Again, it was before Alon's blazing face had broken the horizon when I was roused. Grey rolled up easily, since he was used to the sinful hour. I groaned as my stiffened aches alerted me that they were still present.

"Hurry up, Chronus." That girl's clipped tone struck around the inside of my head. "If you don't want your friend to get caught, you might want to get off your backside."

I yanked her blanket off my face just in time to have a large pair of boots thump to the floor, centimeters from my nose.

"Apparently, you don't have shoes. Be grateful you get to wear mine."

I squinted up at the imposing girl. "They're huge," I grunted.

Niko snatched them up. "Fine, continue hobbling around until you've got literal stumps."

"Salem Chronus, refusing shoes? I can't believe my eyes." Grey grinned at me from across the room. Most of him was already down the ladder, so it was just his annoying head that leered on.

"I can't believe your eyes either," I grumbled at the irritatingly vibrant blue laughing at me.

Niko went over and kneed his head. "Get going, fairy."

"I prefer Grey." Grey moved on down the ladder as told. "I'm not even Fet. There might be some blood on my mother's side, but it's a few generations—"

"Whatever," Niko said as she climbed down after him. She'd left the shoes at the top and reached out to grab them, but I shot out and snagged them away. She threw me a glare, but hopped the rest of the way down and went back to her father's workshop.

I tugged on the boots, which were two sizes too big, but with the bandages they worked out alright. Alastair was definitely going to have me change the wrappings soon.

The old alchemist pulled the cart and horses by the side of the building. Niko, Grey, and I peered out into the dark and quietly made our way to him. Alastair lifted the tarp in the back. "Grey, you stay under here until we're out."

Grey gave a quick glance around. "How exact—"

Alastair cut him off with a nod. "Trust me." Then he looked at me and Niko. "You two will stay up front with me. I'll need you."

We sat on either side of him and rode off into the eerily still morning. There were no midnight horses. I didn't catch sight of any bone-colored cloaks whipping around a corner. I didn't even see any of the usual beggars and swindlers lurking in their corners and allies. Somehow it made it worse—like they were still there but we couldn't keep an eye on them.

"I got up an hour ago and have been watching their patterns," Alastair whispered. "This street should be clear for about seven more minutes."

"What about the next?" I hissed.

"If I've tracked their formation correctly, we should be able to make it out of the crafting district and into the Thaniel's farmland. There, we'll use their cornfields for cover, until we get to the wall."

"How do you know so much about peacekeeper formations?" Niko asked.

Alastair glanced down at her. "I study what I need to avoid."

Her mouth dropped open and there was no response.

A smirk found its way to my lips.

Just as he said, we saw no peacekeepers along the roads Alastair quietly steered us on. The first sound of a second set of hoof-beats made me catch my breath. It came from behind a little ways, but in the silence it was deafening. Alastair's head twitched back as he heard it too, but he kept his gaze forward and continued on. He turned the two shabby horses onto a softer patch of grass, cushioning their footfalls and the wheels clanging against the stone. It went off onto a dirt path that led down to a farmhouse a ways off. We didn't head for the house, but instead, crossed straight on through into the field filled with stalks of corn. They didn't tower over us, but they were tall enough to give us some cover. Alastair did his best to keep to pathways already cut into the corn, as not to make a trail by knocking them down.

After an age, we finally pulled out of the crop and found ourselves on the outskirts of the capital, a ways from the exit and the peacekeeper patrol. A long expanse of wall spread out in both directions as far as the eyes could see.

Alastair hooked the reins to the seat and stood. Then he climbed over the back and hopped into the cart. "Stay down, Grey," the old man said as he lifted the tarp and rustled about in one of his boxes.

I felt Niko's eyes on me. I ignored the heat rising up my neck. "What?" I snarled.

"How exactly are we getting out?" She hissed. "There's nothing here—"

Alastair popped up with a mortar and pestle, a bottle of round, green leaves, and a jar of porous, black stones. He looked at the two of us. "You two go to the wall and feel the bricks for any carvings."

"What?" Niko gaped at him. "What are you doing?"

"It will be about your necks' height, fairly small," Alastair went on. "And there's two of them. The space between them will be a bit wider than the horses and cart." He dumped the leaves and rocks into the little bowl. "Hurry." He ushered at us.

With a groan and a roll of my eyes, I leapt over the side of the cart and winced when I landed roughly on my punctured feet. I shoved off the pain and went over to the wall. Niko landed on the other side with a more resounding thud and followed.

"Your pa is weird," she said when she got closer.

"He's not my pa," I snapped and pressed my hand to the stonework.

"He's the man who raised you. Doesn't that make him—?"

"The man who raised me," I grit my teeth. "That's all." I dragged my fingers along the old rock, keeping my gaze away from the Ourthian girl.

"If he hadn't told you, you were from the cursed city and how he wasn't your father, you wouldn't have known any different," she said.

"I would have figured it out." I rolled my stiff shoulders. "We look nothing alike."

"He could have been united with a Cond woman."

"Alastair couldn't unite with a smotoad." I moved several steps away before adding. "I think you're jealous that he told me the truth about my family, unlike your own pa."

