I bit my bottom lip as I mulled over the best way of doing that without getting myself killed, and then carefully backed up the tunnel again. I swung off the pack and unwrapped the timers. The waterproofing had worked, because even though the M185 blocks showed signs of having gotten wet, the timers were all dry.

I set two of them—one for five minutes and one for ten—and then carefully placed them into the blocks, just as I’d been shown.

Right, I said to the air, could you please put the five-minute bomb on the roof between the two Adlin nurseries, and the ten-minute one in that first wall fissure in the old mining tunnel?

Hopefully, it would keep the multitude of Irkallan out there in the main shaft occupied with the damage and searching for a nonexistent attacking force, and give me some sort of chance to get through the breeding chamber without backup being called.

As several fingers of wind picked up the bombs and whisked them away, I pulled out two NP10 balls and carefully placed the pop cap primers into them. Apparently, once I flicked off the orange tab at the end of the primer, I had ten seconds to get the hell out of the area before the explosion happened.

But ten seconds was really all I needed if the wind assisted me.

I slung the pack over my shoulders again and then pressed back against the wall and waited. Tension wound through me as the minutes ticked by. Then, with a muffled whoomp that seemed to shake the whole mountain, the first bomb went off. As shrill alarms began to sound, I thrust to my feet, an NP10 ball in each hand, and said, “Wind, get me across to the other side of that breeding chamber ASAP.”

Even as the wind swung into action and picked me up, the walls around me began to shudder and a grinding noise bit through the air, one that was barely audible over the shrieking of the alarms. Up ahead, two vast metal doors appeared from each side of the cavern wall and began to slide toward each other.

Hurry, I said to the air, rather unnecessarily. We were already speeding toward that ever-decreasing gap.

As I was rushed through the door and up toward the ceiling, there was a screech from below. I flicked the orange cap off the first bomb and tossed it down into the leading edge of the breeding area. Several of the nearby Irkallan immediately flung themselves upon it, even as the guards lifted their weird staffs and pointed them at me. The metal immediately began to glow and, with an odd sort of coughing pop, globs of what looked to be pale mucus were fired my way. The wind batted them away, but there were so many guards and so many weapons aimed at me that it was inevitable one got through. The mucus hit my right shoulder, and immediately began to burn into my flesh. It tore a scream from my throat, but I nevertheless flipped the cap off the remaining NP10 ball and threw it down into the midst of the breeders—and, I suddenly realized, directly into a section that held the bulk of the stolen witches. They, like the first witch I’d seen, were little more than skeletal figures that only vaguely resembled the vital beings they must have once been, and they ranged from looking old enough to be menopausal to so young they barely looked more than fifteen or sixteen. These latter women were badly stained, which made me think that perhaps the Irkallan were rebreeding with their witch offspring in an effort to strengthen the inherited magic.

It was a sight that made me angry—made me want to kill every last one of the Irkallan. Which was stupid and not what was I was here to do, but acknowledging that certainly didn’t stop the desire to do as much as damage as I could for as long as I could.

Even as the air switched direction and we began to plunge toward the second large archway and its closing metal door, I grabbed a gut buster with my good arm and fired at the guards. One, two, three went down, and then the first NP10 ball exploded. The force of the blast was so strong it sent me tumbling through the air. I hit the far wall hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs and split the back of my head open, but the wind snatched me up again before I could fall and sped me toward the narrow gap into the tunnel leading into the queen’s quarters.

In the breeding room, there was chaos. As fire took hold and screeches of fury and pain filled the air, the ceiling began to fissure. A multitude of seams raced across it, with huge chunks of black stone falling down each time two of them met, crushing anyone who might have survived the initial blast in that section. Several bloodied guards were trying to keep the metal door from slamming shut, but with little effect.

The air spun me through the second set of doors, but it was so damn close that my breasts brushed the metal as we squeezed through. The second ball exploded, and its fierce fingers of heat and destruction chased us into the darkness.

Then the doors slammed shut with a sound that rather reminded me of a death knell.

Is there a door into the queen’s chamber? I asked the air.

Yes. It closed when the alarm sounded.

