Blood (entirely ignoring restraint, sanity and all of my and Skulls nagging) raised a hand above her head and poured every drop of her power and litres of her blood into a glowing crimson fireball. The caged inferno was nearly as big as she was and she held it suspended above her palm with magic. She paused for a moment and almost seemed to be counting then, with an almost coquettish air; she spun on her heel and hurled the magic over arm into the roof of our hideout. The explosion was apocalyptic... or so I'm told; the second Blood let go of the fireball I grabbed her around the waist and sprinted across Ara’s rope bridge as fast as I could, with the tiny girl across my shoulders. All I remember about the actual explosion was a loud bang and a flash of searing heat all across my back and neck. Later I found out I had gotten a pretty good tan out of the ordeal.

  Blood as usual started complaining ten seconds after I picked her up, however her voice was much weaker than normal, barely audible over the crackling flames, and was completely drowned out when we arrived on the opposing rooftop and Skull began to bellow at her.

  “AGAIN?! SERIOUSLY?! Do you NEVER learn?!” I dumped the barely there (both in weight and some days I think; sanity) Blood into Skulls arms before I turned back to Ara who with a wave of her hand caused her rope bridge to coil back onto her chest, after a moment the end of the rope pulled the dagger from the wall and sheathing it neatly in her bandolier. Ara paused and stared out at our burning hideout then turned to me.

  “Is Blood going to be ok?” She asked, nodding at the bundle now being held in Skulls arms muttering Sotto voce insults at the taller girl who was as far as I can remember explaining in detail how the human circulatory system worked and why it needed a large amount of blood in it to continue doing so.

  I nodded as I stared at the distant flames. “She heals quickly.” I murmured not taking my eyes off the inferno. As I watched our burning base I felt my heart twisting in my chest, it had been my home far more so than the Dutair mansion ever managed to be. I had laughed, lived and learned in that building without judgment or reprove, it was filled with treasures and treasured memories and it was burning before my eyes. I felt tears misting my vision as the argument behind us reached a new height.

  “Let me up!”

  “No! You’re nearly exsanguinated, you can barely move a finger, just rest!”

  “I need to see.”

  I heard a pause and a sigh. “Ok.”

  Blood appeared in the corner of my eye draped over one of Skulls shoulders, the older girl drew her up to the edge of the building and Blood just stared at the flames.

  “...you reckon the Inquisitor got out?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Good.”

  I turned to my best friend and hearing the rawness in her voice I kicked myself. She had found our base, refurbished it, grown up in it, stocked it and brought me into it. If it was anybody’s home it was hers and she had chosen to share it with me.

  I walked up to the girl and flung my arms around her drawing her masked face into my shoulder. “I'm so sorry.”

  “I burned it Bright... it was my choice... and it needed to be done.” She whispered into my hair still looking at the inferno.

  “But I'm the one who asked you to...”

  “And I'm the one who did it,” she replied, banging her mask against mine gently. “Besides... all the important stuff is still with me.”

  I smiled around my tears and let her go. “You say the sweetest things.”

  “Of course I do,” she said with an audible smile. “I'm perfect after all.”

  For a second we stood in silence then Ara hit me in the back of the head (she has very bony knuckles). “Ok time to go.” She laughed as I staggered slightly.

  Shaking my head clear I stared up at her and looked around at the rooftops “Where?”

  It was a valid question but Ara just shrugged with a nonplussed look, “away,” she said simply as Skull shuffled forwards still balancing Blood on one shoulder.

  “But no more dive bars,” murmured Blood as she gently pulled away from Skull and swayed onto her feet. “I swear that tea had alcohol in it.”

  “Of course it did,” replied Ara with evident astonishment. “Can tea not?”

  “Tea never should!” snapped Blood as me and Skull just stared at one another. “Heathen swine you ...” I reached up and placed a hand over the mouth of Blood's mask, mostly symbolic of course but it got my point across.

  “Ara focus please!”

  “Right,” she winked at Blood who looked down and I'm pretty sure blushed behind her mask, “we’ll have to finish this another time crimson cutie,” as Blood steadfastly refused to look up Ara gestured out at the sleeping city. “Let’s get running shall we?”