Her breath caught and from the corner of my eye I saw a glare that could paralyze if I was looking at it straight on. I kept my eyes averted and waited for her axe to come down on my back.

It didn't come.

Instead, she turned and marched down the wall to comb it over, away from me. Something inside of my chest deflated and my empty stomach burned. Then I shook myself and forcefully shoved Niko from my mind. She had this nasty habit of getting stuck in there.

But my thoughts didn't fully shift away. The words I'd said to her stirred around treacherously in my head. I'd always known that Alastair wasn't my father, or at least I had no recollection of learning that fact. There must have been a time when I was very small that he told me. I also always knew that I came from a place called Feraway, that I later learned from other children was more commonly known as the cursed city.

There was one memory I did have where I asked Alastair why we had different last names.

"Why is my last name Chronus and not Gunheld? I thought I was yours."

The thought that I'd ever said anything like that almost made me vomit.

Alastair was scribbling on a piece of parchment at his desk. "No. I just have you for now. I found you in the ruined shop of a clockmaker. The sign said Chronus on it. It was your family's"

I rocked back and forth. There was an answer I needed to know for certain, even if I already had a suspicion of what it was.

I watched his stony face, gazing resolutely down at whatever letter he was writing. He was all furrowed with his sharp frown, concentrating too hard on his paper. I knew he knew I was staring.

I asked him.

"Where is my family now?"

The scribbling paused. "They're dead."

Dead meant gone.

Gone forever.

After a long painful silence, Alastair flicked his quill at me. "Put your alphabet papers away and we'll continue tomorrow."

With shaking fists, I crumpled up my work that I'd hated doing anyway and shoved it into my mouth, chewing and glaring in equal tenacity.

Alastair sighed.

I pushed myself out of the memory of soggy parchment on my tongue and focused fully on the task at hand.

The bricks were old but cemented well. There were chips and scuffs from the wear of the weather—nothing out of the ordinary, no carvings or recognizable sigils. I squinted upward and saw the wall vanish up into the still dark sky. I glanced to either side and saw it disappear into the early morning smog. It all seemed to be never-ending, trapping us in Emrin. In reality, the wall was about twenty meters tall, but that was nothing compared to the Grand Wall separating Adderghast from the borders of the other kingdoms. It was supposedly almost over triple this one in height. I wondered how we could possibly get past those, passing through Fyren and into Evocatus. Wall after wall, without getting caught.

"I found something!" Niko shouted.

I jumped and glared at her. "Shut up!" I shouted back quietly.

She gave me a sour yet superior look. I groaned and marched over to her. Her hand rested underneath an indent of a sharp wave going through a curved edged triangle. It clearly wasn't a natural part of the bricks. I pursed my lips. There was no denying she'd found it first.

Fairly certain that the matching mark wasn't where I'd been, I continued past Niko, running my hand along the line where the sigil was. My fingers found the identical grooves about five meters from her, and I turned back to the cart in time to see Alastair swing down from it. He went over and checked Niko's and nodded. Then he came over to me.

He didn't even glance at the mark. Instead, he placed the mortar on the ground, now filled with a disgusting gray mush, and dipped two fingers into it before straightening up and grabbing my wrist.

"What are you doing?" I instinctively tugged back, but he held firm.

"Listen to me, Salem. You are going to hold your hand, palm up, right beneath this mark when I say so." He took the coated fingers and spread them over my open palm. It wasn't cool like I'd expected, and it wasn't hot either. Chunks of grit and stone that hadn't been fully mashed scraped at the fading burns. I grimaced but didn't try to move away. It smelled like coal mixed with strong medicine. I wrinkled my nose.

When he finished, he scooped up the bowl and went over to Niko again. She stepped away from the wall and watched Alastair spread the grainy paste over his own hand. Then he lifted his head and made eye contact with me.

I raised my hand, palm up, to the carving as Alastair did it to the other. The gray sludge started to bubble as warmth heated my fingers. I swallowed as it started to get uncomfortably hot. Just before it reached the point where I was about to shake it off, a blinding red flash flared up from the stuff. I yelped back and nearly fell on my rear, but I managed to keep upright, blinking hard and gaping down at my hand.

Not a speck of the mush remained.

My hand was clean, save for the pink patches from leaping through fire. I looked up at the mark and saw it clearly now that it was outlined in liquid flames. It was like lava had filled the sigil's impression. Steam floated out from it, stirring the air with that nasty smell.

Then the lava shot along the wall from the end of the sharp wave, directly toward Alastair's mark that had also blasted off a line of red across the bricks. They met in the middle and then burst up as one.

I slowly backed away from the wall, watching the burning streams reach a peak and then split off again, down toward their original marks. Once they met the top of the rounded triangle, the steam turned to full on smoke. The medicinal smell burned away so all there was, was the scent of burning stone singeing my nostrils.

Alastair pulled out what looked like a saggy brown hat. He circled his fingers around the brim and gave it a tap. The dark gray plumes of smoke rising from the wall, shifted direction and rushed down into the hat.

