Though she still harbored a gnawing hatred for her captor, Anji felt a pang of sympathy for the old woman, now shivering with withdrawal. She remembered a night in the laundresses’ washroom, holding Kaia’s hair back after a particularly bad Faze binge. Kaia had screamed and cried and pushed Anji away, screeching about chained specters floating out of the walls, moaning and covered in blood. She’d called Anji a whore and a liar, though all Anji had done was try to help. As Kaia lay sobbing near an overturned chamber pot, Anji had gotten up to leave, only for her friend to call her back. Anji sat with her till dawn, rubbing her back and whispering about her parents, her favorite books, the friends she’d had and lost. Kaia had eventually fallen asleep on Anji’s thigh, golden hair spilling onto the floor. The next morning, Kaia had thanked Anji with a rose she’d cut from the castle gardens. Anji had left it in the box under her cot the night she’d escaped.

Anji flexed her fingers, willing blood to flow back into their tips. One of her nails was cracked down the center, another welling with a dark spot near the quick. She bit at the notched edge of her thumbnail, gnawing off a filthy sliver and spitting it away.

The Hawk convulsed once, then again, one leg kicking. She whimpered and rolled to one side, then the other, a crackling gurgle exploding from her throat. Anji sighed and sat straighter. She had no desire for closeness with this woman. The Hawk had taken her prisoner, had beaten and scorned and humiliated her. Her ultimate goal was Anji’s torture and execution.

The Hawk yelped in pain or fear or both. Anji laid a hand to the woman’s twitching shoulder.

What the hell am I doing?

“It’s okay,” she said, “I’m here.”

The Hawk shuddered, her eyes shut tight.

Anji did what she could.

How many animals does it take,

To catch the wicked and make us safe,

Ox is strongest, loyal and true,

Goat is cleverest, valor anew,

Hawk is quickest, watch and fly,

Lynx is quietest, in darkness high,

Bear leads the pack with truest soul,

Sing for them in every role

Anji sang the song three times. Not in the lilting, childish way she had as a girl, jumping rope and giggling with the other children. She sang low and sweet, drawing out the notes like a tossed angler’s line, reeling them back in with each new verse. The Hawk’s shivering slowed, then finally stilled. They sat together, an old, sick warrior and a terrified laundress, in a cave surrounded by snow and death and unforgiving cold, and Anji felt a tension in her heart ease.