Along with the stench of salt and sweat, the crowds only grew thicker as Wren drew nearer to the Tower. People lingered in intersections and filled alleyways. They buried their faces in the paper, jostling their neighbors and tripping over their own feet. They hugged. They wept openly. They stumbled out of bars with their slurred, singsong voices bouncing off the cobblestone streets.

Wren couldn’t fathom what news had stirred everyone like this. For weeks, the headlines had all been the same: portents of war and heart-wrenching accounts from the families of the missing soldiers.

Maybe someone found them. Maybe Una could finally come home.

Her appointment with the queen was in twenty minutes, but she couldn’t bear not knowing. Shoving her way through the crowd, she purchased a newspaper and ducked beneath an unoccupied awning to read.

Nestled among advertisements for gold-plated spoons and malt vinegar, gossip columns and theater announcements, was a portrait. It had been years since she last saw Hal Cavendish’s face, but it was unmistakably him. Everything about him oozed imperiousness, from the downturn of his full lips to his bored, coal-black stare. On reflex, she tore her eyes away from his deadly gaze—and tripped over the headline.

“REAPER” HAL CAVENDISH FOURTH VESRIAN THIS YEAR TO DISAPPEAR; TENSIONS RISE AS VESRIA TURNS TO DANU FOR ANSWERS

Wren hadn’t known Vesrian soldiers were vanishing, too. And while the news troubled her—confused her, really—she could not stop herself from grinning at the first part of the headline.

Hal Cavendish, missing. How could they get so lucky?

At nineteen years old, he was the favored candidate to become the next grand magistrate, and Wren shuddered to think what horrors would come of Hal’s reign. To please their ravenous god, Vesrians held elections that were little more than blood sport. Every five years, each of the eight ruling families put forth a candidate whose worthiness to lead was tested in combat. This year, however, Hal would be the ninth mage—and the first Cavendish in two generations—to stake his life for power.

The magic in the Cavendish bloodline had run dry with Hal’s grandfather, and true to Vesria’s brutish customs, his family had been stripped of its title and barred from the magisterium. Now, Hal would slaughter and intimidate his way to glory among the aristocracy. A sordid redemption, indeed. Who, after all, would be fool enough to challenge the Reaper of Vesria? No one knew how many Danubians he’d killed. And even before joining the war, he’d committed atrocities. Rumor had it the Vesrian military academy graduated only half their recruits. The other half died, slain by their own classmates in a tournament.

Good riddance, she thought. One less monster left in this world.

“Anything interesting?” Una asked.