“Victory?” she asked as shadows bled slowly into a recognizable shape. The weaponsmaster sat beside her, her face deathly white, streaked with blood and grime.

She was in the small, whitewashed sickroom, the smell of wintergreen and woundwort strong in the air. Five Hunters lay unmoving in beds lined up under the tall, narrow windows. Opposite each bed a fire burned in a small hearth. Improbably cheerful rays of wintry sun striped the scrubbed floors. Someone had draped a bearskin over her, but Twelve felt chilled to the bone as her memories slowly trickled back.

“Yes, I can hear you,” she groaned, trying to push herself up through a wave of pain and dizziness. She ignored Widge’s growl of disapproval. To her surprise, she discovered she was still gripping her axes. “What happened?”

“You fell from the ogre’s shoulder,” Victory said. “You bounced off its leg and one of the Hunters managed to catch you. You’re lucky you haven’t broken every bone in your body.”

“And Silver . . . ?” Twelve asked. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

“Dead,” Victory said, her voice choking over the word.

Twelve swallowed, furious to find her eyes prickling with tears. Victory’s hand found hers and squeezed once, hard. The Hunter’s face mirrored the devastation Twelve felt.

“Dead, and it was my fault,” Victory whispered. “Constant vigilance, Twelve. Always. It only takes one moment . . . one lapse . . . but the consequences . . .” She buried her face in her hands, then shook herself and straightened before Twelve could find the right words. This was a side of the weaponsmaster she had never seen.

“I need to know everything you saw and heard in the dungeons before the attack,” she said, her voice hers again, if higher than normal.

Nodding, and grinding down her grief, Twelve recounted all she could remember.

“You’re absolutely certain they were goblins?” Victory asked when she had finished.

“Yes,” Twelve said firmly. “They’re easy to recognize.”

“They are,” Victory said slowly, “but you’re the only one who saw them.”

Twelve stared in surprise. “What about Five? He was right there!”

“Must have been knocked unconscious in the blast,” the Hunter said darkly. “He only came up into the courtyard as we finished off the last ogre. And none of the night watch saw them either.”

Twelve absorbed this in silence.

“Are you sure you heard them say they’d find ‘her’?” Victory asked. Urgency hummed through the question.

“Yes,” Twelve said with a frown, “I’m certain.”

Victory stood and paced along the foot of the beds, her jaw tight. “A student is missing,” she said finally, her voice strained. “Seven is no longer in the lodge.”

“What?” The shock was a physical pain, a thorn tearing the center of Twelve’s chest. Widge became very still, barely seeming to breathe.

Not Seven. Not her too.