Teorin gulped in a breath, the rooftop gravel digging into his legs and knees as he knelt there. A shudder ran through him. He’d failed. He hadn’t seen Kara since that scream. Sasha had the pages. Jeron had given him one job: protect Kara and the pages. He couldn’t even do that. And now there were enemies below him, and he’d given it all up for—

  Lev. Teorin’s breath caught. Was he… Stars, please let him be alive. He couldn’t take that failure too. Not now. Slowly, he twisted to look back where Lev lay, burned and unconscious. Teorin shoved himself to his feet and edged closer, eyeing the stun pack at Lev’s neck. Nothing happened.

  A sigh of relief escaped him, and he jogged back and knelt beside Lev. The stun pack still sat pressed against Lev’s neck. Teorin stared at it. Would it go off if he touched it? He gulped down a breath. Then, before he could second-guess himself, Teorin ripped it free and tossed it across the roof.

  Nothing.

  Lev hadn’t moved either, and his burns...

  Cascades.

  Teorin wanted to look away, but forced himself to study the damage. There was a hand-sized hole in Lev’s shirt, the burn running all the way down his side. The fabric had shifted just enough to half-cover it, but he could still see the pale, blistered skin underneath. If he remembered right, blisters meant second-degree. He shifted to check Lev’s arm; the burn there was an angry red. Too dark.

  Bursts.

  From his new angle, it was also obvious that the burn on Lev’s chest wrapped all the way around his left side and onto his back. Sasha had scorched him with her entire arm.

  Maybe it was better Lev was unconscious. It was going to be extremely painful when he woke up. All in all, Lev needed a doctor. Unfortunately, right now they needed to get off this roof, or they might both end up dead.

  Teorin reached for Lev’s shoulder—

  Lev flinched hard, a short, broken sound catching in his throat. His eyes flew open, wild for a moment, and then shut tight. Apparently, Sasha had been truthful about the light stun.

  “Hey,” Teorin said gently. “It’s me.”

  Lev didn’t respond. He just curled slightly away, breath shallow, muscles trembling.

  Teorin froze, hand hovering. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Lev gave the smallest of nods.

  “Lev, I need to see how bad it is. Alright?”

  A grimace flashed across Lev’s face. His eyes were still shut, but he mumbled, “You’re still here? Thought you’d leave me for dead to chase them.”

  Teorin winced. He probably deserved that. “I…”

  Lev’s eyes snapped open, his voice suddenly sharper. “You’re a total jerk who cares more about papers than my life? Yeah. I noticed.”

  Teorin stayed silent. He deserved that too. “Lev, we need to get out of here.”

  “Kara?”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  Lev let out what might have been a small sob before going quiet. Then he groaned again and tried to sit up. Teorin reached to help, but Lev flinched away from the contact. Teorin backed off, hovering uselessly at his side as Lev slowly shifted upright, legs out in front of him. He gasped in pain but managed to stay upright.

  “I did have a plan, you know—” Lev started to say.

  Teorin snapped. All his frustrations tumbled out in a growing wave of words. “A plan? Was your plan for the pages to be stolen? Because that’s exactly what happened! I should have just run. I should have grabbed the pages and glided away. Everything is gone. Sasha has the pages, maybe Kara too. This building is surrounded. Was that all a part of your plan?” Teorin shouted.

  Lev flinched, and Teorin wished he could take back his words. Lev was sitting there with awful burns, and Teorin was yelling at him.

  It was stupid, but Lev had hit a nerve. And Teorin was apparently a jerk, just like Lev claimed. He hated that it felt good to just get it out—that the yelling almost felt cathartic—but it did. Teorin closed his eyes and let himself breathe. “Sorry. I didn't mean… I'm just frustrated.”

  Lev took a deep breath. Apparently, it hurt because he shut his eyes and tears leaked out. “S’alright,” Lev said.

  That just made Teorin feel worse. He scanned the roof for his wing jacket. He kept some fairly serious pain meds in the pocket in case he was ever seriously injured and far away from medical treatment. It was on the other side of the roof, bunched up in a heap.

  Teorin rushed over. It didn’t appear damaged. Digging through the pockets, he pulled out a small injection canister about the size of a lipstick tube. When he reached Lev again, Lev’s skin was pale, his breathing erratic. Teorin’s chest tightened, and he fumbled with the the canister, almost dropping it, as he loaded the localized numbing agent.

  “Breathe,” Lev said.

  Teorin froze. Lev had one eye cracked open, watching him.

  “Panic won’t…” Lev trailed off, shuddering slightly, then hissed in pain.

  “Lev?”

  Lev didn’t look at him.

  “This might sting, but it should help,” Teorin said.

  Lev just nodded slightly, not even opening his eyes.

  Teorin touched Lev’s burned arm to inject the numbing agent, and Lev jolted again, almost instinctively pulling away.

  “Sorry—” Teorin started, but Lev just gritted his teeth.

