It was easy to blend in with the crowds crossing to and from Ravka. There were families, groups of soldiers, nobles, and peasants. Children climbed over the ruins of sandskiffs. People gathered in spontaneous parties. They kissed and hugged, handed around bottles of kvas and fried bread stuffed with raisins. They greeted each other with shouts of “Yunejhost!” Unity.

Amid the celebrations, there were pockets of grief. Silence reigned in the crumbling remains of what had been Novokribirsk. Most of the buildings had slumped into dust. There were only dim suggestions of spaces where the streets had been, and everything had been bleached a nearly colorless gray. The round stone fountain that had stood at the center of the town looked like a crescent moon, eaten away wherever the Fold’s dark power had touched it. Old men poked at the odd ruins and muttered to each other. Even beyond the fallen town’s edges, mourners laid flowers on the wrecks of skiffs, and built little altars in their hulls.

Everywhere, I saw people wearing the double eagle, carrying banners, and waving Ravkan flags. Girls wore pale blue and gold ribbons in their hair, and I heard whispers of the tortures the brave young prince had endured at the Darkling’s hands.

I heard my name too. Pilgrims were already flooding into the Fold to see the miracle that had occurred and to offer up prayers to Sankta Alina. Once again, vendors had begun setting up carts littered with what they claimed were my finger bones, and my face stared back at me from the painted surfaces of wooden icons. It wasn’t quite me, though. This was a prettier girl, with round cheeks and serene brown eyes, the antlers of Morozova’s collar resting on her slender neck. Alina of the Fold.

No one spared us a second glance. We weren’t nobles. We weren’t Second Army. We weren’t this strange new class of Summoner soldier. We were anonymous. We were tourists.

In Kribirsk, the party was in full swing. The drydocks were ablaze with colored lanterns. People sang and drank aboard the sandskiffs. They crowded on the steps of the barracks and raided the mess tent for food. I glimpsed the yellow flag of the Documents Tent, and though some part of me ached to return there, to take in the old familiar smells of ink and paper, I couldn’t risk the possibility that one of the cartographers would recognize me.

The brothels and taverns in town were doing a booming business. An impromptu dance was being held in the central square, though just down the street a crowd had gathered at the old church to read the names written on its walls and light candles for the dead. I paused to light one for Harshaw, then another, and another. He would have liked the flames.

Tamar had found a room for us at one of the more respectable inns. I left Mal and Misha there with promises to return that night. The news coming out of Os Alta was still a tangle, and we hadn’t had word of Misha’s mother yet. I knew he must be hopeful, but he hadn’t said a word about it, just solemnly vowed to watch over Mal in my absence.