Instead, I motion wordlessly toward the blocked-off entrance. This is just a formality; I’ve paid nightly visits to this forbidden wing for a week straight. I know he will let me pass.

No one says no to a Goodwin anymore.

I don’t even say no to myself.

Gripping my rucksack filled with paint thinner tighter to my side, I move past the Guard and into the First Family’s wing. When I spotted the bottles of highly flammable liquid earlier this morning in a ransacked maintenance store, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them. Consequences be damned.

I’m living off pure reactionary emotion. Father wouldn’t approve—all his lessons taught us to approach every situation in life with reason or logic. That’s the best way to survive, he drilled into us. But my fury cuts through all rational thought like a red-hot blade.

Fury, the emotion eclipsing even my insurmountable grief, is the fuel that keeps me from drowning in a sea of my own bitter tears, never even bothering to kick myself back up to the surface again. My anger is giving me life.

I tread quickly through the windowless hall, my tunnel vision leading me to the door of the Governor’s Quarters. It’s open, like every other door in the mansion. Roth can no longer shut out the truth of what happened inside these walls. Although the Common has found enough evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors to guarantee a life sentence to almost every member of Roth’s regime, they’ve discovered nothing at all on Project Albatross. And despite my nightly searches, neither have I.

When I told Mira of Father’s twin-gene-mutation trial the day after the memorial service, the revelation that the Family Planning Division was working to eradicate twins was met with stoicism. It’s like nothing can surprise my sister anymore. Her tolerance for family secrets has reached such a high level, she didn’t feel the pain and disappointment that should have come with this new shock. But Mira immediately agreed that we have to keep our father’s controversial gene-editing trials to ourselves until we find out more than merely secondhand information from Father’s rivals.

He isn’t here to defend himself, Mira contended. For all we know, Father was working to sabotage Roth’s plans.

And if he wasn’t, then we will. Mira and I will put an end to Project Albatross, together.

The lights in the governor’s bedroom remain off, like the rest of the commandeered mansion at night. Save power to gain power. I don’t bother to turn them on. The dazzling Dallas skyscrapers sufficiently illuminate my surroundings through the elongated one-way windows.

I shut the heavy door, then move to stand in front of the gilded bedframe, the sheets still coated with the governor’s vomit. Evidence of Skye Lin’s assassination attempt. Poison, her specialty.

She got closer to bringing down Roth than anyone else has.

Rayla was murdered in the tunnels directly below where I stand. This bed—this panic chamber—was the gateway to my grandmother’s death. Suddenly it feels like I’m on fire, heat rapidly spreading through my limbs and stopping in my chest and fists. My arms begin to visibly quiver with my suppressed rage. Take action, it feels like my body’s telling me.

I pull a bottle of paint thinner from my bag.

I twist off the metal cap and douse the bedsheets with the noxious smelling liquid. If I had thought through what I’m about to do logically, I would have come prepared with a time-delay device, something that would have allowed me to initiate the blaze remotely, for my safety. But I don’t want to be safe. I want to be here to watch Roth’s home burn down, in person, with my own eyes.

Reaching into my pocket, I take out a long strike-anywhere match and flick the stick into life by snapping my thumb across the match head.

All at once a brilliant orange pool of light surrounds me in the dark. Tears spring to my eyes, spilling down my cheeks. The first I’ve allowed myself to shed since my grandmother’s death.

Emboldened by Rayla’s strength—by her love—I don’t hesitate. Standing back from the bed, I hold out my arm and am just about to let the match fly when there’s a shout behind me.

“Ava, what are you doing?!”

Razing the past.

I drop the flaming matchstick to the lush carpeted floor, and instantly the trail of paint thinner that leads to the bed dances with bright-yellow flames. It happens so fast, the bedframe igniting like a funeral pyre, the fire hungrily spreading to the ceiling and walls. I don’t recoil from the almost unbearable heat and instead stand transfixed by the indigo blue at the center of the blaze. Blue, the color that’s supposed to represent stability and calm, is the hottest part of a flame, a color that I now see as a symbol of powerful wrath and destruction.

The entire Governor’s Quarters will be reduced to ashes in a matter of minutes.

If only Roth’s decades-long regime could be wiped out as efficiently.

A strong hand clutches my arm, dragging me away from the fire and toward an open, empty closet in the far corner. The hot, smoky air burns the inside of my nose and eyes, making it difficult to breathe and see, but I manage to shrug off the would-be hero and stumble down a set of stairs that leads to the underground tunnel on my own.

“My mom always warned me that redheads could be fiery,” Owen quips, slamming the tunnel’s fireproof steel door shut. “But damn. You just took that adage to a whole new pyro level.”

Leaning against the smooth concrete wall, I surprise myself by laughing out loud. The light, carefree sound echoes throughout the mazelike passageway, unnerving me. I slap my hand over my mouth as if I just committed a grievous offense.

There can be no laughter where Rayla took her last breath.

“I was thinking of doing something similar, but my daydreams involved a sledge hammer,” Owen says, pointing to the burning Governor’s Quarters above. “Your method was way more efficient. Hats off to you.” He feigns removing a cap in a gesture of respect.

Owen’s natural cheerful demeanor has halved since the Battle for Dallas, but he hasn’t lost all his charm. Not by a long shot. He’s as lean as the top branch of an old oak tree, and his red T-shirt and the dark mahogany pants that match his skin fit snug, hinting at his toned body underneath. He looks relaxed and effortlessly cool—the opposite of the Kismet-uniformed boy I first saw in his wanted photo.

He moves away from the door and closer to me in the tight, dimly lit passageway. His golden eyes flare like two piercing flashlights in the dark.

I notice that Owen’s body language isn’t that of a panicked person ready to run and scream “Fire!” to a house full of sleeping Common members. He trusts that I have a plan to contain the blaze.

“Too bad Emery won’t share your approval,” I say, coughing from the smoke in my lungs. The Common’s leader will be furious with me, not only for disobeying her orders, but for setting such a dangerous example for “appropriate” post-battle behavior. The eyes of Dallas are upon you, Emery has stressed again and again to Mira and me. Your actions matter now more than ever.

Owen bends down to pick up a scattering of items that spilled from my bag in the scramble to reach the underground escape tunnel. He stares at the bottle of paint thinner, then rises to meet me face to face. “But honestly . . . I think Rayla would have approved.” Owen breaks into a sad smile, his wiry shoulders lifting in a resilient shrug. “That’s gotta mean you did something right . . . right?”