Light and dark flash by me. I tumble head over heels, catching glimpses of the bell tower until I can see nothing else. Out of habit or desperation I extend my arms, my descent transforming into flight as I catch hold of my counterbalance.

Luca swings me out past the clock's face and tosses me into the air toward one of it's needles. I seize onto the cool metal and hug myself to it, the thud of my frantically-beating heart threatening to launch me from the tower. Breathing heavily into the clock's minute hand I peer upwards, watching as the airship vanishes through a hole cut into the dome's roof and takes off for gods' know where. I continue staring at the empty patchwork of sky long after the ship has disappeared, only managing to pry myself loose after slipping on my now-tilted perch. Shaking, I concentrate on climbing down and following Luca back inside.

He offers me a hand and I take it without thinking, yanking myself free the instant I step foot back in the bell tower. Unable to bear the hurt question in his eyes I turn away, my legs suddenly giving out.

Luca knows enough to remain a few steps away and silent while I fall to the floor and heave great, wracking sobs. It is as though my heart has once more been wrenched from my chest, leaving behind a wound as fresh and raw as the day it was first inflicted. Choking on the barrage of emotions I squeeze my eyes shut tight and wait for the attack to pass.

But it doesn't.

It digs in further, the pain as piercing as a sharpened hook. Hands clutched to my chest I curse her again and again, berating myself for my weakness. All that time spent watching and waiting, all that careful planning dashed in an instant. I cannot believe that I came so close—so close—only to trip on the finish line. I failed myself but more than that, I failed Will.

Will.

I shiver from the sensation of cold grey eyes boring into me. Tortured by the memory of Will throwing me from the ship, I gasp while the hook twists deeper and deeper with each fresh vision. Never could I have imagined seeing such callous indifference from the man I once loved with the whole of my being. The madness roars forth, uncontrollable now that I've let both him and the Madam slip through my fingers.

This time, I don't fight it.

Red, and then I am filled with a terrifying, thunderous fury. Helpless to stop it even if I cared to try I let the cloud wrap itself around me and surrender over to the great rush of power. The ache inside begins to ease as my nerves turn gradually back to steel. It is only when the storm has quieted to a dim hum and I feel next to nothing that I begin to slowly untangle myself, opening my eyes and staring blankly into the distance.

"Kay," Luca's whisper drifts through the fog.

Blinking, I rise shakily to my feet. The tower's stale air lies heavy against my skin as I move to the open clock face and look out over the rivers of flickering torchlight. Small fires smoulder at the edges of the dome, remnants of the bombs we placed outside it's walls. The holes created by the explosions are large enough for both an army and the blistering rays of a sunrise to pass through. Babel has turned strangely quiet; the darkened windows indicating that the Babelonians are bedding down to ride out the invasion. As I trace the crooked lines lit by the Wasters' torches I occasionally catch the distant sound of a Brute dying at the end of a spear. It is simple to cast aside the memories stirred by the sounds of war now that the cloud is firmly in control.

"Kay," Luca says my name again, louder.

I glance up. Luca steps free of the shadows, coming to join me at the window.

"What happened?" He asks. "I can help."

A heavy thud sounds through the fog but I ignore it's warning, letting the red speak for me. "No, you can't. Not this time."

"There is no other time." He presses. "I told you that I would catch you from any height and I have always held true to that. Let me help, now. Tell me what happened."

Another thud and the cloud wavers. Even a brief instant without my armor unleashes a tide so sudden and shocking that I am nearly driven back to my knees. Luca lifts a hand to me and in the second before it falls I distantly register a thousand details; the concerned tilt of his mouth, the colour blue where there was once black and a crust of dark blood staining his knuckles.

I twist sideways, letting his fingers brush past my shoulder.

"It doesn't matter." I concentrate back on the approaching army, "They'll be here soon. We should ready ourselves."

"Kay—"

"Did we lose any of our numbers up above? We should get on the radios, alert the rebels that we have control of the tower."

"Stop."

"I want an immediate survey of the airships left in the hangar. If we send some out now we might—"

"I said stop."

The ferocity in Luca's demand jerks me free. I stare at him, grappling to remember what I was talking about.

"It is over." His says gently. "Your plans are finished. We have won."

"No." My tongue feels thick. "It isn't over. She got away."

"That does not matter. What matters is that we have the dome; food and water. The people of Babel are no longer under her control, none of us are."

A shudder runs through me. "That isn't true." Angling myself further out the window, I eye the flap cut into the dome's roof. "The Mechs are still hers."

"Perhaps, but we prevented countless others from sharing the same fate. You cannot save them all, Kay."

"I know that." I snap, drawing back inside. "But I should have been able to save just one."

A long pause follows. Luca grips the window ledge tightly, leaning forward as if making sure I can see him.

"How can you not see that she has you trapped?" He asks, "What is worse is that you are allowing it."

"Allowing it?" I laugh bitterly. "There's nothing I want more than to be done with her."

"Then be done with her." He implores. "Do not give our enemy the satisfaction of having this hold over you."

My vision blurs as panic begins to work it's way free. Luca's hand falls upon mine, grounding me before I have a chance to summon the red.

"It's not that simple." I hear myself say. "The things I've done...I've hurt so many people...my friends...all so that I could have this one thing. Save that one person."

"Save yourself, instead."

