Chapter 131

Pearl hid in the recesses of a closet, hearing the sounds of a alchemist family that had just woken up.

She'd wasted no time finding a way off the roof and had located a door leading to a stairwell almost right away. Inside what had appeared to be an apartment building, she'd tried every door, desperate to find a hiding place. When that had failed, she'd found an open window at the end of one of the corridors and had slipped out onto the window ledge.

It had been terrifying.

Someone not as lithe and muscle trained probably would have fallen to their deaths, but she'd managed to inch her way along the ledge, hoping hard that no one on the street below looked up. Once she'd found an open window, she'd slipped inside. The room, a bedroom, had been empty and she'd found a nice, deep, dark closet and curled up.

That had been last night.

Sometime in the night the men from the Court of Judgment had pounded on the apartment door, asking if the people who lived here ha