Title Page

Copyright Notice

The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

Dedication

For all the girls who feel too much

CHAPTER ONE

Wren had never seen a worse radial fracture.

She replayed the break over and over again, each moment frozen like hoarfrost on the backs of her eyes. The boy, desperate to escape, scrabbling up the side of a tree. His fingers catching on a branch. The crack of snapping wood. The crack of snapping bone. And then, worst of all—the flare of her magic, calling out to heal him as he screamed.

Wren perched on the knee of an upturned root, watching as Una bound the boy to the tree he’d fallen from. Shadows hung as heavy as fog in the copse, and what little sunlight leaked through the alders turned sallow, gleaming cold on the shard of bone. It jutted from his wrist like a splinter waiting to be pulled loose.

Volar apex angulation, Wren thought. Dorsal displacement of the fragment. No doubt an accompanying break in the ulnar styloid process. It was an easy diagnosis of an injury she could heal in minutes.

“Don’t think I can’t see what’s on your mind.” Una dropped the chains, and they struck the earth with a decisive thud. As always, she cut an imposing figure in her black military tunic, its stern rows of buttons shining like steel. “Enemy spies don’t deserve your pity.”

Maybe not. But they didn’t deserve cruelty, either. Wren rested her chin on her fists, trying for nonchalance even as her stomach roiled with guilt. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”

“No? Then perhaps I imagined that misty look in your eye.”

She bristled but held her tongue. Una had been so ornery all morning, and Wren was almost exhausted enough to oblige her with the fight she clearly wanted. Only one more hour, she reminded herself. Soon enough, the rest of their unit would arrive with the carriage, and from there they would drag their prisoner back to Knockaine for a proper interrogation.

Una snatched the boy’s rucksack and stole out of the clearing. Silhouetted at the cliff’s edge, she carved a gash in a sky reddened with sunset. Its light burned like embers in the darkness of her eyes and deepened every worried line on her face.

Wren sighed, her breath pluming in the winter air. Her best friend had always carried far too much responsibility on her shoulders. As much as she wanted to throttle Una right now, she empathized with her. Times like these demanded draconian measures.