I stare at him, furrowing my brow as I fight to make sense of his words. Luca keeps my gaze locked with his and I startle at seeing him fully for the first time since falling back to earth.

He speaks carefully, deliberately. "There is more than this, what it is you are feeling right now."

Knowing my habit of arguing he rushes on, not allowing me to get a word in.

"Hurt, yes? You feel loss? Anger?" The accusation ignites his eyes. "There is more if you push beyond those impulses. Things like goodness, wonder, peace. Things far greater than what we have seen so far."

"And what if you're wrong?" I ask quietly. "All this time we've been placing blind trust in the idea that if we keep pushing, if we keep fighting that we can make this a better place to live. That the next war will be our last, that evil will be vanquished and we'll all live out some idyllic fairy tale ending." I shake my head. "I'm sorry, Luca but my story isn't going to end that way. You can stop trying to catch me now."

The relentless tick of the colossal clock drowns him out. Staring down at our clasped hands I study the skin on my wrist, already reddening where Will gripped me. If I weren't so caught up in the shock of seeing him I could have pushed further, heaved myself aboard that airship and finished this godsforsaken task. Once again, my heart has proven itself to be nothing but a puppet at the end of a string. So long as I possess a weakness, the Madam will continue to exploit it.

Memories plague me; eyes of steel and laughter intermingled with a white-hot pain and an airship retreating and disappearing from view. The more I try to focus on the good the more it slips away, fading until I can recall only the pathetic stories heard whispered around campfires and corners. The loss of my parents and brother, starving in the streets, desperation, betrayal, fear and the crippling loneliness of the dungeons. I see the gaunt faces of my people, the funeral pyres of our friends and families. Trapped in an unending nightmare of Will being torn away from me again and again I call up the red, preparing to accept the relief offered by it's nothingness until a warm hand cups my cheek and pulls me briefly to the surface.

"This is not who you are meant to be." Dark blue eyes burn into mine, "You are stronger than this."

Hurt gives way to power and I slip back beneath. "No, I'm not."

I pull his arm down, running my thumb along the familiar blue markings before whispering an apology and letting his hand slip from my grasp. Turning away from the window, red mercifully shields me from seeing the expression on his face.

Dust kicks up around my heels as I cross from the window to the stairs, my footsteps treading a deliberate path. I don't dare look back as I follow the circular staircase toward the chamber up above, arriving back in the Madam's quarters and finding myself in the aftermath of a battle. I locate the radio precisely where the Madam left it and pluck the hunk of metal from the desk, tuning it to the correct channel before bringing it up to my lips.

"This is the Runner." I raise my chin to acknowledge Geoff and the rest of my Waster army as they wade through the sea of recently-slaughtered Brutes. "The Tower is secured but the target escaped. Send our pilots to the hangar and tell them to head out in all directions. I want her alive."

A staticy voice on the other end communicates a flurry of updates. I listen with one ear while waiting to hear the soft tread of a hunter trailing me up the stairs.

But Luca doesn't follow.

Ignoring the sinking in my stomach in favour of tracking the army's progress, I move to the window. A rustling noise from the desk behind me reveals Geoff making himself at home in the Madam's former quarters. The old Enforcer pulls open drawer after drawer before releasing a triumphant grunt and holding aloft a bottle of dark amber. He uncorks it without ceremony, taking a swig while the rest of the warriors rummage amongst the corpses of the Brutes and wonder over their strange weapons and armour. I spot both Tawny and Simon amongst the victors. The disheveled and recently-liberated Babelonians are locked in an embrace, blind to the chaos surrounding them.

It isn't long before a heavy hammering sounds from the entrance to the chamber and the doors are flung open, revealing Jaron and what seems to be an endless line of warriors. I remain poised and ready at the top of the stairs, watching with a strange sense of detachment as the Madam's statue is swarmed and toppled, her likeness shattering upon the floor to a cacophony of savage hoots and hollers.

The former Waster chieftain is the first to crest the stairs. Jaron's wide set of shoulders appear, followed by his leather-wrapped chest and eventually the tip of his trusty feathered spear. My army darkens the staircase behind him, spilling down the steps and out the door. An untold number of Wasters are undoubtedly already spread throughout the rest of the Tower, their sand-crusted hands pawing through the contents of the Madam's home. The violation is only a small victory; the real prize escaped through a hole cut into Babel's roof.

The haze of red allows me to see past Jaron and the hundreds of eyes staring up at me expectantly. I know that they're waiting to hear of the Madam's capture. I know that I'm meant to declare an end to this war, call for us to lay down our weapons and celebrate our glorious victory. I am meant to do a great many things.

But that was all before I let her escape.

Our course has changed. This war isn't over; it is far from over. The Technicians we've captured will be tasked with harnessing the rain and repurposing the labs while the warriors are sent into the desert with instructions to leave no stone unturned. It is only a matter of time until I catch up to her and the next time we meet I will be in possession of a way to cure Will of whatever she's done to him. With Babel under my control and the talents of an unbeatable army at my disposal I have become a force more powerful than anything the desert has ever reckoned with.

I have traded my robe of feathers for one of red and my weakness for a weapon. Kay Knight has ceased to exist; in her place stands a queen.

Jaron drives the end of his spear into the floor. His question is one I never dared consider, content to let it's answer remain hidden behind the veil of my own lunacy.

"Well?" He asks, his dark brows raised. "What happens now?"