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the sleeve of my sweater. “That wasn’t that bad. Help Raven.”
    “It gets worse than this?” He’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before.
    Raven’s coughing has stopped. Ash wipes her face with the nightgown.
    “So much blood,” she mutters. “Always so much blood.”
    “You have to get going,” Lucien interrupts. “Now.”
    He tries to sound commanding, but his eyes are wide and his voice a bit too shaky.
    “I’ve seen you before,” Raven says to him. “But I can’t remember if you’re real . . .” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Why is there always so much blood?”
    Now that the fire is out, I can see a rectangular tunnel that slopes downward into blackness. “Ash, take Raven and go,” I say. “I’ll be right behind you.”
    “I’m not going anywhere without you,” he says.
    “Please,” I say. “I can’t let go of this or I think the fire will come back. You need to get down there safely. Make sure nothing happens to her.” I glance at Raven’s stomach, the tiny bump hidden by the sweater.
    Ash’s fingertips brush down the side of my face. Then he climbs into the incinerator and helps Raven in after.
    “Ash will take care of you,” I say to Raven. She looks at him and then at me but says nothing.
    They slide down the tunnel, which has cooled considerably since the flames are gone, and out of sight.
    I turn to Lucien. I can feel the deadened fire, like a heartbeat waiting to start.
    “When will I see you again?” I whisper.
    “Soon,” he says. “I promise.”
    “I don’t know how to thank you,” I say.
    He smiles. “Stay alive.”
    I laugh, but it comes out like a hiccup. “All right.”
    He kisses my forehead. “Go.”
    I climb inside the incinerator, careful to keep my palm pressed hard against it. My shoes slip and skid on thesmooth surface and I grip the edge with my other hand. I take my last look at Lucien.
    Then I descend into darkness.
    T HE TUNNEL IS STEEP.
    I can’t see where I’m going, but I’m sliding very fast. Warm air blows strands of hair around my face. I manage to sit upright and keep one hand pressed against the smooth surface, even though it burns my skin, the metal racing beneath it so quickly. I’m tempted to call Ash’s name, but I’m afraid if I open my mouth I might throw up.
    At some point, I pick up more speed. My heart kicks into a sprint.
    I see a flicker of light ahead.
    Then I’m falling.
    For a weightless second, I’m suspended in the air, disoriented. As soon as my fingers leave the wall of the incinerator, flames erupt inside it, a brilliant burst of heat and light.
    Then I crash to the ground, all the breath knocked out of me. My back arches, every cell in my body craving oxygen, then my lungs expand and I choke in my eagerness to breathe.
    “Violet?” Ash’s arms wrap around my shoulders, cradling my back against his chest. He holds the flashlight in one hand—in the light of its beam, I see Raven’s feet.
    My coughing subsides. “I’m okay,” I gasp.
    He helps me up and we stare at the space above us, a gaping hole filled with flames.
    “Lucien said there’s a map in there,” I say, pointing at the bag. Ash rummages through it, takes out a folded pieceof paper, and hands it to me. I study the blue lines that crisscross and interweave, creating a myriad of tunnels.
    “I’ve seen this before,” I say. It’s the blueprint Lucien was looking at in the locked room in the Duchess’s library. That was the day he told me he could help me get out of the Jewel. “The whole time he must have known . . . he must have suspected . . .”
    “What?” Ash says.
    “That we might need a different escape plan. But how did he know about the incinerator? And that it empties out into these tunnels?”
    “At the moment, I don’t think that matters.”
    “I don’t like this place,” Raven says.
    “Neither do I.” There’s a red line on the blueprint creating a trail through the tunnels.