The guards’ armor is turned to liquid. It’s not melted. It’s cold, wrapping around my arms. 

The metal knives, forks, and spoons also float up, joining the mass of pulsating iron surrounding me. The guards let go of me in fear as their swords float out of their scabbards and protect me like a wall. 

Cai stares at me, and the governor glares. Angel’s jaw is dropped open and her eyes are bulging. A male voice in my head with a strange accent starts speaking:

“Run.”

The blobs around me start forming into another shape, making a staircase. It looks solid. With one of the swords in my hand, I run up the stairs, almost tripping on my dress and falling off. I reach a platform high above the floor, and sit down, panting. My hair is messed up, and my dress is torn at the long skirt. 

“Get archers!” Connolly yells, over the commotion. I can vaguely hear Cai calling my name. “The arrows are made of wood, and won’t protect her like the metal.” The metal is protecting me. Like it’s alive. 

“Don’t hurt her!” Cai calls. After I catch my breath, I stand up, noticing that the platform is just floating, the staircase gone so nobody can reach me. 

A squadron of archers enter the room, and on the governor’s orders, aim arrows at me. 

“Fire!” Connolly yells, and I duck, waiting to be killed. When I don’t get hit, I open my eyes slowly. Every single arrow head is floating in the air around me. The wooden shafts of the arrows sit on the floor, broken. Of course. The arrow heads are steel. Ember is in charge of making these back on the island. 

I glance down at the archers, and gasp in relief. The arrow heads turn, and point back down at the archers, then fire like bullets, piercing their leather armor, and killing them instantly. Poisoned arrows. 

As each one of the archers falls limp to the ground, I gasp, and stumble backwards. The platform isn’t there to catch me as I fall off the edge. The blob of metal moves to try and catch me, making another platform directly below me that solidifies quickly.

The impact knocks the wind out of me, and I cough, trying to sit up. My back aches with new bruises. The corset is not making this any easier. 

“Get her, you idiots! She’s low enough now!” Connolly yells. I stand up, with some difficulty, and stand in the exact center of the platform so they can’t reach my ankles with their groping hands. Cai and I make eye contact. The platform starts to rise, carrying me up with it. “I’ll do it myself,” Connolly says after a string of curse words, then pulls a tiny dart gun out of his pocket, firing it at me. 

It must not be made of metal, because the blob doesn’t stop it as it gets into my arm. The dart pricks my arm, and I fall onto my back, unable to move anything. 

My eyelids start to droop closed. No! I can’t lose here! My eyelids refuse to listen, and close completely. The cool metal platform under me starts to melt away, and I can feel myself falling, about to hit the floor. Someone catches me, because I can feel a heartbeat. 

“If she’s still alive, prepare her, and send her to Captain Carpenter for a private execution,” Connolly says. I hope I’m not still alive. 

“No!” Cai yells. 

“You don’t get a say, Sir Imperos,” Connolly replies. “Stay with Lady Bellerose, your new fiancé.” I hear Angel snicker, and someone cries in the background. 

“Julia, shut up. We all know you hated Olive anyway,” Angel says, no longer angelic. Julia is crying for me? A tear escapes my own eye, completely out of my control. 

“She’s alive,” The person holding me says. 

“Then send her to Preparation!” Connolly growls. The person holding me turns and walks me out of the room. If only I could see. 

“How exciting,” Someone says, and it wakes me up. But I can’t open my eyes. “We get a Magnet to take care of. Not just someone who offended the governor, but a Magnet!” 

“I didn’t know they still existed,” Another voice chimes in. “They said remove all the metal, so she can’t defend herself.” 

“Okay.” I feel a pair of cold hands pulling my heirloom pearl necklace off. Another pair of hands reach for my earrings, my identity. I try to slap the hands away, but I’m paralyzed still. 

“Did you see that?” Someone asks, as my earrings are pulled out of my ears and put into a crinkly bag. “She’s awake.” A sentence escapes my mouth. 

“Let me go, and I’ll pay you,” I hastily plead, forcing my eyes open. A buck-toothed soldier is the first voice. The other one has red speckles on his face, and smells weird.

“They’re paying us thousands to kill you,” The first one says. “Well, they’re paying us to get you ready for your execution. The Captain gets paid the most, because he does the actual killing.” The second soldier pulls out a device with a disc on it. “Why do you have a metal detector, Bert?” 

“They said no metal, and I’m just checking if we got it all,” Bert, the speckled soldier says. “We need to be thorough, Maurice.” 

“Fine. Scan her then,” Maurice says, holding up the bag with my jewelry in it. Bert holds the device above me, moving it from my feet to my head. It beeps as it passes my clothing. “Is there metal inside the dress?” Maurice asks, groaning. “This is going to take forever!” 

