappoint me again.”