“Drink it!” shouted the Revinir, her voice pitching upward and dropping all pretense of gentleness. “Or out you go!” She hesitated as the reckless look grew more exaggerated on her face. Then she went to the window bars and placed both clawed front feet on them. Bracing one giant rear foot against the wall for leverage, she yanked hard. With an explosive grunt, she ripped the bars out and stumbled backward with them, leaving Dev openmouthed and staring, speechless and horrified by her strength. Then the Revinir threw the bars out the opening and ducked her head to look out after them, watching them go. They made a clatter on the way down, followed by a faint splash into the moat far below.

In the moment of distraction, and with the Revinir looking out the open space, Dev regained some of his senses and moved to switch the two corked bottles. But with his trembling hands, he bobbled the uncorked one and sent it skittering across the floor, leaking dragon-bone broth as it rolled. He uttered an oath under his breath.

The Revinir turned sharply and saw the mess. She snarled at Dev and started toward him. “You did that on purpose!”

“No!” cried Dev. “I didn’t mean to do it! You—you just have me so scared!”

The Revinir’s face wrinkled in disgust. “You’re such a simpering baby. Completely useless to me. Not one person in this world cares about you, which does me no good at all. I need an evil one that people care about. This isn’t easy!” The Revinir grabbed Dev by the back of his shirt and picked him up, shaking him. The two other vials went flying and crashed to the floor, shattering.

The Revinir looked puzzled for a moment as she realized there’d been one more vial than what she’d handed him. Then her grip tightened. She lifted Dev to eye level and stared at him. “What is going on?” she said in a dark voice.

Dev held his ribs and didn’t answer.

“Is the extra one a dose of dragon-bone broth that you should have taken in the catacombs? Is that why you aren’t under my spell?”

Dev froze. “Yes,” he said too quickly.

The dragon-woman studied him suspiciously. “You’re lying,” she said, sniffing him. “You sneaky boy.” Still holding him by the shirt, she wrinkled her dragonlike snout and bent down to smell the remains of the broken vials, first one, then the other. She went back and forth again, stopping on the second. “That’s ancestor broth,” she said. “I thought we’d destroyed it all long ago.”

“There must have been an old one mixed in by mistake—”

“Lies!” The Revinir shook Dev to silence him. “Did she…?” she wondered aloud, her eyes clouded with contempt. But there was reluctant admiration, too.

Dev whimpered in pain. He slumped and didn’t try to lie any further—not with him hanging precariously from her grasp. Besides, it wouldn’t help. It was clear she was already beginning to piece together what Thisbe and Rohan had done to break the spells that the black-eyed slaves had been under for the past months. It was only a matter of time before she figured it out. The ache in Dev’s side throbbed with every movement, every breath.