“How bad is it out there?” Zofi craned her neck to peer through the doors toward the Great Hall.

Akeylah looked as though she’d just been to war and back. Then again, Ren supposed, they all had. She roused herself from her stupor enough to focus on Akeylah’s report.

After the menders carried Audrina’s body from the hall, the Talons had tried to reclaim some semblance of order. They’d gathered Ren’s and Zofi’s chains once more, marched them to a back room that Captain Lindle deemed securable, which apparently meant they could post enough guards on every entrance to block any escape routes.

“I called an emergency council meeting,” Akeylah said. “The council of lords and the regional council will both be in attendance. Convenes in fifteen minutes, which should be enough time to…” She nodded at Ren.

Ren looked down at her skirts. It was a mark of her mental state that she only just now realized they were stained in Audrina’s blood. “I still don’t understand what that was,” Ren said to Zofi as she touched the stains. “The boost, or whatever you called it.”

Zofi glanced at her, away. “It’s not my secret to share. But… do you remember the thing Danton found that serving boy trying to plant in your room?”

Ren thought back to the time when Danton caught an errand boy hiding an object in Ren’s shoes. A mysterious round glass ornament with dark red liquid inside. “How did Audrina know how to make something like that, though, if it’s such a secret Traveler device?”

Zofi shrugged. “Same way she knew anything the three of us tried to keep secret, I’m guessing.” Her sister’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “But Audrina’s knowledge wasn’t perfect. The boost she sent that boy to use against you, for example, would never have worked. You can only make boosts for yourself, not another person. And if she’d grown up a Traveler, she would have known better than to do what she did today. Mother’s warned me about shield tithes ever since I was a child. If you’re shielded and you use a boost, even for something positive like to heal yourself, the Arts can’t get out of your system. They rebound on you. Curses are even more dangerous, obviously, but it would’ve been terrible no matter what tithe she tried.”

Ren shut her eyes. Swallowed hard. “So, what happened to her…”

“Was what she tried to do to us.” Akeylah grimaced. “Ren, I’m so sorry. I know she was your friend.”

Ren kept her eyes shut tight. “I just can’t believe I didn’t see it. All this time…”

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. Akeylah’s. “You couldn’t have known.”