  And with that; we did. The four of us flew across the darkened rooftops still lit by the false dawn behind us. The wind whipped across our skin and ruffled our hair as the Prasus mist parted around us and I finally felt like we were going to be ok. I would have been feeling far less happy had I known that in a stinking tunnel under a burning building behind us a calm voice had just said.

  “Now tell me Class, what did they just do wrong?”

  I don't really remember much of our mad escape. I'm sure you understand that I was somewhat busy at the time. I may have thought that the Inquisitor was dead but I knew the guards were waiting for us and would chase us till the tide turns back[141] if they saw us so I still wasn't totally calmed down. I remember... well, kind of, flashes. I remember me and Blood leaping over a low wall that turned out to lead into a river, only the quick reactions of Ara saved us from taking a very abrupt bath.

  There was a rooftop covered in plants, very pretty ones in fact, that Blood smashed to pieces as she rushed past kicking pots and bags of soil everywhere. I definitely remember drawing ahead from the others for a second and running around a corner to find a pair of watchmen standing there both now gawping at me.

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  I was still trying to figure out what I should say to them when the rest of the Brigade arrived behind me, Ara buried a grey fist in one's face shattering his nose as Skull bowled the other one over with a flying kick... or it might have been Blood who did that to be honest.

  I do remember at one point collapsing, I am a noble woman remember? I'm not exactly a physical paragon even with Bloods training and I was on the edge of a fear induced heart attack even before I attempted to run a marathon across Prasus.

  I can recall the exact moment that I toppled though, Blood and Skull were helping the stockier built Ara get over a wall as I jogged up behind them having fallen behind slightly. It was as I tried to make my foot lift to take the first step up the wall that I suddenly found myself flat on the floor staring at a moulded egg bun that someone had abandoned in the alley.

  For a second I found myself wondering who would be so wasteful as to discard at least half of a perfectly good egg bun, I mean it even had ketchup on it! As my exhausted brain actually began to wonder if it was possible to scrape the mould off, Blood was suddenly there.

  “Oh Bright!” she exclaimed; for a second she sounded so worried... then her voice regained its normal mocking edge. “You know you could do with being a little more fit.” She said, poking me in the stomach.

  “Screw you, you awful little hellion.” I managed to reply after a moment. I sounded like a whale that had been beaten with an iron bar and then drowned in custard.

  Also I might have insulted her parentage for a bit and possibly her fashion sense; however I seriously doubt that she could understand me as I gasped and sputtered my way through the complex and vulgar vowel sounds. I am happy to say that it didn't take me long to realise how stupid I was, lying on my face in an alley in an iron district insulting my best friend so I shut up and tried to haul myself back to my feet.

  Luckily Blood being Blood she just giggled at my breathy swearing. After a moment of struggling she grabbed me by my jerkin and lifted me bodily to my feet, she didn't even seem to be sweating.

  “How... do... you... do... this?” I managed as Skull and Ara grabbed my hands and Blood boosted me up the wall.

  “Well I'm just naturally fit,” I heard her from behind me. “Skulls got her super secret agent training and Ara used to be a smuggler.”

  “This is not the first time I’ve spent a whole night running away from the watch,” Ara said with a smile.”Only difference is that I can use my magic this time.”

  “Speaking of,” I said, slumped on the wall still gasping. “Why didn't Skull just teleport us and save me all this running?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to teleport four people?” Skull snapped with childish air to her voice that was really quite cute. “Four people across the length of the city? I can barely make it to the next room without fainting!”

  “Right... sorry...”

  Blood patted me on the back as I scrambled to my feet properly this time. I began to pinch at the material around my joints trying to give the developing sweat rashes a bit of air before the other three decided our break was over. Which they presently did, stomping off towards the edge again.

  “Ok this is far enough...” I managed to pant, making my friends stop and turn to stare at me again. “I mean... where are we going?”

  The others all looked at one another for a second then Blood laughed and Skull slapped herself in the masked face.