Meaning I had to now figure out a way to open the damn thing. I hesitated and then said, Where are the children kept?

In the rooms that feed off this hall.

Are they awake?

No. They, like their mothers, have tubes running into the veins. But there are only twenty-nine here. The earth says five are missing.

Does the earth also tell you where they are?

The air hesitated, and then said, They are being escorted into the tunnel beyond the queen’s quarters.

Is that tunnel also being sealed?

No.

Then at least I stood a chance of going after them—if I could get into the queen’s chamber, and if I could then survive another encounter with her guards.

Drop me down near the children, and then go steal their breaths. But do it quickly—I don’t want them to suffer.

The air deposited me close to several small archways. They, like the Adlin pens, were barred, but the metal here was dull rather than silver. Thankfully, I couldn’t see inside and I didn’t want to, even though I was well aware I’d have to go into each cell to find the bracelets once death had made its call.

I thrust away the rising horror of being responsible for those deaths, threw off the backpack, and then stripped off my jacket and shirt. Though only a small portion of the muck had gotten through the material, it bubbled away against my skin and caused a widening circle of damage. I grabbed the flask from the pack and trickled it over my shoulder. The pain immediately eased, but I continued to wash the wound until the blistering had completely stopped. I shook the flask and discovered there was only a little bit of water remaining. Not enough to wash down another wound if I got it, but maybe there was another lake somewhere in this warren where I could refill it. I stoppered the flask, shoved it back into the pack, and then gently probed the back of my head. The lump was huge and the hair around it was sticky with moisture, but from what I could feel, the cut itself wasn’t that bad. It certainly wasn’t gushing blood, and given the whack I’d received, that was something of a miracle. Once I’d sprayed some sealer over it, I shoved on my shoes to stop any further damage to my feet, and swung the pack over my shoulder.

The air screamed a warning just as a blur of lavender came out of nowhere and barreled into me. We crashed to the ground in a tumble of arms and legs, and all I could see, all I could hear, was the clashing of mandibles. I shoved a hand against its throat in an effort to keep them from my face, but the creature was so damn big—so damn heavy—that it was crushing me, and every breath was becoming a struggle.

I called to the air again. As the wind ripped the Irkallan from my body, I sat up, pulled the sword free from its sheath, and swung it with every ounce of strength I had. The blade began to glow a fierce blue as its sharp tip sliced the Irkallan’s head from its body, but as the wind flung the two pieces away, splattering blood and gore everywhere, I saw in the sword’s glow more Irkallan approaching. I swore and jumped fully to my feet, but even as I did that odd coughing pop sounded, and globs of mucus were flying toward me. I reached out, grabbed the air, and spun it violently. As the vortex redirected the globs into the walls of the cavern rather than my flesh, I pressed it forward and charged at the Irkallan, my sword raised high.

They answered in kind, their mandibles clashing as they screamed. The vortex hit them, tearing the weapons from their grips then bending them as easily as one might paper, making them unusable. I kept pushing the vortex forward, forcing the Irkallan back, even as a slight ache began in the back of my head. Not from the wound, but from the effort of controlling the air like this.

I ignored it, and continued to force the five Irkallan backward. They screamed and fought and continued to call both for my death and for help. It did them no good; with the metal doors into both the breeding chamber and the queen’s now closed, there was no help for them.

I pushed them back until they were pinned against the metal door that protected the queen’s chamber, and then I killed them.

With that done, I dropped my knees, closed my eyes, and sucked in air in a vague effort to ease the pounding in my head. After a while, it did so, but it was very evident that I wasn’t going to have the strength for too many more stunts like that.

I pushed to my feet, waited for the slight dizziness to go away, then resolutely made my way back to the children’s chambers. The gates weren’t locked, but I guessed there was no need for them to be if the Irkallan were keeping their witchlings under sedation.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to harden my heart against what I was about to see. It was one thing to order foul deeds to be done, quite another to face the result of those orders.

