Serina’s nose wrinkled. No. The smell was wrong. The air didn’t burn with sulfur and iron; it smelled more like a campfire, like woodsmoke.

“Do you smell that?” she asked Ember. Had one of the girls built the cook fire early, and too big?

Wordlessly, Ember pointed.

Serina craned her neck in the direction Ember indicated, toward the heart of the island. A strange glow permeated the area. It was larger, closer than the caldera.

Serina quickened her pace. The prison compound was quiet. Without the guards or weapons there, they’d shut up the building. No one guarded it anymore. Still, it was eerie to see it this way, its blank, barred windows staring.

The smell of burning wood got stronger.

Serina began to run.

She, Ember, and the markswomen thundered into the clearing before Hotel Misery. Here, all was not quiet, though it still had an element of the macabre. Women were running everywhere.

“What’s going on?” Serina shouted, securing the attention of Mirror, who was hauling a half-empty bag of food out of the infirmary.

Mirror’s face was pale beneath her blanket of freckles. Fear had tensed her muscles, made her jerky and awkward. She didn’t have time to answer before Serina saw it.

Flames climbing to the sky. A crackle and whoosh, like a million birds flooding the air.

Fire. A wall of it, a wave, roaring down through the forest toward Hotel Misery.

SIXTEEN

NOMI

THE HIRED CARRIAGE bumped bruisingly along the rough country road. Nomi’s palms sweat through the fabric of her dress as she gripped her thighs to keep them from jiggling impatiently. An elderly woman with a large basket sat beside her, squishing her into the side of the carriage. On the woman’s other side sat her middle-aged daughter, who constantly jostled for more space. Nomi barely had room to breathe. Across from them, Malachi and the old woman’s husband sat, their knees spread comfortably. Malachi had a straw hat tipped low over his eyes and pretended to nap, discouraging the other gentleman from speaking to him. No one tried to speak to Nomi.

She kept her chin down. She stared at the woman’s basket until she’d examined every thread of the red-gold-and-green towel that hid what smelled like fresh bread. She ignored the ache of her empty stomach.