“Ketterdam? It’s—”

He never finished his sentence. A shadowed blur cut across my vision, and Nikolai was gone. I stood staring at the place where he’d been, then screamed as I felt claws close over my shoulders and my feet lifted from the floor.

I glimpsed Mal bursting through the door to the terrace, Tamar on his heels. He lunged across the distance and seized me around the waist, yanking me back down. I twisted, arms moving in an arc, sending a blaze of light burning through the nichevo’ya that had hold of me. It wavered and exploded into nothing. I fell to the terrace in a heap, toppling with Mal, bleeding from where the monster’s talons had pierced my skin.

I was on my feet in seconds, horrified by what I saw. The air was full of darting black shapes, winged monsters that moved unlike any natural creature. Behind me, I heard chaos erupting in the hall, the smash of breaking glass as nichevo’ya hurled themselves against the windows.

“Get the others out,” I yelled to Tamar. “Get them away from here.”

“We can’t leave you—”

“I won’t lose them too!”

“Go!” Mal bellowed at her. He shouldered his rifle, taking aim at the attacking monsters. I lashed out with the Cut, but they were moving so quickly that I couldn’t target them. I craned my neck, searching the sky for Nikolai. My heart was pounding. Where was the Darkling? If his monsters were here, then he must be nearby.

He came from above. His creatures moved around him like a living cloak, their wings beating the air in a rippling black wave, forming and re-forming, bearing him aloft, their bodies slipping apart and together, absorbing the bullets from Mal’s gun.

“Saints,” Mal swore. “How did he find us?”

The answer came quickly. I saw a red shape suspended between two nichevo’ya, their black claws sunk deeply into their captive’s body. Sergei’s face was chalky, his eyes wide and terrified, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

“Shall I spare him, Alina?” said the Darkling.

“Leave him alone!”

“He betrayed you to the first oprichnik he could find. I wonder, will you offer him mercy or justice?”

“I don’t want him harmed,” I shouted.

My mind was reeling. Had Sergei really betrayed us? He’d been on edge since the battle at the Little Palace, but what if he’d been planning this all along? Maybe he’d just been trying to slip away during our fight with the militia, maybe he’d let Genya’s name drop deliberately. He’d been so ready to leave the Spinning Wheel.

That was when I realized what Sergei was muttering—not prayers, just one word over and over again: Safe. Safe. Safe.

“Give him to me,” I said.

“He betrayed me first, Alina. He remained in Os Alta when he should have come to my side. He sat on your council, plotted against me. He told me everything.”

Thank the Saints we’d kept the location of the firebird a secret.