Anji chewed at the inside of her lip, annoyed with herself, with her seemingly inexhaustible ability to get herself further into trouble. The Hawk had told her how horrible the Goat was, and she simply hadn’t given a shit. Some childish part of her must have hoped the Hawk had been wrong about her old friends, that she was just a bitter old woman who’d been kicked out of a club, tossed aside, abandoned. The idea of the Menagerie being anything but the heroes Anji had grown up pretending to be had seemed ridiculous.

Now, as she trudged in front of the Goat, shirt and face stained with blood, panic flooding through her in thick waves, she knew she’d been wrong about the Menagerie all along. How stupid she’d been, how taken in by fantasy, by childhood songs and Senate lies. Why had she not heard of the Goat’s cruelty before? And where were the Ox and the Bear?

As if in answer to her question, a figure appeared down the snaking trail. The Goat whistled, and Anji knew he meant for her to stop. She halted, hands still raised, manacles jingling on her chafed wrists.

“You can lower your hands,” said the Goat, crossbow still aimed true.

Anji’s arms cramped as she eased them down, the manacle’s cuffs sliding back into place. She wanted to sit, to rest her aching legs, but for all she knew the Goat would shoot her for it.

“Who is that?” she asked, nodding down the trail.

“Shut up,” the Goat said, shifting his weight. He kicked a rock out from underfoot and Anji watched it clatter down the trail. She thought of the avalanche, wishing he’d been under the falling snow too. The Goat had tied the blue satchel to his belt, near the loop holding the Hawk’s sword. Anji ground her teeth—her knife was so close and yet so far away. She felt ten years old again, jumping to grab at her shoe being tossed between two bullies, sprinting down a muddy sidewalk while bigger kids chased and jeered. She imagined sticking something sharp in this bully’s gut and watching him piss himself.

A woman approached, stocky and thick-thighed and wearing a mask.

The Bear, Anji thought, her throat going dry. But no, the Bear’s mask was white, or at least, the one Anji had seen that day in Mudtown had been. It was always painted white on the dolls as well. As the woman came closer the features of the mask came into better focus. Deep brown and carved of wood polished so smooth it gleamed in the low light. The only wooden mask in the Menagerie.

The Ox.

The Goat snapped a finger at Anji. “Sit.”

Anji settled on a somewhat flat chunk of stone near the road’s edge. She massaged blood back into her thighs as the woman came level with the Goat.

“Hawk?”

“Gone.”