  “Uh I guess just as far away as we can?” she said with an unusual amount of doubt in her voice, the others just shrugged in agreement as I hauled myself up to the crest of the rooftop and looked outwards over the sleeping city, it really is one of the most beautiful sights in the world. I was so young back then and I’ve seen so much since but... there are few things as incredibly gorgeous in a cold way as the nighttime Prasus skyline. At the time though I glanced at it, shook my head in a tired way and stumbled over the rooftop towards the small but flourishing garden that sat against its far edge growing up the side of a taller (and a good deal more expensive looking) tower, the plants where nearly lost in the darkness but that didn't matter to me, I could feel the life in them upon my skin. I took a handful of grapes and shoved them into my mouth as I munched the others assembled around me in the shadows of the rooftop trellises.

  “What about Ara’s plan?” Blood asked with a slightly nervous air “I mean... I'm not that happy about running away but it might be the best idea.”

  “I was planning to cling to the bottom of a cargo ship, you couldn't come with me I'm afraid,” Ara sounded genuinely sad. “You three can't breathe underwater can you?”

  “Probably not but you never know,” said Blood, back then I thought she was joking. “And I can't swim either...”

  “What about just going over land... away from the city?” I asked. “That way all four of us would still be together.”

  Skull shook her head slowly, “that sounds nice Bright it really does but... I mean I know at least you two are nobles,” she looked at Ara for a second, “I doubt that you are as well but I suppose there are stranger things,” Ara laughed as Skull continued. “So we can't just vanish; imagine if three people the same age and gender as three suspects disappear at the same time that they do. That wouldn't make the Arch-Doge happy and he’d probably burn our whole family just to make a point.”

  For a second some very unpleasant memories replayed themselves across the backs of my eyes until I shook them away, “right... running away is impossible so that means... hiding? Get back to our maskless lives without the Inquisition following us and just lay low until people forget who we are, then come back with new outfits and don't use magic.”

  “Safest way.” Agreed Ara, when I turned to Blood to confirm our plan I found her in earnest whispering conference with a large white raven.

  “Oh Hermiosa,” I greeted her. “I didn’t know you were here.” She spared me a nod of her head and a caw of greeting before going back to whispering to Blood. The pair of them looked distinctively conspiratorial as they huddled there in the darkness.

  “We need to find a new hideout as well.... maybe on a dock spur?” Ara added the cawing of ravens underlining her speech. “Do you think the Crawlers still need their warehouse?”

  “I think the watch might be... well... watching it don't you?”

  “Maybe but where there’s one abandoned warehouse there’ll be others, we could hide out there until we’re sure we’re not being followed then just vanish back into the city leaving our masks behind.”

  “I can't see another way out,” I said sadly. “I...”

  “Hey!”

  The three of us stopped mid plot and looked at Blood who now had Hermiosa perched on her shoulder. The huge albino raven looked at us with a disapproving crimson eye.

  “Yes Blood?” I asked even with her mask on (or especially with it on considering that that was the only way I had ever known her) I could feel the concern radiating off her.

  “The pyre-guards are forming a cordon.”

  “We knew that Blood,” said Skull with an edge of sarcasm. “You told us before rem....”

  “No idiot,” snarled Blood “Here! Now! Around this building!”

  That got everyone's attention you can be sure. Skull instantly spun on the spot and started to scan the horizon, Ara started to finger the knives in her bandolier as I... desperately tried to stop myself from sinking to the ground in terror. Not my finest moment but even after all these years I still get cold shivers remembering that feeling of peace and freedom fading away.

  “How?!” Hissed Skull not looking back.

  “Hermiosa can't tell, she says that the guards lost us whilst we were running but the second we stopped they all started moving towards us again.”

  “What? But we’ve only been here a few minutes, they can't have seen us!”

  Blood shook her head. “I don't think they did but even if they had they couldn't have gotten organized that fast... also some more bad news,” I remember distinctly that I muttered what it was going to be a second before Blood did, I just knew Koth was about to kick me in the head again. “The Inquisitor is still alive.”

  “Bugger,” I swore, stamping my foot. “We should have gone back in and finished him off or locked the doors or... or...”

  “Too late now,” said Skull with finality. “Move.”