I slowly pushed the first gate open. There were twenty pods in this room, ten on each side, but only nine of them were occupied. Every child was naked—which wasn’t a surprise given the warmth in this place—and they were lying on thin blankets that wouldn’t have provided much in the way of padding for their small bodies. Their ages appeared to run from the very young—perhaps no more than four or five—to several who would be classed as adults in Winterborne. All of them were severely stained, with at least seven whose skin had absolutely no color other than lavender. Two of those even had wisps of close-cropped lavender hair. Given the length of time the breeding program had been going, it was unsurprising that they had more children than bracelets—and as equally surprising that there weren’t more children here than the nine in this room and the twenty in the other. But perhaps the cost of creating the tunnel that now sat on the edges of Winterborne wasn’t only earth deprived of life, but also a high death rate amongst these children.

The bracelets weren’t hard to find—they were sitting in a storage nook set into the wall, every one of them the exact same size. Given they fitted the wrists of the smallest child as easily as they did adults and even that Adlin, they were very obviously adjustable even if they didn’t appear to be. I quickly collected them, then walked into the other room and retrieved the remainder.

Now I just had to figure out a way to get rid of them. The black lake was a chamber and two rather heavy metal doors behind me now, and while I could undoubtedly order the earth to create a wide enough tunnel around what was left of that chamber to allow the wind to carry the bracelets through, I suspected that would sap a whole lot more of my strength than was wise given what I still had to do.

But I still had four blocks of M185 left, and while I doubted it would be enough to bring the whole mountain down, it surely would destroy the bracelets and perhaps even create an explosion powerful enough to kill a queen. I moved out of the nurseries and walked down the hall.

The door into the queen’s chambers was huge and black, although the rust running across its metal surface hinted at the decades it had been in place and at the mercy of the moisture that was so much a part of this apiary.

I stopped in the middle, where the two halves met, then emptied the pack of everything except the bracelets. After setting the timers for twenty minutes, I carefully placed the blocks back into the pack and then strapped it closed to ensure they wouldn’t move. I attached the two NP10 balls onto my belt, slipped the small medikit into my pocket, and slung my sword over my shoulder.

With all that done, I sat down next to the pack and, with a deep breath to gather strength, I pressed my fingers into the rich earth.

The response was so swift and powerful it just about fried my fingertips. What is your wish?

I need these doors forced open enough to enable me to get through, and a hole in one of the walls large enough to hold the pack. And I need both done quickly, as I only have a limited time to place the bombs and run like hell.

Power surged and the soil thrummed underneath my fingertips. It pulsated through me, a heartbeat that my own swiftly matched. Though it wasn’t actually pulling on my strength, I nevertheless felt it slipping like rain from my body. This was the cost of the earth magic and one I was more than willing to pay if it achieved my aim.

The earth in front of me began to rise; thin fingers of rock pushed into the almost nonexistent gap between the two doors and slowly but surely pried them apart, until the gap was large enough for me to slip through sideways.

In the darkness beyond, I could see figures moving. That odd coughing noise gave me warning that I’d been seen, and I spun the air through the gap and flared it out, sending the globules back toward my attackers.

A small chamber has been created to the right of this door, the earth said. We will seal it once the pack is inside. Hurry.

That last warning wasn’t one I needed. Not when a small part of my brain was now doing a countdown of the time I had left.

I quickly primed the NP10, then brushed the vortex to one side and threw the two balls into the room, one to the left and one to the right. I pulled the air back into place across the gap then grabbed the pack and crawled to the left side of the door in order to protect myself from the blasts.

My head was back to pounding, my breath was little more than short, sharp gasps for air, and my stomach was growling so hard it was clearly audible above the shrieking sirens. Obviously, my body wanted me to replace the energy the earth had drawn from me, but the little food I’d had left was now buried in that old mine shaft.

There were two huge whumps, and sheets of flame and energy shot through the gap between the two doors. It was followed by screams and thick black smoke; in that chaos lay my hope of survival.

I thrust to my feet, slung the pack over my shoulder, then grabbed the two gut busters and squeezed through the gap. The queen’s chamber was huge but just as stark as any of the others. She obviously had a lot of attendants, because there were body parts and gore splattered everywhere, but not all the guards were dead. Even as I dropped down onto the chamber’s floor, several of them attacked, their metal staffs held out before them and spitting goop even as they charged at me. I spun the air again; pain stabbed through my brain, momentarily fading my vision in and out. I blinked away the tears, raised the gut busters, and fired. As the Irkallan went down in the rain of metal, I turned and ran along the chamber’s wall, searching for the hole that had been made in the earth.

