Zofi caught Ren’s eye. Shook her head. “The only thing…” Zofi hesitated. Looked at the Talon gripping her arm.

With a sigh, he let her go as well, and Zofi knelt beside Ren.

“She might be able to heal herself if she has another boost on her. I don’t know that it would work; even a positive boost is dangerous to use with a shield tithe, but…” Zofi explained what to look for. A round glass phial somewhere on Audrina’s body.

Ren reached for Aud’s waist. Felt through the fabric of her dress, up to her rib cage.

Audrina’s eyes fluttered. Focused on Ren, even as black tendrils clawed their way up her throat. “Ren?” she whispered, and in that single, quivering word, Ren heard her friend. The girl beneath the villain’s mask.

Ren raised Audrina’s hand to her chest, and bent down into Aud’s view. In her peripheral vision, she saw Zofi continue to search up and down Aud’s legs, failing to find whatever it was she needed.

“I’m right here,” Ren murmured. She ignored the burn in the back of her eyes.

“They never… wanted me.” Audrina’s gaze flickered to the ceiling, back to Ren. The black webs of her own curse had reached her jaw, and unfurled across her cheeks. Darkened her lips like a strongwine stain.

Ren swallowed around a knot in her throat. She knew who Aud meant. The parents she’d spent her whole life trying so desperately to please.

“You don’t need them.” Ren dropped her voice to a whisper and clenched Audrina’s hand so hard she worried it might hurt. If Aud could feel anything in her blackened fingers, that was. “You’ve got a friend who loves you like family. Who is family. You’re my sister, Aud.”

A ghost of a smile touched Audrina’s blackened lips. “Sister,” she breathed, eyes locked on Ren’s. “I wish… we could’ve been.” Then the curse’s web reached the whites of her eyes, swallowed them, and any light left in her faded. Her hand went limp in Ren’s.

“Audrina.” She shook her arm. Touched her cheek. “Audrina.”

She forced herself to remember the girl her friend had been. A girl full of secrets, more than Ren could have guessed. But also a girl who’d danced with her under the moons, who’d let Ren cry on her shoulder a hundred times.

For all Audrina had done to her, Ren realized she’d still been holding out hope. Hope that her friend was in there, deep down. Hope they could mend this, fix the mistakes their parents had made, somehow.

Menders thundered onto the dais. Late. Too late.

Ren fell backward, into someone else. Zofi, she realized, crouched at her left. Then Akeylah knelt on her right, and they both caught her hands. Ren shut her eyes. Clung to the sisters she had left.