Beside them, Anika fell to her knees, a hand to her stomach. Serina tore her arms from Nomi and crouched beside the girl. Nomi hurried to help.

“Are you all right?” Serina asked.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but Nomi thought Anika’s skin seemed ashen, almost gray. The whites of her eyes glowed. She stood back up with Serina’s help and then waved them both off. She picked through the bodies, her shoulders slumping, and collapsed into a delicate patio chair that had somehow avoided the carnage. She didn’t answer the question. Serina followed her, panic showing on her swollen face. “Anika!”

Nomi trailed after them, trying to think of something she could do. She saw Val off to the side, exhaustion making him haggard.

Anika hissed in a breath. “I’m… I’m okay. I just… need to sit down.”

“You need a doctor,” Serina replied. She looked around, as if somehow one might materialize out of the night.

Nomi looked around too. But all she saw were the surviving fighters, the white splashes of the retreating soldiers, the moonlight. A few feet from where she stood, Marcos lay crumpled, his throat cut. She couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty about the relief that flowed through her.

“Did we get him?” Anika asked weakly. “Did we bring down the Superior?”

“Not yet.” Serina looked at Nomi, her expression shifting at whatever she saw in Nomi’s face.

“Asa is dead,” Nomi said. She’d been trying to ignore the pain in her throat, but her voice came out strange and hoarse, like she’d swallowed broken glass. She tried to keep from cracking… the look in his eyes as he strangled her, the sound of his body hitting the ground…

“Oh, Nomi,” Serina said, and in those two words, Nomi heard that she was sorry, that she understood why Nomi’s hands still shook, that she knew the nightmares that would carry them both.

They hugged again, and for a moment, the darkness seemed less absolute.

THIRTY-SEVEN

SERINA

SERINA NEVER WANTED to let Nomi go. She couldn’t believe she was here, that she was safe. She couldn’t believe that her sister had killed the Superior.

Asa is dead.

The battle was over.

Serina was still standing.

She buried her face in Nomi’s neck and breathed.

“We have a problem.” Val’s voice cut holes into Serina’s growing peace. She drew back with a sigh.

Val put a hand on her lower back. “There are troops massing in the piazza across the canal. More than we can handle.”

“Maybe it’s Malachi!” Nomi said, some light coming back to her eyes. “Maybe he found Dante.”

“Or it could be the Superior’s reinforcements,” Val said. “No one knows Asa is dead yet. Those retreating soldiers could have sounded the alarm to Bellaqua’s garrison.”

“So how can we tell?” Nomi asked, looking crestfallen.