Felicity felt her magic come back through the hand she had wrapped around Damien's. Her fingers went hot, her knees gave out, and the snake who'd been so careful to leave a little space between them caught her around the waist. Naturally, that was the moment her husbands came through the door.
Victor had a bloody cut across one cheek. His wings filled the doorway, and frost clung to the edges of his feathers. Voss stood beside him with a broken piece of the lock in one hand and a knife in the other. Felicity could have wept at the sight of those familiar, exhausted faces. Then Victor saw whose arm lay around her waist, and she knew exactly how long she had to speak.
"Come here, Fel," he said. Damien started to put her behind him. She took one good breath, found her feet and stepped out where all three of them could see her.
"I'd very much like to go home with both my husbands, and I'd like this man to come out alive. His name's Damien. He agreed to take one of the women here in exchange for a place behind somebody else's walls. He told me the truth about it, and when he could've taken me, he spent his time finding us a way out."
Victor looked at Damien. "Is there any part of that you'd like to correct?"
"I thought if they sent me a woman who'd done something bad, it would be all right to trade her. That's what your wife had to sit across from at breakfast. She still offered me a way out with her." His hand fell away from her waist. "I've got the service route under the west fence. My offer stands even if the rest of us have to argue when we get there."
The weight of Victor's wing dropped from across the door. Voss put his knife away and took Felicity's hand for one fierce squeeze. "I'd give rather a lot to finish that conversation. Would everybody like to survive the next five minutes?"
At the edge of the hole above them, Victor's void ate through the last of the outer storage wall. Sarge had cleared the yard by bringing the dead in behind the armed men, and through the breach came the noise of those same dead getting a taste for the men inside. Voss held up the piece he'd cut from the cell controls. Every upstairs door had opened. The women holding back on the landing needed a way down that didn't take them past the dead.
"Rose, have you got enough vine to reach the top rail?" Felicity called. A thorny length of green ran up the inside of the stairs before she got the whole question out. "If you can hear my voice up there, hold on to this and follow it down. There's a tunnel west, and the children are waiting at the far end with a man called Finch. He'll help you."
The woman with the injured hand dropped an armful of gray property bags from the landing. Felicity caught them. With her good hand free to grip the vine, the woman brought the others down while Rose held the rail together. Felicity put what light she could spare into the legs of the ones who needed help. When her thumb started aching, Voss wrapped his hand around it. Between them they got the last woman into the service tunnel before a section of the ceiling gave way.
They emerged beyond the west fence with ash in their hair. Felicity handed out the bags and found her chipped marble in the last one. Finch took the women to the old gatehouse with Tommy and his spare blankets. Behind them the upper floor sagged into the space the storage wall had occupied. Damien stopped well outside the ring the men had formed around Felicity. "This would be a good spot for me to go," he said, looking at Victor.
"Or you could stay and help us with the next bit," she told him. "I'm tired of leaving people outside a perfectly good circle, and you did promise my husband an argument."
Voss gave the snake a long look. "You can take first watch with me," he said. Felicity started to thank him, then heard a little girl's breath catch beyond the ring of men.
"Mummy, I brought you shinies!" Luna hit her hard enough to put her on the ground, with Frost a step behind and the awful patience of a boy who had waited at one too many empty doors. Felicity pulled him against her other side before he had to ask. Up close she could feel both their hearts hammering. She'd counted days by the boots she heard outside at mealtimes. These two had spent every single one waiting for a door to open.
Luna thrust a small damp fist into hers. She gave Felicity a shell with a shiny pink center, then unwrapped a crooked metal charm from its scrap of cloth. A whole handful of pebbles and sharp bits of metal rose off the ground around her as she tried to get the rest of her collection out. Frost's shield went up over their heads. The metal rattled down the outside, leaving both gifts safe in Felicity's palm. "I kept that one in my hand," Luna explained, through tears. "I wanted to give you one thing I knew I wouldn't drop."
"They can go with this, sweetheart." Felicity let Luna feel the chip in the marble, and the little girl tucked all three treasures into the property bag and pulled it closed herself. "Remember that first morning I came back to your cupboard? You can count on me tomorrow morning, too."
Rose dropped beside them and got an arm around all three, holding herself carefully where her ribs were bandaged. Felicity kissed her cheek before she could finish saying she'd failed her. "I remember you standing in that doorway for me. When I had nothing else to think about in that cell, I still had that."
Victor knelt when she caught his hand. Voss got the soft blanket from him and draped it around the cubs' shoulders. Damien watched the family for a moment, then gave them his back to keep an eye on the road. Victor's hand closed over hers, gentle despite the frost still on it.
Beyond the ash stood the shell of a building with a roof. Voss offered an arm so she could get up without putting either cub down. "Come inside with me," she called to Damien. He started toward her, and Victor made room beside him. Felicity was almost through the door when Frost put his mouth to her ear. "If somebody knocked on this door tonight, Mummy, how would we know it was safe to open it?"