  “It’s not you,” Lev muttered, voice raw. “My body’s just… confused. Last time someone touched me, I got burned.”

  Oh. Right. And he remembered stuff. Did he remember it that way?

  Lev took a shaky breath. “Try again.”

  Slowly, Teorin placed his hand on Lev’s arm. Lev trembled, but after a second, he eased into the touch. Teorin injected Lev’s arm above the burn and moved on to Lev’s chest. Some of the singed fabric was almost melted to his skin. Bursts. Teorin didn't want to irritate an already injured area more. Carefully, he shifted the burned fabric.

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  Lev hissed and looked like he was about to pass out again, but he managed to hang on while Teorin injected the site. The meds were designed to be extremely fast acting, but they also weren’t a permanent solution. They were mostly to help clear someone’s head enough to get help. Hopefully, it would make the pain more manageable.

  Teorin made his way to the side of the roof, keeping one eye on Lev. There was still a large group down in the courtyard below him, but he couldn’t make out much about them with the distance and the little light available below, but they hadn’t rushed the building yet. Not that they’d gain anything by it. All of the valuable things Teorin had were already gone.

  Still, Teorin didn’t like the feeling he’d gotten from the group that had caught him and Kara in the alley earlier. They seemed like the shoot first, search the bodies later type. He didn’t want to die, especially with this kind of failure on his shoulders.

  He glanced back at Lev who seemed to be slightly less tense. “Better?”

  “Sort of,” Lev said, opening his eyes again. The pain was still evident in his posture, but his gaze was sharper. “You said we were surrounded?”

  “Yeah. We probably need to hide.” There was no way he was flying off the roof with Lev this injured.

  Lev sighed. “I stand by my statement that you are a jerk. However, I appreciate the help.” Lev paused, and then said, “She didn’t get the pages, Teorin.”

  Teorin froze. “What did you say?”

  Was Lev becoming delusional?

  Lev huffed. “That Heatsinger does not in fact have your oh-so-precious pages. I do. Not on me, but they’re over there.” Lev said, inclining his head towards a rusty storage box near where the roof slanted up to a pyramid.

  Teorin rushed over and pulled the lid of the box open. Sure enough, stuck into the body of a telescope with a missing lens was a rolled sheaf of papers.

  Teorin’s stomach twisted. The pages. The real pages.

  Lev had tricked them all.

  And Teorin had accused him of losing them. He had yelled at him—after Lev had been burned, after he had risked his life.

  Teorin swallowed hard. “I…”

  “Owe me big time?” Lev said, voice hoarse. “Yeah, you do.”

  “What happened up here?” Teorin asked, turning back to Lev.

  Lev shrugged and then hissed as the movement shifted his clothes. “We were outmatched, at least I was, and I figured you were either losing or just holding your own, because otherwise you would have been up here, so I gave them what they wanted, sort of.”

  “How?” Teorin asked.

  Lev glanced down at the burn on his chest. Then, he looked up and breathed out very slowly. He said with a grimace, “If you plan to hide, explanations should probably come later.”

  Right. Teorin pulled the pages out of the telescope. Without the backpack, he was just going to have to fold them and stuff them into his pockets. He jogged back to Lev and started pulling on his jacket.

  “They will be back as soon as they find that backpack empty,” Teorin said quietly. “That, or send someone else.”

  Lev shook his head very slightly, clearly trying to avoid movement. “It’s not empty.”

  “Not empty? Do you carry around ancient documents to put in as a decoy?”

  Lev rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Even Kara doesn’t do that.”

  “Then how?” Teorin asked as he finished with the jacket. He started stuffing the pages in his pockets.

  Lev didn’t answer. He had his eyes closed again and seemed to be concentrating on his breathing. Teorin had been burned by a Heatsinger before. It had been glancing, but had still been agonizing. He couldn’t imagine what Lev was feeling.

  Teorin crouched down on Lev’s right, opposite the burned arm and side. “We have to move.”

  Lev leaned into him, then stiffened. Just for a second. Enough that Teorin felt it.

  Teorin braced, ready to let go if Lev needed space, but Lev just swallowed hard and said, “I’m fine. Just… go slow, yeah?”

  Slowly, they rose together. Lev was panting by the time he was on his feet.

  “So why exactly won’t they come back for us?” Teorin asked, trying to distract Lev from the pain. Teorin tugged Lev forward, and they started towards the stairs.

  “I left some of the pages in the backpack,” Lev said, his voice strained now.

  Teorin froze, jerking to a stop, and Lev growled, “Burn victim here, remember?” His patience seemed to be deteriorating with each step. He was probably in agony at this point.

  They took a few more steps and came to the top of the stairs. Lev stared at the steps with dread but said nothing. They started edging down the steps one by one. Lev was panting again.

  “Sorry, but you just gave them some of the pages?” Teorin asked. “What if it was something important?”

