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sky.
     
    Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven.
     
    Orlando swung around a corner, stuttering to a stop. Three more guards clogged the hallway, each one with narrow eyes and a thin blade. Their intensity hit us like a wave.
     
    “Go,” Orlando barked, turning me on my heel and pushing me in front of him as we ran down another hallway.
     
    I could barely breathe; the air tasted like smoke and filled my eyes, my nose, my mouth with ash. I squinted through the darkness through eyes that burned. Was there no end to these narrow hallways?
     
    Sixty-nine. Seventy. Seventy-one.
     
    Orlando grabbed my hand, pulling me to the left, then left again, then to the right, until whatever small sense of direction I had retained was gone.
     
    We ran past seemingly endless rows of torch brackets, the light blurring in my peripheral vision into one thin, unbroken stream of fire. We passed door after door; some stayed closed. Others swung open, disgorging guards, officers, men with swords, men with clubs.
     
    Five hundred six. Five hundred seven.
     
    My world dissolved into a cacophony filled with shouts to stop, to go, to turn, to wait, to go back, to go forward. I clutched Orlando’s hand like a lifeline. As much as I didn’t want to be stopped, caught, trapped by the guards chasing us, I didn’t want to be lost forever in these twisting tunnels, either.
     
    We ran up a flight of stairs, exchanging rough-hewn stone walls and plain wooden doors for more lush surroundings: colorful carpets and rugs on the floor, tapered candles instead of torches on the wall, even a slice of a window or two. The hallways were empty here on the upper level and, though the sound of footsteps still thundered behind us, I harbored a hope that we might make our escape after all.
     
    I ran until my lungs ached, until my sweat burned, until my legs lost their strength and a sudden cramp locked my muscles. I stumbled and fell to my knees with a cry and— two thousand twenty-eight, two thousand twenty-nine —the numbers ran out of my head.
     
    Orlando turned and, without missing a step, reached out to catch me before I fell any further. He lifted me up and then, with one arm behind my back, swung me into his arms.
     
    He was unrelenting, his energy unfailing. I could feel his breath on my neck, the rise and fall of his chest as he carried me toward the door at the other end of the hallway.
     
    I blinked the sweat from my eyes and clutched at the collar of Orlando’s shirt.
     
    An open door.
     
    Could it be true?
     
    Orlando arrowed his way outside, breaking free from the courthouse without breaking stride.
     
    He headed for the spacious plaza that lay outside the courthouse, his footing swift and sure across the mosaic-patterned cobblestones. Despite the late hour, there were several other people scattered across the plaza, but they were all wrapped in heavy cloaks, heads down, intent on conserving warmth and not getting involved.
     
    I tilted my face to the stars and gulped down a steady stream of cold, clean air. The sweat on my body tingled like snow melting and I felt a trickle of relief slide down my neck and spine.
     
    “Hold on, my lady,” Orlando said. “Just another minute . . . we’ll be safe in just another minute.”
     
    I turned my face toward Orlando’s chest. I hoped he was right. I hoped there would be a safe place for us at the end of this journey. But deep in the black place where my memories used to be I feared it would be a long time before I felt safe again.
     
    The sky above was dark and clear, but the air tasted of a coming storm.
     

Chapter 4
     
    When we reached the other side of the plaza, Orlando slipped into the shadows of an alleyway as narrow as a throat before setting me on my feet. “Can you walk?” he asked, holding tight to my forearm in case I fell. His breath plumed from his mouth and nose like steam. His eyes darted from me to the plaza behind us, searching, watching.
     
    I gulped down huge