I spotted the queen first, and froze.

She was huge. Double the size of her attendants. Double the size of her guards. One of her mandibles was broken, but they nevertheless were a good foot in length, and looked strong enough to cut me in two without any problem.

She was lying on her side at the far end of the chamber, her lavender-blue body littered with wounds and a bloody hole where one eye had been. She was still alive—I could see the rise and fall of her torso—but for the moment, she wasn’t stirring. It was tempting—so tempting—to throw the backpack at her and let the bomb-blast finish her off. But the Irkallan were obviously smart and might well be able to deactivate the M185. I couldn’t risk that—couldn’t risk her regaining control of the bracelets.

I continued looking for the hole the earth had created, and finally spotted it halfway up the chamber’s wall, well beyond my reach—which also meant it was well beyond the reach of the Irkallan. I tossed the pack toward it, ordered the air to shove it deep in that hole, and then thrust a hand against the warm earth and asked it to seal the hole back up.

As the earth obeyed, the air screamed a warning. I swung around, gut buster blazing. Two Irkallan lost legs, the third lost his head, and the fourth came straight at me. I kept firing, shredding his chest and stomach, but it didn’t seem to matter. I swore and flicked the air at him. As he stumbled and almost fell, I quickly drew the sword with my free hand and swung it down, severing his head from his neck in one clean blow.

Where’s the other tunnel? I asked the air.

Directly across the room.

Directly across meant going through the Irkallan who were currently picking themselves up and looking around for trouble. But it was also the fastest way out of this damn room.

I sheathed the sword and reclaimed the other gun, shoved a fresh clip into both, and then ran directly at the Irkallan, firing as I did. As they went down in the hail of metal, that countdown in my head said time was starting to run out.

I jumped over rubble, furniture, and the dead, and ran on. More Irkallan soldiers came at me from the left and the right, some of them bleeding and broken, but all of them looking determined to get me. Weapons were raised and fired, and the mucus chased every footstep as I leapt and dodged and returned their fire.

I reached the archway and slid around the corner, only to come face-to-stomach with another batch of Irkallan. We went down in a mass of arms and legs, their mandibles clashing, tearing into various bits of my body even as I struggled to get free. The countdown in my head continued relentlessly, an ever-present reminder of how little time I had left.

I screamed in fury and fear, and began firing, even as I reached for the air and asked it for help. As the wind grabbed my arms and ripped me free from the melee, one of the Irkallan somehow twisted around and wrapped a hand around my leg, attempting to pull me back. It was lifted off the ground right along with me, but it didn’t seem to care. Its grip got tighter, its claws digging deep into my calf. I screamed again and kicked at it with my free leg, smashing it in the face. It didn’t make any difference and it certainly didn’t make it release me.

I asked the wind to release one hand and it immediately did so, wrapping thick fingers around my waist instead as it continued to speed us away from the queen’s chamber.

I switched the gut buster for my knife and plunged it past the Irkallan’s slashing mandibles and into its eye. As the Irkallan screamed and cursed me, I thrust the knife deeper into its skull, right into its brain. It died instantly, but it didn’t release me. I withdrew the gore-slicked knife and slashed it across the Irkallan’s limb, freeing the bulk of its body but leaving its claws embedded in my flesh. Blood was flowing altogether too freely down my leg, but those claws might also be the only things stopping that flow from being much worse.

Minutes. I only had minutes left.

Then I heard a sound that chilled my bones—a high-pitched scream of utter fury, and one that somehow had a distinctly female sound.

The queen was awake, and hunting.

Faster. I needed to go faster. But the wind could do only so much, and as my strength faded, so too did my control over her. If I forced more speed now, I’d have nothing left to confront the Irkallan who were with the children.

And if I didn’t, I’d be fighting the monster who ruled this place.

