Iris slipped from the room and moved down the hallway, searching for someone to tell her what was happening, but she soon found the answer herself when she passed a set of windows. She paused, watching the doctor she had seen earlier help load a line of wounded patients into the back of a lorry. Another truck was passing by on the road, brimming with soldiers.
It was Keegan’s forces, Iris realized. They must be retreating from Hawk Shire.
They believed Roman’s words.
Iris rushed down the long hallway, through amber squares of sunlight. It looked to be midafternoon, and every minute suddenly felt dire. She slipped out the door and approached one of the nurses in the market square.
“What can I do?” Iris asked.
The nurse glanced her over, sweat beading on her face. “If you want, you can help us load the wounded into that lorry.”
Iris nodded and hurried to the closest cot, where a young man with bandages on his face was struggling to sit forward.
“Here,” Iris said. “Take my hand.” She eased him to his feet and offered him balance, walking him toward the truck. The lorry was nearly full, the wounded packed in close together. As Iris helped the soldier up the ramp and into the back, worry flooded her lungs.
They couldn’t leave any of the wounded behind. Not with Dacre’s imminent arrival. He would heal these soldiers only to use them for his own gains.
“Iris!”
She turned to see Attie and Tobias hurrying through the chaos. Iris wove her way to them, heart drumming in her ears.
“They believed Roman’s warning?” Attie said in a low but hopeful tone.
“Yes.” Iris tucked a tangle of hair behind her ear. She realized there was blood on her hands. “They’re loading all the wounded, but I’m not sure where—” She cut herself off when she caught sight of Keegan approaching them. “Brigadier Torres.”
“I was just coming to wake you,” Keegan said. “Evacuations have commenced, and the three of you should depart as swiftly as you arrived.”
“Where are you evacuating to?” Attie asked.
“To Oath,” Keegan replied. “We are the last of Enva’s forces. And we will make our final stand in the city.”
Those words went through Iris as a shiver. She studied Keegan’s face. “You are the last?”
“Our battalions holding the southern front have fallen. Dacre has killed and taken a great number of our soldiers. And I will not let him capture and turn this final brigade.”
“Then let us help you with the wounded,” Tobias offered. “We can stay and get them safely loaded.”
Keegan shook her head. “You should leave immediately. I couldn’t bear it should something happen to you three.”
“But nor can we leave you and the wounded behind,” Iris insisted. “Please, Brigadier.”
Keegan hesitated but held Iris’s gaze. Maybe she saw it in Iris’s eyes: a glimmer of the past. That fateful day in the bluff when Keegan had delivered a letter to Iris. Words that had conveyed that Forest wasn’t dead but wounded. And how that message had strengthened Iris’s resolve to stay behind rather than evacuate with the rest of the town residents.
“If I let you stay and help,” Keegan began, “then you’ll be at the back of a slow line of lorries. You’ll be in a very vulnerable position if Dacre decides to pursue us.”
“I know a shortcut,” Tobias countered. “From my early post-running days. Your troops will be taking the high road to Oath, Brigadier?”
“Yes. Why?”
“We’re in my roadster, and I can drive us down the narrow but faster Hawthorne Route, which will have us meeting up with your brigade in River Down in no time.”
Iris held her breath as she waited for Keegan’s response. Her fingers instinctively went to the locket hanging from her neck.
“All right,” Keegan relented. “The three of you can stay and assist. But when I say it’s time for you to go, you take Hawthorne Route and you don’t look back. Agreed?”
“Yes,” Iris answered in unison with Tobias and Attie.
The brigadier withdrew a crinkled sheet of paper from her pocket. Roman’s letter, Iris realized, and a sigh escaped her when Keegan gave it back to her.
“Thank you for delivering this message,” Keegan said. “For driving through the night to reach us in time. I will always be indebted to you three.”
Iris’s throat went narrow. She only nodded, tucking the paper into her pocket. But as she began to guide soldiers to the lorry, she couldn’t help but think of Roman, deep in the earth. Walking ever closer through those tangled ley lines, somewhere just beneath her feet.