  Teorin couldn’t tell if his distracting questions were actually helping or not, but since Lev was occasionally answering, he would keep asking. Teorin needed to know what happened.

  “I’m not an idiot, Teorin! I didn’t just pick random ones,” Lev snapped.

  Teorin ignored the harsh tone. At this point, Teorin suspected that Lev was using anger as a sort of shield against the pain. If anger got Lev down the stairs, then Teorin would take it.

  Lev continued, “I can’t read the pages, but I do know Kara. She separated the pages into sections depending on whether she had looked at them, and whether or not she deemed the contents important. I just picked the pile without the drawings of the humans. Easy.”

  It was a good plan. Even if Sasha checked the backpack, it was unlikely she would be able to immediately tell something was missing. She probably couldn’t read them at all and won’t know how many pages there were. It could very well take them a while to figure out that anything was missing.

  “How did you manage that without being seen?” Teorin asked. They reached the bottom of the stairs. Lev let out a sigh of relief. Teorin let him rest for a second.

  “Very carefully,” Lev said once he caught his breath again.

  Teorin raised an eyebrow in question.

  “I got to that other side of that pyramid. She couldn’t see me, and I just maintained that. If she ran one way, so did I.”

  Teorin gently tugged at Lev and they started down the hallway again. “So, why didn’t you just drop the backpack or something? Why let her catch you? Or did she just catch up?”

  Lev said, “I was working on a way to make it seem real, to make her believe I really dropped them or something when she threatened to burn your jacket.”

  Teorin almost stopped again but caught himself. He didn’t interrupt, and Lev continued, “It was stupid and impulsive, but I rushed her. I needed a reason to lose the backpack, and that was something. There was always a chance I would get in a lucky hit, and if nothing else… she would believe it. She might think I was crazy, but it was something. She got a hand on me. My hoodie caught on fire. I broke her nose, but then she grabbed my arm, and you can figure out the rest from there.”

  The pages. His wing jacket. Lev had done Teorin favor after favor. Then Teorin had exploded on him like that.

  Teorin’s world was falling apart piece by piece. He was supposed to be the experienced one. Lev was the innocent bystander. What was happening?

  “You risked your life for that?” Teorin finally asked.

  “Like I said it was a stupid plan. I never intended to die for it. I would have leveraged those pages if she hadn’t knocked me out, especially since you practically dared her to try and kill me.”

  Teorin had made a mistake, but it wasn’t like Lev told him any of this. “How exactly was I supposed to know about this plan?”

  Lev grimaced. Teorin wasn’t sure if it was from the question or from the pain. “I was working on that part. The initial hope was you'd just deem my life more important from the get go, and we'd be good.”

  Teorin winced. Idiot. He was such an idiot. It didn’t matter now. Teorin owed Lev big time.

  They shuffled down the hall, and Teorin racked his brain for a good hiding place. Maybe they could just duck into one of the classrooms and hope that no one looked there? If they hid in the burstproof section of the tower, Teorin could snag a comm band and contact someone.

  Teorin glanced at Lev. His color had started to return out on the roof, but he was getting paler all the time now and still panting. Not good.

  Really, Lev should probably not be moving at all. Every step was aggravating that burn on his side and probably his chest too.

  They made it through the burstdoor before Lev went from mostly holding his own weight to suddenly sagging against Teorin. Teorin lowered Lev to the ground. What was wrong? Lev didn’t have a head injury or anything, and he was still breathing. What could have…

  Shock. Teorin cursed. He grabbed one of Lev’s hands. It was cold and clammy. Combined with the paleness and panting, that was a pretty good indicator. Lev had just fainted.

  Cascades. What was he supposed to do now? Obviously walking much further was a bad plan, even if Lev regained consciousness quickly.

  A door slammed shut down the hallway. Teorin froze.

  Bursts. They needed to get out of sight. Now.

  Teorin tried the doors in the hallway. The first one was locked, but the next door opened. It looked like a classroom. Lev moaned. He was starting to come around, but he still looked awful.

  The sound of quick footsteps echoed down the hallway, but Teorin couldn’t see anyone yet. Whoever was coming was still around the corner. Lev muttered something that Teorin didn’t catch, and Teorin shushed him before dragging Lev to his feet. They stumbled to the open classroom. Lev was trembling.

  “Lev? You okay?”

  Lev muttered, “Dizzy, really dizzy.”

  The footsteps were getting louder, and Teorin didn’t have time to deal with this. He dragged Lev to the side of the room and lowered him to the ground. “Lay down. Stay here, and be quiet.”

  Lev sort of nodded. He was obviously disoriented, but hopefully, he’d listen.

  Teorin moved back to the door which was slightly ajar. The footsteps sounded close. Teorin tried to quiet his breathing as he watched through the small opening. A figure appeared walking quickly towards the stairs to the roof. He had a neatly trimmed beard and black hair that Teorin recognized.

  Jeron.

  [Lev] Were you surprised by my brilliant plan?