I found more strength from who knew where, and the wind’s speed increased. But that unholy roar of fury was drawing ever closer; the bitch was fast. Faster than the wind, at least right now.

I resolutely reloaded the gut busters then asked the wind to turn me around so that I was looking back rather than forward. The scrape of claws against tunnel’s stone floor was clearly audible now. She was close. So close.

I took a deep breath that did nothing to ease the sick fear in my gut and raised the gut busters. My hands were steady, even if my heart wasn’t.

The scraping grew so loud it was all I could hear, but the darkness remained resolute and still. No monsters emerged from it.

Not for several seconds.

Then the shadows parted, and she appeared. She might have a broken arm, a shattered mandible, and only one eye, but if the years of fighting the Adlin had taught me anything, it was the fact that a wounded adversary was sometimes the most dangerous.

I fired, and kept firing, as she arrowed toward me. Blood and gore flew as the bullets tore into her head, shoulders, and torso. The rain of metal should have killed her, but it didn’t. Her exoskeleton was thicker than even that of her soldiers’, and it was obviously going to take more than a few rounds to do any true damage.

I wasn’t sure I had that many rounds left, let alone enough time. The countdown clock in my head was now flashing red.

The queen raised her good arm and slashed at my face. I jerked back instinctively, even as the air wrenched me sideways. The queen’s mandibles clashed, barely missing my legs, snapping air instead. She slashed at me again, catching my hip, cutting through the ammo belt and down into skin. I hissed in pain but kept firing as I ordered the wind to brake. The queen’s momentum shot her past me, her thick claws drawing sparks from the stone as she slid to a stop and then spun around. I continued to fire; chunks of armor-like flesh were now flying, but if the queen was in any way feeling pain, she certainly wasn’t showing it.

The gut busters would kill her but nowhere near quickly enough. The countdown had reached critical point—there could only be seconds left before the bomb went off.

I shoved the guns back onto their clips and then drew the sword. In the deep darkness of the tunnel, the glass blade shone with a bright blue fire. The queen screamed in response and charged. I held my ground and waited until the very last moment—until all I could smell was her stink and her fury, and her snapping mandibles were within slicing distance. Then I ordered the wind to dodge and duck, and, with all the strength I could muster, swung the sword. It hit her thigh, sliced through flesh and bone with ease, completely severing her leg. As her limb fell in what seemed like slow motion to the ground, the queen screamed, and somehow swung around on the other leg, slashing wildly with her claws. I swung the sword and met her blow with the blade, slicing the fingers from her left limb, her wrist off the right. Then I brought it around again and stabbed at her eye. She jerked back, unbalanced, and fell.

In that moment, the countdown in my head stopped and that imaginary red flashing light seized. What followed was a weird moment of silence. It was almost as if the earth and the air were holding their collective breaths.

Then there was an ominous whoomp, one that was far deeper than other two, and the earth all around me started to shake. A heavy rumbling noise ran through the tunnel behind us, getting louder and louder, gaining speed as a heavy orange glow began to light the darkness. Huge chunks of earth and stone started raining around me and the air gained urgency even as the heat and dust and freedom only knew what else battered my body.

Go, I told the air. Now.

She obeyed. But the rumbling had become so loud it was beginning to hurt my ears and it wasn’t just the ceiling tearing itself apart now, but also the walls. The queen disappeared under a pile of rubble and dust.

The air tore me sideways, into another, smaller tunnel. But the heat and the energy of the explosion continued to chase us, and this tunnel also began to collapse inward.

I didn’t want to die. Not before I’d completed my mission, anyway, and stopped the remaining children—for their sake just as much as much as anything else.

Where are the children? I asked.

They are ahead, the air said. But if we stop, that explosion will kill you as surely as it will kill them.

I can’t leave those bracelets on them.

You will die with them if you stop.

Then I’ll die. But not before I got those bracelets and somehow ensured they could never be used again.

So be it. Shall we once again steal their breath?

Yes. I hesitated. How many Irkallan are with them?

Only two.

Can you steal their breath as well?

Yes, but with each order, and each death, you are further weakened.

And I still needed the strength to order the bracelets hidden. Surely I could cope with two Irkallan. It was certainly better than facing two Adlin.

