Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

THIRTY

Chapter Thirty

"This is how it's going to go," Charlize whispered, still slightly out of breath after their crazed sprint from the palace. 

She pointed up ahead, where a row of guards were dutifully blocking the street that led into the docks. "Once I set off the planted bomb, we have a grace period of approximately one minute. We need to move through the dust and be well-hidden. From there, as reinforcements rush in along the main road, the motion-sensor incendiary bombs will activate over there—" Charlize pointed to an area that oblivious fae were walking across, their weight not yet heavy enough to set anything off, "—which needs to be enough of a distraction for us to be on the waiting boat. By the time the second lot of smoke clears, we need to be out of here, or else we're dead." 

Charlize turned to look at them, her hands on her hips. "Got it?"

Pasiphae and Seth nodded, both breathing heavily after the effort to escape unseen. Psyche gave a slight roll of her eye as if she had already heard this plan many times already, and Bel-Arh responded with a grunt.

"Ready when you are, then," Charlize said to Seth, preparing the small tablet in her hands.

Seth peered out from the crates they were hiding behind.

Now was the hard part.

Pasiphae eyed the guards warily, then the nearby townspeople. They were going about their normal business after the Solstice celebration, but the shouts from store-owners were quieter than usual.

Though the sylphs had disappeared, there had been no explanation for the bizarre attacks. The fae were suspicious, particularly those in the working classes, but they couldn't speak openly without being knocked out by a nearby guard.

"Now or never, then," Seth said briskly. "Go at it, Char."

Charlize pressed a series of commands into the tablet. For a moment, nothing happened. They looked at one another, thinking that something had malfunctioned, that they had been caught already.

Then, heat blasted into the freezing night, towering tendrils of orange swallowing up the guards that blocked the path into the docks. Rapid smoke consumed the shops and streets with the speed and vigour of a hungry animal.

The fae that were tending to their stores and perusing the shelves started screaming. As they ran away from the explosion, the five creatures that lingered in the alleyway darted into the open and began to run towards it.

Seth turned back through the haze of the smoke, and Pasiphae saw him give a great, big grin.

We're nearly there, he seemed to be telling her.

But then the shooting began.

It was a terrible pop, the sound of everything becoming unaligned at once. For one second, there was nothing, and then there was metal raining down on them, coming from a building infested with guards that they hadn't worked into their rushed plans.

"Bullets," Pasiphae noted in wonder. She wasn't aware that those were even made anymore. The queen had equipped her royal guard force with an archaic form of weaponry, one that wasn't necessary among fae that couldn't lie to one another.

"Go!" Psyche was shouting at her, giving her a nudge from behind.

"We'll be hit!" Pasiphae hissed, but running anyway. "Can you throw up a shield with your magic?"

"These bullets are too fast," Seth replied from ahead, "it won't work— oof!"

Bel-Arh had run into him. Pasiphae squinted against the smoke. No, not quite. He looked as if he had been trying to give Seth a backward hug, and now he was idling away, nonplussed.