It was past noon by the time they reached Bellaqua. Serina crouched by Val, who’d dragged himself to a spot along the gunwale. One of his eyes had swollen shut, and his lip had split. Ugly streaks of blood dirtied the front of his shirt. Serina knew there were hidden bruises too, because every time he moved he winced in pain. With her arms bound, she could do little more than hold his hands.

The boat docked at the palazzo’s pier. Serina had expected they would be taken to another prison somewhere, but the spark of surprise at their destination barely touched the haze of defeat engulfing her. The soldiers marched them through the baking sunlight to a cooler hallway at the rear of the palazzo. Servants steered well clear of the line of prisoners, their eyes going wide.

Serina twisted to search for Mirror and the other injured women, who were all weak and likely to falter. One of the soldiers cuffed her on the shoulder. “Keep moving,” he growled.

Her heart pounded in her throat. She felt sick. She’d thought she was through with violent guards.

The line of women moved slowly through narrow hallways and down a steep dark stairwell to a dim passage that smelled like a newly dug grave. They passed a wine cellar, storage rooms, and several closed doors. Even lit, the corridor was as confining—as terrifying—as the lava tube. Serina took tiny, too-quick breaths, the weight of the palazzo pressing down around her.

At last, at the very end of the hall, they were herded into a room. Unlike where Serina had been held after she was caught with Nomi’s book, this cell wasn’t merely dim and sparsely furnished. It was dark and dank, with weeping stone walls. This was the dungeon.

And it was far too small. The guards shoved and yanked until every woman was squeezed inside. Somehow Val made it into the room too. Serina wondered if they’d meant to keep him out, to punish him as a traitor and insurrectionist. Execute him, like they’d executed his father. But in the press of bodies and confusion, he managed to stay with her, for which she was painfully grateful.

There wasn’t room to sit. The cool dark heated quickly, and the constant pressure on all sides was nearly more than Serina could bear. It was worse than the cave on Mount Ruin. There was no air, no space. They’d been buried alive.

“Please, please,” a voice whispered into the darkness. “Please deliver us.”

“Just kill me,” someone near Serina muttered, and she recognized it as Anika’s voice, but this time her defiance was laced with desperation.

Serina wanted to offer a rousing speech, a word of comfort, anything—but the voice of her own defeat drowned everything else out. Val leaned into her and kissed her temple, but he had nothing to say either.