We're halfway down the second hallway when the first candle in a student's hand goes out. Our collective run slows to an expedient trot. The steam is so thick, breathing feels like getting a lungful of sulfuric water, and I wasn't born to be a fish. With only one candle remaining, the world has narrowed to a dense cloud of hot fog, the walls on either side of us, and a short distance ahead.

Another hot, wet gust extinguishes the second candle. I curse softly. Someone yelps behind me.

"Watch it," mutters another, coughing fit to bust a lung.

"I can't see."

"Do we even know we're going the right way?"

I grit my teeth. The air is sauna-hot, my hair sticks to my cheeks and forehead, and I'm sweating buckets beneath my blazer. I strip it off and tie it around my face like a mask instead. The thick, stiff fabric blocks some of the steam, but mostly because it blocks the air, too. In the darkness, the feeling of suffocation only intensifies.

"Why aren't we moving?" asks a panicky voice. "Are we lost?"

"We're not lost," I say. I still have our bearings, though navigating to the next tunnel fork just got a whole lot harder. My body is trying to convince me that I can't breathe, so I close my eyes for a moment—though it does absolutely nothing in the darkness—and say another prayer to refocus. Hot air continues to waft over me from behind. In the distance there, past the fretting students, is another sound.

"Everyone be quiet for a moment," I say, and most obey. I hone in on the anomaly and get an all-over chill that only soaks my shirt further. Far back in the tunnels, something bubbles once and falls silent. A moment later, it bubbles again.

I grope in the darkness until I find another student. "Hold onto me," I say. "Pass it on."

She grips the back of my shirt and whispers the message to the person behind her. In moments, we've got a human chain rather than a bison herd, quieting the yelps of the two who keep stepping on each other. I find the wall and start forward again. Students shuffle along behind me. In another minute, several realize they can use their own blazers as ropes to remain connected without holding onto one another, and we reattain normal walking speed. The feeling of suffocation subsides a little.

I can't shake the feeling that I'm going to run face-first into a wall, but I encounter no such indignity. The tunnel is just wide enough for me to touch both sides, so I keep my hands extended until one reaches empty space. The tunnel fork matches the map still kicking around in my mind. The pause to navigate it, though, reveals that the bubbling sound has picked up pace. A faint hiss follows each iteration. I start moving again. This should be the second-last tunnel, and sure enough, a faint light appears through the steam up ahead. It's another tunnel, this time to the open door of our escape route outside.

I tug the student behind me. In a moment, we're all running again, stumbling and scraping shoulders and elbows against the slick, wet walls. The tunnel turns to stairs, then ejects us into the smoky light and comparatively frigid air of freedom. Exie sits in the grass ahead of me with terror painted over her face. She mouths something, eyes darting behind me. I'm shoved forward as the remaining students pile out of the tunnel.

"There they are," says a voice that could freeze fire. I spin around.

"Don't try anything funny," says Mr. Ashcroft.

My heart plunges deeper than a church crypt. The teachers escaped. They ring the judged students, who are still on the ground by the school wall. My view of them warps as the tunnel entrance belches another clot of steam. This pales against the black smoke pillar rising from beyond the school wall. Framed by this backdrop, Mr. Ashcroft stands with a handgun to the temple of another student—one of the guards I left behind. The rest are all with Exie. They sit with their hands on their heads, huddled together like wolf-ringed sheep.

Mr. Ashcroft nods towards them. "Join them."

The students I escaped with abandon me. In a moment, I'm alone, staring down the school's most dangerous teacher. We can't have come all this way only for our battle to end like this. My mind whirls through potential solutions, but Mr. Ashcroft isn't the only teacher who came armed. I see Exie's fire poker in the hands of one, and a knife belonging to another student confiscated by another. I'm sure even the gun belonged to someone on my side just hours ago.

Mr. Ashcroft's pale eyes narrow. "You especially," he says.

I don't have options. A hissing in the tunnel precedes another blast of steam. The floor at the bottom of the stairs has been swallowed by a skin of water. There's no way back down there. My eyes flick instead to the judged students, laid out behind their captors like so many picnickers napping in the grass.

"You should move them," I say, nodding over. "If this tunnel caves in, you're all going with them."

Several teachers exchange glances. Even Ashcroft's eyes dart back for a heartbeat before returning to me.

"Move the students aside," he says.

Teachers leap to do his bidding. I dare to tear my gaze from the gun to make sure no one is handled roughly. My heart skips a beat. For a second, I'm staring directly into Clarice's open eyes.

The moment passes. Clarice's limp body is carried aside, lashes fluttered shut again as if they never parted. I don my best impression of defeat and retreat to Exie's side.

"What are you doing?" she whispers, dark eyes are bright and terrified.

In all honesty, I don't know. My mind spins through dozens of half-formed plans, each one reliant on factors outside our control. A few pieces stand out. First and foremost, the school is burning. I can hear its roar over the stone wall, and its smoke pillar has darkened even just since we arrived. The sun is growing dim with it. If Massingham is still in there, he'll be coming towards us as fast as he can, if the fire hasn't caught him first. The teachers don't seem concerned about this possibility. Almost eerily so, like they don't realize their precious books are burning, or that their Fourth Prophet might be going down with the school. Either they know he's safe, or they have a backup plan that we don't know about yet.

