Her home was gone.
She stood in the wreckage and let her eyes drift shut. She remembered the room as it used to be. A warm, crackling fire in the corner, beside it her father working on his newest invention. The soft clinking of gears and his chuckle when something worked the way he had planned it to. The savoriness of soup on the stove and bread in the oven. No monster could take those memories from her.
Shifting her grip on the frying pan, she picked her way to the window and pulled aside a tattered curtain. The stone streets were empty and eerily silent outside her small home. No people. No laughter floating down the cobblestone steps. Just murky silence.
There were so many people in this city; the Dread couldn’t have taken everyone in the span of a single day.
Could they have?
Amicia opened the door and eased out onto the narrow street, shaded by four-story buildings pressed tightly together.
She kept her back against the wall of her house for a moment. The Dread had a sound, the soft hush of wings and heartbeat of leathery pounds. She would hear them if they came for her.
The sky above her deepened in color as the night took over. Dim, silver-fletched light cast dark shadows over the laundry stretched above her head. The fabric snapped in the slight wind, the only sound that echoed through the deserted street.
Amicia stared down the labyrinthine alleyways leading into homes and saw only more pain and heartbreak. The Dread had destroyed not only people and homes, but their livelihoods as well. She climbed over a wagon that had been rendered to pieces. On the side of the street, a fruit stall had its end ripped off, the precious lemons and grapes spilling over the edge and onto the ground. Broken glass littered the street from windows and storefronts.
She didn’t know where to go other than the center of Little Marsh. Surely, that was where most people would hide? The fortress at the center was for the marquis, but he wouldn’t turn people away in their hour of need. Her father would be there, likely waiting for her to arrive. He’d know what to do once she found him.
Air beat above her head, the whoosh of wings making her heart stutter. Amicia stepped into a doorway, hiding herself from anything that might see her from above. She was getting close to the center of the city and found her hypothesis was correct.
Long after the Dread flew past, she kept her back pressed against the door. Sweat pooled at the base of her spine. Her clothing stuck to her, brown skirts helping her blend into the wood. She was safe, for now. But that didn’t mean she would stay safe for long.
If the monsters were here, then the townsfolk were hiding within the fortress. And the beasts would tear it apart to get to her people.
Her breathing ragged, she tried to think like her father. He wouldn’t risk himself in finding her, because he was too smart for that. How could she find him without revealing herself to the Dread?
She couldn’t go to the fortress on the main roads. The Dread would see her, which meant she had to find another way. A hidden way.
She reached behind her and opened the door into the house. The Duchamps lived here and the door was always unlocked. Madame Duchamps sewed most of the plain clothing in the city, and her prices were affordable. Amicia had only been inside a few times, but she knew her way to the garden, where she could slip out into the back alley. These alleys had covered walkways between the apartments on the second and third floors. It would be difficult for the Dread to see her.
The wet earth in the garden seeped through her soft slippers. Cold and wet, she curled her toes and kept on.
She clambered over the fence at the far end. Her skirts caught between the slats, and she yanked on them. She dropped her mother’s skillet to pull with both hands.
The fabric ripped loudly.
A howl answered from somewhere else in the city. A chilling bray of hunting animals.
“Cursed thing,” she whispered under her breath.
A gurgled response made her freeze. Had one of the Dread found her? Had she already foolishly ruined a chance to save her people?
She turned around to see a fallen walkway trapping a man beneath its weight. His silver flecked beard gleamed in the thin moonlight. A curling mustache drooped to his chin. But it was his eyes she would have known anywhere. Those vivid blue eyes had rocked her to sleep every night.
“Father?” she whispered in horror.
The boards pressed against his chest, pinning him to earth that had turned to mud in his attempts to escape. Deep furrows surrounded his hips and shoulders. He must have been digging for gods know how long.
Her frozen body burst into movement. She sprinted to his side, then fell to her knees in the muck. She plunged her hand into the dirt, not caring that stones bit at her sensitive fingers.
“Father, help me,” she cried out. “We can get you out. Please.”
He reached for her, his hand smeared with dirt and blood. “Stop, my girl.”
“No, there’s a way. We can do this.”
“Amicia—”
“Please,” she cried out. The word was ragged and raw, tearing out of her chest with more emotion than she’d ever felt in her life.
She couldn’t look at him without an ache spreading through her chest. His strong form was crushed, and his face so pale. She paused in her digging and then let her hands fall to her sides. She knew the look in his eyes. He’d already decided.
Amicia laced her fingers in her lap, took a deep breath, and exhaled. “What would you have me do, Father? Leave you here?”
“The city has fallen.” He pulled her hand to his own, holding it so much weaker than he had in the past. Slick blood coated her palm, mixed with soil and mud. “Sacrifices must be made. In our home, there is a lever behind the bookshelf in my room. Pull it.”
She hadn’t ever seen a lever in his room, and she’d read every book on that bookcase. “Father?”
“Move the bookcase. You’re strong enough to do that. Pull the lever and save the city from this fate.”
“How? How will it save the city?”
“All I ask is that you run once it’s done. Run as far as you can, through the hidden door I showed you when you were a child.” He tugged her hand, forcing her to bend down so he could press his cheek against hers. “I am a selfish man, for I will not know you suffered the same fate as the rest of us. I love you, mon ange.”
Tears filled her eyes, dripping down her cheeks to land on her father’s forehead. “What are you asking me to do?”
“Save all of us from the darkest of fate, dear one.”
She could not deny him this. Not now. “I love you, Father.”
“And I you, my daughter.”
There was nothing she could do for him. The planks were too heavy for her to lift, and she could see the blood pooling around his body, far too much blood.
Time was ticking. She could feel every second passing like a sledgehammer against her back. Hundreds of people needed her to help, and she had to weigh her father’s life against theirs. The longer she stayed with him, the more people died.
A single heartbeat thudded against her ribs.
She remembered him tucking her into bed every night. He never gave her a kiss on the forehead like other parents. Instead, he reached out and touched their pointer fingers together. A tinker’s promise, he called it. That they would always solve each other’s problems.
Another heartbeat, this one weaker and quiet.