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bent they’ll raise the alarm.’
    ‘Which way?’ Jude asked. ‘How do we know where to go?’
    Cas looked up into the inky blackness of the night sky, and against the low clouds to his left he saw a faint orange glow, like he’d seen above Boston back home but much weaker.
    ‘That way,’ he said. ‘It’s the lights in the city glowing off the clouds above.’
    He got to his feet and had taken a single pace when the screech of a whistle shattered the silence of the night and a chorus of shouts bellowed out.
    ‘The prisoners have escaped!’
    * * *

9
    ‘Run!’ Cas whispered.
    The four of them dashed across an open meadow and into the inky blackness of the forest as a chorus of voices and whistles echoed to and fro behind them. The crackle of a single musket shot burst out and Cas heard the bullet rattle through the trees nearby as they ran.
    ‘They know where we are!’ Jude yelled.
    Cas risked a glanced over his shoulder and through the dense trees he could see the camp fires sparkling like a galaxy in the darkness. Some of the lights were moving and he realised that soldiers were lighting lanterns and moving in pursuit.
    ‘Keep running!’
    The forest was almost entirely black as Cas stumbled over tree roots and through thickets of undergrowth as he tried to keep heading toward Boston. The night air was cold on his skin and the damp foliage was already soaking his clothes. He could hear Siren running just behind him, and further back Jude and Emily struggling to keep pace.
    Then, through the darkness he heard what sounded like distant thunder.
    Cas slowed and listened, the sound rumbling through the trees behind them.
    ‘Horses,’ Siren said.
    Cas cursed and kept running. The rumbling noise, the thundering of countless hooves, moved out to their left and right. Cas’s eyesight was slowly adjusting to the gloomy darkness of the woods but without a lantern he was unable to travel fast enough to prevent the horses from getting in front of them. Another couple of minutes and they would be encircled and trapped.
    Siren’s hand gripped Cas’s shoulder and drew him to a halt in the darkness as Jude and Emily crashed through the undergrowth to join them. They stood in the silence, chests heaving, and watched as the horses thundered past nearby. The riders held lanterns aloft as they rode down a track that weaved through the woods.
    ‘Let’s stay here for a moment,’ Siren whispered. ‘The horses can’t get this deep into the trees so they’ll have to stay on the main road. It’s called the Concord Turnpike. We stay quiet and wait to see what they do.’
    ‘They’ll trap us is what they’ll do,’ Cas replied anxiously.
    Siren shook her head. ‘No. They’ll need a lot of men for that. We just need to give them the slip before the army gets organised.’
    Cas looked behind them. Ranks of glowing lanterns bobbed like stars fallen on the surface of an ocean, twinkling through the trees as soldiers began dispersing into the woods looking for the escaped prisoners. But there were nowhere near enough of them to search the entire forest, especially at night. Cas almost allowed himself the thought that they might get away when Jude pointed at the lights.
    ‘They’re tracking us,’ he said. ‘Look, they’re all converging on our path.’
    Cas watched as the amassed lights began closing up as one or two soldiers followed the trail of crushed foliage and snapped twigs they had left in their wake.
    ‘They’ll flush us out,’ he realised, ‘and the horses will be waiting.’
    ‘We need a plan,’ Siren said, ‘fast.’
    ‘Keep moving,’ Cas said, ‘but tread more carefully. We need to be quiet.’
    Cas lead the way, the voices of the pursuing soldiers echoing through the forest. Cas weaved his way carefully between bushes and trees that loomed out of the blackness, feeling his way with every step.
    ‘They’re gaining on us,’ Emily whispered is despair.
    ‘Stay quiet,’ Cas insisted.
    Something