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of humility crashed to the floor. Horror at the sacrilege rose in her throat like bile, and she almost turned back to defend the holy altar.
    Almost, but not quite. Rani might have been raised to respect all the Thousand Gods, but she certainly was not going to die for them, not here, in a darkened hallway of the guild that despised her. Harnessing the desperate strength of the pursued, she snatched up the velvet altar-skirt dedicated to Lene, pausing only an instant to toss the cloth at the warrior before rushing headlong from the corridor. The soldier bellowed his rage as he freed his wicked sword from the dusty cloth.
    The maneuver gained Rani precious seconds, and she fled into the heart of the guildhall, unfettered by sword or mail. She heard the berserker warrior behind her, leaving a trail of destruction, but she knew the corridors of the guildhall like the lines on her palm. Often enough she had been summoned to bring a pot of tea to an Instructor in the dark hours after moonset, and she had ferried laundry, glazing tools, and other endless burdens along every inch of these passages.
    Instinctively, Rani dashed toward the refectory, but she traveled by way of the obscure and twisting servants’ corridors rather than the main hallways. Gaining a narrow alcove near her destination, she huddled in the shadows, drawing her pale arms inside her dusty jet tunic and crouching against the dark floor. She caught her breath as her pursuer rounded a corner, his mail clashing against the stone walls.
    Either Rani’s prayers to all the Thousand Gods were answered or the soldier’s military helm obscured his vision. Whatever the cause, the berserker stumbled down the hallway toward the refectory, snarling rage at his prey. As soon as the mad soldier had clattered out of earshot, Rani sprang toward a recessed stairway just across the corridor. She took the steps two at a time, recalling when - only a fortnight after her arrival at the guildhall - she and Larinda had first explored this passage. Then, they had thought to escape the completely unreasonable wrath of the Instructors at some misdeed.
    The stairs were steep, and Rani’s breath stuttered from her lips as she climbed the last dozen steps and emerged onto the narrowest of balconies, perched high above the refectory floor. Stone-carved stands indicated that the space was originally intended for musicians, but the luxury had long since been abandoned - Rani had never dined to the accompaniment of a musical serenade.
    From this vantage point, she could make out a milling horde of Instructors, guildsmen, and apprentices. Clearly, the glaziers had been surprised at their afternoon work - many people clutched the tools of their trade. In happier times, Rani might have grinned as one particularly absent-minded Instructor held a piece of crimson glass to her eye to check for impurities, looking for all the world as if she were daft. Rani felt the urge to cry.
    Cook was in the refectory, too, holding a wooden spoon coated with evil-looking glop. Even from this height, Rani could hear the woman complaining that her meal was being ruined, that the fire was burning too high, that an apprentice should be in the kitchen stirring the pot.
    The soldiers who burst into the refectory obviously did not care if the guild went hungry for the night. Rani recognized her pursuer from the hallway below, but it took her several minutes to realize that all the guards were looking for her. In fact, it was only as one particularly burly man with a filthy, tangled beard pushed Larinda to her knees near the dais that Rani even realized what was happening.
    One by one, the apprentices were cut out of the crowd. As the guildsmen and Instructors recognized the wolves in their midst, they attempted to shelter the children. Parion, the Instructor whom Salina had appointed to guide the guild in prayers for Tuvashanoran, swept off his cloak and settled it around the shoulders of one of the most