“Should be tonight,” Ren agreed. “Probably in a few hours, since they just brought lunch about an hour ago.”

“No word from Akeylah?”

Ren made a negative sound in the back of her throat.

Zofi rested her forehead against the bars. The cool metal did little to alleviate the pounding in her head. “That’s it, then,” she murmured. “Audrina wins.”

“Barring a miracle, I’d say so.” Ren sounded resigned. Defeated, in a way Zofi had never heard from her sister.

“You know her best,” Zofi said after a while. “How will it really be with her on the throne?”

Ren laughed without humor. “She murdered her own parents, then tried to drown me, her only real friend.” She sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. She had her moments, when she seemed kind and caring, but now… How much of that was just her calculating the best way onto the throne, and how much was real?”

Zofi stared at the ceiling. Watched a single drip of water gather and inch its way down her cell wall. “Maybe even Audrina isn’t sure. I mean, she knew who you were all along. She knew you were her sister, the daughter her father didn’t despise. Even if you were her friend, even if she cared for you, I’m sure those emotions all tangled up together.”

“Hatred is not the opposite of love,” Ren whispered, and sounded as though she were quoting someone.

“That would probably be apathy,” Zofi said. “Hating someone takes so much energy, so much—”

“Care,” Ren finished with a sigh.

Zofi nodded to herself. She watched another drip inch down the wall.

She wondered where Akeylah was. How the Blood Ceremony would go. How long it would be before Audrina returned, this time with a crown on her head, to have Ren and Zofi executed.

She prayed for a quick death.

She had a feeling they wouldn’t be so lucky.

“Zofi?” Ren’s voice sounded closer now, as though she’d crawled to the nearest part of her cage. “When Aud tried to curse me, through the shield tithe… What happened? I thought I felt you fighting her, but I don’t understand how.”

Zofi closed her eyes. She remembered leaping into Audrina’s room, seeing the curse on Ren’s hands. She’d reacted on instinct. Slapped a boost to tithe. Except instead of performing a normal tithe, she’d pushed her mind outside her own body.