The academy basements had been built for beasts attacking from outside.
Now beasts were coming towards them from within the city.
Lenny opened the emergency gates and let in residents from the neighbouring districts. Students carried mattresses, water and first-aid kits out of the classrooms. The rector no longer argued with Guild orders. He sat at the hand-cranked generator, keeping the lights on in the medical wing with his own hands.
Lily found us on the stairs.
She hugged me, then immediately pulled away.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Lily."
"And him?"
"Leon."
She pointed to the red speck beside my collar.
I opened my mouth.
The name was gone.
Styx rose into the air. An image came through the bond: a dark basement, my closed hand and the tiny mosquito I had hidden from Brutus.
"Styx," I said.
The name returned with the pain.
Mira examined our pupils and the lines of our bond.
"You let the network imprint thousands of other people's traces inside you. The human brain was not built for that."
"How many more questions can we send?"
"One. Maybe two. Then you won't start losing words. You'll start losing people."
Styx settled on the table.
"I carry."
"No."
"I am bigger."
She meant the form of the Queen of Scarlet Wings, the core, the thousands of threads inside her. But her body was already trembling under the weight of other people's memories.
I placed my palm beside her.
"Together. Or not at all."
The first blows thundered against the academy walls.
Kane was in no hurry to destroy the sanctuary. He drove the students' beasts ahead of him, forcing the defenders either to subdue them or kill them with their own hands.
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