When Genya brought me my dinner tray, she found me curled up on my bunk, facing the wall.

“You should eat,” she said.

“Leave me alone.”

“Sulking gives you wrinkles.”

“Well, lying gives you warts,” I said sourly. She laughed, then entered and set down the tray. She crossed to the sidescuttle and glanced at her reflection in the glass. “Maybe I should go blond,” she said. “Corporalki red clashes horribly with my hair.”

I cast a glance over my shoulder. “You know you could wear baked mud and outshine every girl on two continents.”

“True,” she said with a grin.

I didn’t return her smile. She sighed and studied the toes of her boots. “I missed you,” she said.

I was surprised at how much those words hurt. I’d missed her, too. And I’d felt like a fool for it.

“Were you ever my friend?” I asked.

She sat down at the edge of the bunk. “Would it make a difference?”

“I like to know just how stupid I’ve been.”

“I loved being your friend, Alina. But I’m not sorry for what I did.”

“And what the Darkling did? Are you sorry for that?”

“I know you think he’s a monster, but he’s trying to do what’s right for Ravka, for all of us.”

I shoved up to my elbows. I’d lived with the knowledge of the Darkling’s lies so long that it was easy to forget how few people knew what he really was. “Genya, he created the Fold.”

“The Black Heretic—”

“There is no Black Heretic,” I said, revealing the truth that Baghra had laid out before me months ago at the Little Palace. “He blamed his ancestor for the Fold, but there’s only ever been one Darkling, and all he cares about is power.”

“That’s impossible. The Darkling has spent his life trying to free Ravka from the Fold.”

“How can you say that after what he did to Novokribirsk?” The Darkling had used the power of the Unsea to destroy an entire town, a show of strength meant to cow his enemies and mark the start of his rule. And I’d made it possible.

“I know there was … an incident.”

“An incident? He killed hundreds of people, maybe thousands.”

“And what about the people on the skiff?” she said quietly.

I drew in a sharp breath and lay back. For a long moment, I studied the planks above me. I didn’t want to ask, but I knew I was going to. The question had haunted me over long weeks and miles of ocean. “Were there … were there other survivors?”

“Besides Ivan and the Darkling?”

I nodded, waiting.

“Two Inferni who helped them escape,” she said. “A few soldiers from the First Army made it back, and a Squaller named Nathalia got out, but she died of her injuries a few days later.”

I closed my eyes. How many people had been aboard that sandskiff? Thirty? Forty? I felt sick. I could hear the screams, the howls of the volcra. I could smell the gunpowder and blood. I’d sacrificed those people for Mal’s life, for my freedom, and in the end, they’d died for nothing. We were back in the Darkling’s grasp, and he was more powerful than ever.