“This way,” Mirror said, and everyone followed her into the shade of a large marble-floored room that looked like it had once been the lobby of a hotel. In its center, a group of women huddled around something on the ground.

“What is it?” Serina asked. The women made room for her. Nomi and Maris paused outside the circle of women. But they were close enough to hear Serina’s gasp, followed by, “I know him. That’s the Heir.”

Nomi’s mind went blank. Then she was pushing through the others, ignoring their hisses and answering elbows, until she could see what the others saw. The body on the ground.

She fell to her knees at his side. Water puddled beneath him, wetting her heavy skirts. Whispers echoed behind her: Malachi. The Heir. Is he dead?

Nomi’s hands flitted across Malachi’s chest, over the deathly pallor of his cheeks, over his closed eyelids, purpled with cold. He was dead. Was he dead?

“What happened? Where did you find him?” Serina asked.

Another girl’s voice answered, “He was on the beach south of the pier. Pretty bad wound in his side.”

“He was on the boat with us,” Nomi whispered. “They—they threw him overboard.”

And there it was, so faint Nomi would have missed it if she hadn’t been staring, hoping: the tiniest rise of his chest. “He’s still alive.” She could barely form the words.

“Maris said he was dead. And the Superior too. What happened?” Serina crouched by Nomi and put a hand on her shoulder.

“I was trying to save you,” Nomi said in a rush. “I thought I could—I thought I was going to change Viridia. But Malachi’s brother betrayed me. He—he killed his own father. And Malachi… What Maris said is true. Asa is the new Superior.” The words sliced her throat like knives. “And it is my fault.”

“Asa tried to kill his own brother?” Serina asked, staring down at Malachi, her eyes wide.

“If we don’t do something fast, he’s going to succeed,” Nomi replied. Malachi had lost too much blood, had suffered for too long. He was strong, but he wouldn’t survive in this state forever.

“Good,” came a hard voice from the crowd of women. “Let them all die.”

“His father killed my cousin,” another call joined the first.

“His father took my sister as a Grace. She died two years later in childbirth. We should let his son die too.”

Nomi brushed Malachi’s cold cheek with her fingers. No. No, he can’t die.

“Let him die!” The call was picked up. Magnified. The words echoed around her.

“No!” she shouted at last, above them all. Silence fell. She didn’t stand up. She didn’t look at the women crowded close. She kept her eyes on the faint swell of Malachi’s chest, on the weak flutter at his throat.