I'm most concerned about the latter. Another teacher has sidled up to Ashcroft, and they murmur together as the rest of us look on. I see subtle gestures towards the tunnel entrance and back towards the school. Then Ashcroft lowers the gun. The student he's been holding hostage trembles until given a light push and an order. He scrambles back to us and practically collapses into the student crowd. Almost simultaneously, a whispered question reaches me from behind.

"Do we storm them?"

The girl who asked it leans towards me, eyes intent with something only bordering on sanity. She's not the only one.

We outnumber the teachers. They couldn't take us all before we overwhelmed them. Several still hold weapons close to our fallen friends, but Ashcroft himself is the one I'm most concerned about, and he's up to something else. Even as the plan to break our silence swirls behind me, Ashcroft removes a little silver cross from around his neck. He passes this to a nearby teacher, then pulls out a slender book with an angel on its cover.

For a moment, the world phases between memory and reality. Ashcroft isn't Ashcroft, but Massingham beside the demon's cursed pool. Me and Exie are on the grass, then crouched behind the stone that hid us that time, as we witnesses this school's headmaster communing with a devil.

Like Massingham did that time, Ashcroft flips open the hymnal and begins to sing.

A hideous wail makes us spook like startled rabbits. My head whips around in search of the victim, but the sound is so piercing, it takes several seconds to realize it's coming from behind the school wall. Students around me jump up, voices pitched high with fear. The teacher with the fire poker brandishes it in our direction.

"Remain where you are, or you will be the first taken," he snaps.

A frosty shiver rakes across my skin. Dread bites with it, making my whole body shudder. I get off lightly. Other students drop back to sitting positions. No one moves to intercept the singing teacher. No one so much as sneers. Fingers slip between mine and squeeze tight. I look up to find Exie looking back at me.

"Do you have a plan yet?" she whispers.

"Only half of one."

The wailing is intensifying, violent and inhuman. Ashcroft sways from side to side, caught in whatever trance Massingham once fell to. He's still singing, but there's something wrong with his voice. The wailing ceases all at once. In the silence that follows, even the throaty bellow of the fire isn't enough to mask the resonant tone of something that isn't Ashcroft coming from Ashcroft's body. It continues to deepen with every note, now singing in a language I don't understand.

Exie tugs my hand. Behind us, Colson has curled up with both hands over his ears, shaking like a man in pain. Barnabas is hyperventilating. Gilbert tries to talk to him. Juliet has risen to her knees in front of them, arms extended, though she's trembling far too hard to be any use as a bodyguard. Then Ashcroft's voice drops another note, and Juliet falls back as though forced to the ground. She struggles up again. Tears glimmer on her cheeks, but she touches something on her chest and resumes her defensive posturing.

She's wearing a cross.

Me and Exie are wearing crosses.

Clarice stole a cross off a teacher within days of our arrival here.

Massingham was so decked out in crucifix iconography, he could double as a walking pulpit—at least when he was still alive. Ashcroft divested himself of his own cross before he started singing, removing what I now suspect was his protection of his personhood. If the demon didn't have a human vessel before, it will now.

The other teachers aren't paying attention to us anymore. Half are watching Ashcroft, while the rest have fallen to their knees in fear or reverence. Even the one who threatened us moments ago has lowered his weapon, gaze drawn back to the rising demon as if of its own accord. Nobody pays any attention as something stirs behind them. Clarice opens her eyes again. Her gaze flicks to Ashcroft, to a nearby teacher, then back to me. She makes a subtle hand sign, then opens her fist a crack, giving me a glimpse of something shiny.

I smile. Exie tries to catch me as I stand, but I squeeze her hand. She lets me go again. Ashcroft is nearly at the hymn's end, if I'm remembering this hymn correctly. I've only heard it once, but demonic music tends to make a strong impression. I wait out the final chorus. Ashcroft—or Mastema—finally stops singing. He opens his eyes.

Then his eyes.

Then more eyes.

Eyes appear all across his face and body. Eyes on his cheeks and forehead. Eyes on his shoulders, chest, arms, hands. They blink open on his palms as he closes the hymnal. They ripple open down his legs as he stops the trance-like swaying. Faint impressions of eyes shimmer in the air around him, warping my view of the smoke column, still thick and black and broadening. The sun is fully gone now, and seems to flicker as the eye mirages spread. For a moment, I see the shape of wings behind the figure that is no longer Ashcroft, and not one set of wings, either. The Bible really had it right with their angel descriptions.

"Question," I say, and narrowly keep from vomiting as all the eyes swivel to land on me. I swallow hard. I've got one job now, and if I'm going to do this, I might as well do it properly. I straighten my shoulders, lift my head, and gather all my strength. I used to cower before true authority, but right now, there's only one question my blessed, bratty brain can muster.

"Don't those hand-eyes hurt like Hell if you're trying to chop onions?"