He released her body, but kept hold of her wrist, towing her through the wreckage. She couldn’t tell where the fiends were buried. The silence was as thick and choking as the dust that filled the air, punctuated by the clatter of a brick tumbling to the ground as the debris settled.

“I need you to get inside the coach,” Nathaniel explained, a snap of urgency breaking his composure at last. “They won’t stay down for long. What are you doing?”

Elisabeth had tugged her arm from Nathaniel. She kicked aside a stray brick and snatched up a metal bar that had rolled free from the rubble. She clutched it and scowled at him. His eyes assessed her. A slight change came over his face, a recalculation.

“Very well, you unutterable menace,” he said. “Help me hold them off.” He nodded toward the driver’s seat.

She climbed up first. Silas was nowhere to be seen. She seized the rail for balance as the coach shuddered, rolling forward a few precarious inches. The wheels creaked ominously against the brakes. Any moment now the horses were going to take off regardless of whether the carriage came with them. Judging by the sweat lathering their coats, that moment would be soon. She considered the incomprehensible tangle of reins.

Instead of springing up beside her, Nathaniel hesitated. He looked over his shoulder. Dust obscured the street behind them, but in one place an eddy stirred the cloud.

The moment she saw it, a fiend hurtled from the spot with a reverberating snarl. Nathaniel’s whip cracked, meeting the demon in midair. Green fire curled around its neck, and a leisurely flick of his wrist sent it flying back into the wreckage.

The horses screamed, straining against their restraints. Nathaniel threw his whip aside, yanked on the brakes, and vaulted toward the coach as it lurched into immediate motion. He clung to the edge for a breath-stopping moment as the wheels jolted over loose bricks, throwing the vehicle to and fro like a ship on storm-tossed waves. Elisabeth stretched out a hand. He took it, and she pulled hard, lifting him into the air. Another yank, and his weight struck the bench beside her. Without waiting to see his reaction, she twisted around to face the rear. He took up the reins and snapped them. The horses straightened their course.

As the buildings slid past, the dust began to blow from the rubble in tatters. Shapes heaved themselves from the debris, and crimson eyes winked to life in the dark. She tightened her hold on the metal bar.

“I thought you didn’t know how to drive a carriage,” she shouted over the pounding of hooves.

“Nonsense,” Nathaniel shouted back. “I’m a fast learner when properly motivated.”

The coach veered around the corner onto another deserted street, its far wheels lifting from the ground with the force of the turn. They were picking up speed, fast, but the fiends had joined the chase. They streamed from the ruin, teeth bared, shaking dust from their horns. Elisabeth counted six, and felt a clutch of panic.

“Does this qualify as proper motivation?” she asked.

“That depends. How close are they?”

A fiend pulled away from the pack, gaining on them with startling speed. It drew up alongside the coach’s rear wheels, sprinting like a greyhound, and angled its head, evaluating her with a glittering red gaze—calculating, she realized, the distance for a jump. The moment it gathered its haunches, she swung her makeshift weapon.

It connected with a crack. Her whole body shuddered at the impact, and flecks of drool spattered her face. Thrown off balance, the fiend clung to the side of the coach much as Nathaniel had a moment earlier, tearing the finely carved wood to splinters as it scrabbled for purchase. Each claw was as long as a man’s finger, dirty and hooked. One swipe would tear her apart. The glaring eyes declared that it intended to do just that.

But the blow she’d landed had left a raw mark seared across its scaled muzzle. Saliva hissed and sizzled on the bar in her hands, evaporating like water thrown onto a hot saucepan. Her perspective shifted. The bar was made of iron.

Encouraged, she swung again, and felt a satisfying crunch. The fiend went limp. Its claws slid free. When it struck the ground, it tumbled end over end and lay struggling to rise, its wounded head sending up trickles of steam. The other fiends leaped over its body, their eyes locked on the coach.

She turned to Nathaniel, her weapon still steaming.

“That close,” she said.

Nathaniel spared her a glance, and then another, followed by a third, before he wrenched his attention back ahead. “I am applying myself to the fullest,” he assured her.

The coach swung around another bend. Someone screamed. A horse reared, struggling against its handler; a basket of cabbages spilled across the road. They had left the empty byways behind. As they careened down the street, dodging carts and wagons, Elisabeth had brief impressions of shocked faces flashing past in the gaslight. Pedestrians scrambled for the curb, fleeing from their path.

The first fiend rounded the corner behind them. It didn’t bother weaving through the traffic, but instead took a direct route, bounding over the displaced carts as if they were stones laid across a river. Coal and apples and kitchen utensils went flying. Bystanders fell back, shielding their heads with their arms, as the street disintegrated into chaos.

“Stop,” she cried. “People are going to get hurt!”

“What do you propose I do? Raise a white flag? Ask the fiends nicely not to eat us?” A muscle worked in Nathaniel’s jaw, betraying his own frustration.

“Use your magic!” she exclaimed, astonished that she had to be the one to suggest it.

For a wild moment he looked as though he might laugh. “Sorcery requires focus,” he shot back instead. “Concentration. There are limits. I can’t fling spells around while I—”

He swerved the carriage, narrowly avoiding a cart that hadn’t moved out of their way quickly enough. The pony hitched to the cart shied from the hooves of Nathaniel’s horses and crashed into a booth stacked with baskets of herring. The cobblestones vanished beneath a silvery flood of scales. Elisabeth ducked as the coach’s wheels sent a stray fish spinning over their heads.

“I’ve seen you bring an entire courtyard of statues to life,” she said. “You’re a magister. These people are counting on you. Make a stand.”

He conveyed to her with a single look that he found her difficult, irritating, and probably mad, but as they barreled toward a square, he pulled up on the reins and swung the coach around. She braced herself as the wheels jumped the curb. They dragged to a shuddering halt on the paving stones, drawn up beside the grand brick buildings that lined the square, a fountain interposed between themselves and the street.

As soon as the coach stopped moving, Elisabeth clambered from the driver’s bench onto the flat wooden roof. From here she could see the entire path they had taken after turning onto the main street. She took in the confusion of toppled wagons, balking horses, scattered produce. Shouts carried on the night breeze, mingled with the shrill whinnies of the horses. Closer by, the handful of vendors near the fountain were hastening their efforts to pack up their carts. The pedestrians had seen the coach coming, and had already emptied the square. A few stragglers hurried up the steps of the nearby buildings, where they were swiftly pulled inside. Doors slammed. Faces pressed to windows. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts, and despite everything, Elisabeth’s stomach growled.