“I have an idea,” I pipe up. “Maybe if you let me move, I could change into non-metal clothes, and then you wouldn’t have to do the hard work, but you’d still get paid.” Bert considers it. 

“She’s very clever,” Maurice says, then nods. “Turn off the paralysis.” Bert nods and grabs another device, pressing a button. Motion comes back into my fingers and toes, and I sit up slowly. Maurice hands me a pair of gray sweatpants and white shirt. I get off the table they put me on, and stretch. 

“Could I have some privacy?” I ask, after watching Maurice and Bert stare at me for a few seconds. 

“We can’t let you escape,” Bert says. “We’d get fired, or worse.” 

“So turn around and watch the door. If you’re watching the only way out, I can’t escape,” I explain. Bert nods. 

“She’s really smart,” He says, turning to Maurice. “I didn’t know uneducated Irons could be like that.” I sigh. 

“Maybe it’s because she was elevated to Gold,” Maurice offers, then turns around. Bert turns around too, and I quickly pull off my dress, untying the corset, and putting on the clothes, which are comfortable, but too big. 

I tiptoe over to their table of devices, and find a black box, with a button on the side. Two tiny rods stick out of the top of the box. I press the button on the side, and a bolt of electricity connects the two rods, making a faint zapping noise that I hope they can’t hear. 

I like this. I think, walking towards Bert. Rule one of surviving: don’t turn your back on your enemy. 

I hold my breath, and put the electrified spikes against Bert’s neck. He twitches, and falls to the ground, unconscious. Maurice turns to face me, and I prepare to tase him as well, but he grabs my wrists, and knocks the taser out of my hands. 

He throws me against the wall, and I hit my head. I wince, and try to sit up. I feel behind my head, and feel tenderness. Ow. Maurice yanks me to my feet, and handcuffs me, just as the door opens. 

“What is taking so long?” The intruder asks, looking down at Bert’s body. “You guys can’t handle a little girl?” 

“Captain Carpenter,” Maurice says, holding onto my arm, and saluting with the other hand. “She came up from behind. Said she needed privacy to change.” Captain Carpenter glances at me.

“Then clearly she has more brain cells then both of you combined,” He says, then looks down at my bound hands. “Let me rephrase that. She has more brain cells than you and all of your ancestors combined.” He grabs my hands and holds them up. “You can’t put metal handcuffs on her, idiot!” Carpenter unlocks my handcuffs, and instead ties my wrists tightly with rope, dragging me out of the room behind him. 

“You probably won’t fall for the ‘I need to go to the bathroom’ trick, right?” I ask. Carpenter laughs humorlessly.

“Those idiots down in Preparation might,” He says, pulling me up some stairs, at a quick pace. 

“No, but actually. I have to go,” I lie, holding onto the last shred of hope. 

“Not falling for that,” He says, pushing open a door into the rainy night. 

“Don’t you care about your prisoners?” I ask, trying to summon some fake tears to my eyes. I hope I’m a good actress. 

“Not in the slightest,” He says, and shoves me out into the rain, walking behind me. Well, that plan didn’t work. I think, and spot a puddle. Time for plan C. Or whatever plan I’m on. When we reach the puddle, I purposefully slip in the mud, falling into the puddle. Carpenter groans and stares at me. 

“I slipped,” I complain, soaked completely. Carpenter reaches down to help me up, so I quickly grab his gun from his belt, and point it at him. 

“It’s empty,” He tells me, sighing. “There aren’t any bullets.” 

“Then why do you even have it?” I ask, as he takes it out of my hand and stands me up straight. He puts it back in his belt and doesn’t answer. “Aren’t you going to tell me how I’m going to die?” I ask, trying to pull my hands out of the ropes. Carpenter tightens the ropes when he sees me fiddling with them, and keeps walking, dragging me behind him. 

“If I told you how, you’d find a way out,” He says, then sits me down in an alleyway, against the wall. He keeps checking his watch, and glancing out of the area at the street, crouching down next to me each time someone passes on the sidewalk. 

“Why are we just waiting here?” I ask, and he shushes me. “Did they say to kill me at exactly midnight?” 

“It’s past midnight,” He asks, showing me his watch. 2:54. I yawn. 

“Then why aren’t you killing me?” 

“Do you want to be killed right now?” 

“Not really.” 

“Then shut up and stay down,” He says, and stands up again. I hear footsteps, and cower again, but Carpenter appears to know the person. A guard stands behind the person. 

“Did you get her?” The person asks, their voice muffled by a heavy coat and scarf. 

“She’s annoying, but yeah.” Carpenter says, then gestures to me. I crawl into the corner, trying to hide in the shadows. This is it. I’m going to die. I think, taking deep breaths that turn out to be shallow, panicked ones. 

“Ivvy?” They ask, pulling their scarf down from their face. 

“Cai!” I yell, almost knocking him over with a hug.