The air continued to sweep me through the shaking, breaking tunnel. Breathing was becoming more difficult thanks to the dust choking the air, and I couldn’t see anything now. Nothing more than the dusty orange glow that was the firestorm of energy and destruction pursuing us.

The children are down, the wind said. Be ready—the Irkallan are around the next corner.

I swapped my sword for the gut busters as we entered the sweeping corner. But the air was so thick with heat and dust now that I had no hope of seeing the Irkallan. And if I couldn’t see them, they surely couldn’t see me. I asked the wind to sweep me up to the crumbling roof as we neared the end of the turn. Dirt and rock thumped into every inch of my body, the force of each blow so strong it felt like a thousand fists were pummeling me.

It didn’t matter. Nothing did except killing the Irkallan and getting those bracelets. As the tunnel straightened and I got a vague glimpse of lavender flesh up ahead, I began to fire, filling the entire tunnel with a hail of metal.

As both guns clicked over to empty, the wind swept down from the ceiling and deposited me onto the ground. There wasn’t much left of the Irkallan after my barrage—just a mess of lavender pulp interspersed between the bits of bones and mandibles. The children lay under these bloody and broken carcasses, their grimy faces covered with gore and yet oddly serene—it was as if they’d felt death’s coming and had welcomed it.

I ran to the first child, knelt, and quickly pried the bracelet off his wrist. It would have been far easier to simply order the earth to bury both the children and the bracelets, but that would take for more strength than I had.

The air was so thick and hot that my body burned and every breath was now a struggle. The rumble that was the earth collapsing on the tunnel system was dangerously close again now, and the chunks of stone raining down from the ceiling were becoming body crushing. I didn’t have the time for finesse. I had to get the remaining bracelets off these children and then get somewhere safe enough to bury them deep into the soil before that raging storm of heat and destruction hit me.

I sent a silent prayer of forgiveness to the souls of the children then thrust to my feet and ran to the remaining four, quickly slicing the bracelets from their wrists.

As the ceiling directly above me fissured, I grabbed the last two bracelets and then screamed for the air to get me out of there. I was lifted up and flung forward in an instant, but the ceiling and the walls were chasing me now, snapping at my heels like a drakkon hungry for flesh.

The wind flung me around another corner and, just for a second, we were free of it all. I asked to be put down again, and the air obeyed so rapidly I did a stumbling run forward before falling to my knees. My whole body shook with fatigue and pain, and there wasn’t an inch of skin left that wasn’t bloodied or bruised. But I wasn’t finished yet.

I dropped my collection of bracelets and severed hands onto the ground in front of me and then buried my fingertips into the soil. There was no response from the earth and, after a moment, I realized why. The ground in this tunnel was dead. I swore and punched it in frustration, then called to the air and bid it to start digging. As dust began to spin around me, choking my vision and filling my lungs, the walls began to tremble and shake. Damn it, just how much farther would the explosive power of the M185 blocks travel? Surely it would have to ease off soon?

As the wind dug deeper into the dead soil, I began to hear the voice of the earth. I thrust a hand down into the hole and felt the slivers of power curl around my fingers. It pulled at me, draining the last remnants of my strength even as it answered my call.

Bury the bracelets so deep they can never be found, I said.

Our pleasure, the voices of the earth answered. And now, run. Or you die.

As fingers of clean earth rose up from the hole and collected the bracelets, I pushed to my feet and staggered away. But my head was spinning, my legs felt like water, and there was absolutely nothing left in the tank now.

The wind tugged at me, begging me to go faster, grabbing my arms and propelling me along as hard as it could. But my weakness was being reflected in its strength now, and we were both fading fast.

Somehow I pushed on, but I was running on nothing more than sheer determination. Then the walls started moving around me, the ceiling became fluid, and the floor started bucking and kicking. I stumbled and fell, landing hard on hands and knees. The air screamed at me to get up, to move, and I tried, freedom only knew, I tried.

But I couldn’t. My body was a dead weight that refused to move.

I closed my eyes and prayed for the end to be quick.

Then the earth fell on top of me, and I knew no more.