Biting back a groan, Serina carefully pulled herself to her feet. Sunlight warmed her face. Beside her, Cliff hauled up a bucket of bloody water. Her broad, sun-weathered forehead furrowed in concentration, or maybe exhaustion. The older woman had been in charge of the Cave crew’s freshies and was one of the first women Serina had encountered on the island, along with Oracle.

Serina’s breath hitched. She still remembered that night so clearly—how terrified she’d been, even before the fight had started, even before she knew women were about to start killing one another. How alone she’d felt, and how much she’d missed her sister.

That hadn’t changed. Serina’s separation from Nomi hurt more keenly—and more deeply—than her broken ribs and bullet wound.

Cliff carried the bucket to the edge of the cracked stone amphitheater, where Mount Ruin’s hardy yellow grass waved in the breeze. Another woman, bent and weary from the night’s work, gathered the dirty scraps of cloth they’d used to scrub the stone. Serina wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Nomi.

Serina needed to come up with a plan. Nomi was trapped in Bellaqua, one of three Graces for the Superior’s Heir. Not that long ago, Serina had wanted exactly what Nomi had—a life of luxury and beauty on the arm of the most powerful man in Viridia—but to her sister, that life was a prison as real as Mount Ruin. And Serina was determined to liberate her.

Anika and Val appeared at the top of the amphitheater with a rusty cart laden with large burlap bags—the rations Commander Ricci had hoarded. As they pushed the bounty down the aisle toward Serina, a line of women gathered behind them, spreading out along the swaths of volcanic rock that had poured over one section of stone benches. More filed in from the base of the theater, where a handful of women had been resting against the wall of the observation tower. All told, Serina guessed there were a hundred and fifty women still here, still alive, give or take a dozen. Most of them stared hungrily at the cart of burlap bags.

Val and Anika stopped when they reached the dais at the bottom of the amphitheater.

Val’s unruly brown hair curled in every direction around his tan face. His jaw was bruised, his neck streaked with dirt. Serina smiled at him a little giddily. He’d had the chance to escape, to leave her behind. But he hadn’t. He’d stayed and helped them. He noticed her expression, and his own face relaxed into a grin.