Then I heard the popping and churning of thick bubbles. I looked back to the wall and my mouth fell open. I'd seen Mr. Sajes melting down steel until it became a stunning river of light that let off a wonderful scorching heat. The wall had become a molten wave of liquid stone and flames rolling down slowly like his metalwork. It oozed outward so that it didn't pool around our feet and instead burned and killed the grass and bushes just outside. Trees and sky revealed themselves as the wall melted down in a perfect arch and created a black hardened path from the liquefied bricks.

"Come on, Salem," a distant voice tugged at me. I yanked my grinning mouth down and turned to see Alastair pulling at a gawping Niko. "We need to go."

I jogged back over to them and scrambled up onto the cart. With another flick, Alastair steered the horses through the archway out of the kingdom's capital. I just started to relax when he yanked the reins, stopping the horses again, just barely outside. "Now, come with me." Alastair gestured to me and Niko again.

"What?" Niko blinked slowly, clearly still in shock.

He climbed over the seat and into the cart. I stood and did the same. Niko came after a moment. The tarp twitched when I landed. "What's going on?" Grey whispered.

"I'll fill you in when we're further away," I replied before marching on to Alastair at the end of the cart. Along the way, he'd grabbed a second large tarp that had been rolled up. He cut the ties and unrolled it.

"Grab the other end." The old alchemist flung a side toward me.

I caught it easily. The material was coarser and scratchier than the one laying over Grey and some of the other trunks. There were also lines and stitches of the same gray color going all the way through it, looking like a patchwork mess.

I glanced up at Alastair and followed his lead when I understood what he was doing with it. He stood at one corner at the end of the cart and I walked over to the other. Alastair lifted a corner of the big blanket up to cover the open arch. I tried to do the same, but I couldn't quite reach it. I rolled up to my toes and reached as high as I could, but there was a slight gap peeking through.

"Niko, take that corner from him," Alastair said. "Salem, go and grab the lock seal."

My lip curled and I tried to stretch myself that little bit further. Niko's arm shoved mine aside and snatched the tarp from me. I whirled on her and my heart did a stupid flip when my nose nearly collided with her lips. My feet stumbled back. Her other hand shot out and grabbed my arm and pulled me back from toppling off the edge. I blinked in surprise and her face wrinkled in disgust.

"I shouldn't have done that," she shoved me further into the cart.

Normally, I would have retaliated with a retort, but my heart was still thumping annoyingly loud which made it hard to come up with something mean.

She lifted her end of the blanket and just managed to cover the hole. I spun on my heel, taking deep breaths to clear my ruddy face, and stomped back over to the other junk Alastair had packed.

The lock seal, a long handled tool with the lock sigil's brand at the end, sat on top of the crate we'd used to sneak Grey into Emrin. There was a possibility we'd have to use that again.

"What are you guys doing?" Grey lifted the tarp a little for his face to peek out.

"I told you I'd tell you later." I yanked the sheet back down.

"It's not very exciting under here."

I gave a huff. "Oh, then let me just call some peacekeepers over. I'm sure they'd liven up this escape." I walked off before I could catch Grey's reply.

I handed the lock seal to Alastair, who took it in one hand and put the dark metal brand to the corner of the rough tarp. His grip was tightened as he stamped it down further until the sigil tore through the material and connected with the wall. Then he pulled back and let his hand drop. The blanket stayed where it was, locked to the stonework. Then he crossed over to Niko and did the same to her corner. He hopped down from the cart and did the base corners as well. Then he clambered back on and the three of us returned to the bench.

"Will that really prevent them from finding the hole?" Niko asked.

"The material is made of meleon pelts," Alastair said. "Their coats blends in with their surroundings as long as they hold still. It's not full-proof. If anyone is feeling their way along the wall, they will find the gap. But for now, it should give us a head start."

The wheels grated painfully along the cooled black path we'd made from melting the wall. Once over that, my shoulders relaxed and I slumped against the backrest. The further we got, the more my eyes drooped.

We'd done it. We'd made it out of Emrin.

The tense adrenaline seeped away and I nearly nodded off, but a nagging thought kept me from succumbing. I pushed myself back up and glanced over at Alastair. "Those sigils had been there for a long time," I said.

"Yes." Alastair nodded.

"From the wear of them I'd say it's been more than a few years."

Another nod.

"So you had this all planned out beforehand?" Niko said from the other side of Alastair. "You made this whole back door thing in case they what? Discovered you were still practicing alchemy?"

"It's always good to be prepared," he replied.

Prepared. For some reason, I didn't think he was talking about if they discovered him. It felt like something else. I couldn't explain the dark, twisted feeling swimming around in my stomach that he made those sigils in case I crossed the line.

Travis Vonet's broken, bloody face rose to the surface of my mind. What if I had killed him? Had Alastair been waiting for something like that to happen? Is that why he had prepared those sigils?

I watched his hard face. He kept it determinedly forward. Wrinkles carved in him like stone. The slash of his mouth was tight. Even though his steel eyes stayed looking ahead, he knew I was staring.

I didn't ask.