I hesitated, then cast a meaningful glance at the men the Apparat had stationed at the door to the chamber. Mal stepped closer. I wanted to press my cheek to his chest, feel his arms around me, listen to the steady, human beat of his heart. I didn’t.

Instead, I spoke low, barely moving my lips. “I’ve tried,” I whispered. “Something’s wrong.”

He frowned. “You can’t summon?” he asked hesitantly. Was there fear in his voice? Hope? Concern? I couldn’t tell. All I could sense in him was caution.

“I’m too weak. We’re too far belowground. I don’t know.”

I watched his face, remembering the argument we’d had in the birchwood grove, when he’d asked if I would give up being Grisha. Never, I’d said. Never.

Hopelessness crowded in on me, dense and black, heavy like the press of soil. I didn’t want to say the words, didn’t want to give voice to the fear I’d carried with me through the long, dark miles beneath the earth, but I forced myself to speak it. “The light won’t come, Mal. My power is gone.”

AFTER

AGAIN, THE GIRL dreamed of ships, but this time, they flew. They had white wings made of canvas, and a clever-eyed fox stood behind the wheel. Sometimes the fox became a prince who kissed her lips and offered her a jeweled crown. Sometimes he was a red hellhound, foam on his muzzle, snapping at her heels as she ran.

Every so often, she dreamed of the firebird. It caught her up in wings of flame and held her as she burned.

Long before word came, she knew the Darkling had survived and that she had failed once more. He had been rescued by his Grisha and now ruled Ravka from a throne wreathed in shadows, surrounded by his monstrous horde. Whether he’d been weakened by what she’d done in the chapel, she didn’t know. He was ancient, and power was familiar to him as it had never been to her.

His oprichniki guards marched into monasteries and churches, tore up tiles and dug down through floors, seeking the Sun Summoner. Rewards were offered, threats were made, and once again the girl was hunted.

The priest swore that she was safe in the sprawling web of passages that crisscrossed Ravka like a secret map. There were those who claimed the tunnels had been made by armies of the faithful, that it had taken hundreds of years with picks and axes to carve them. Others said they were the work of a monster, a great worm who swallowed soil, rock, root, and gravel, who hollowed out the underground roads that led to the old holy places, where half-remembered prayers were still said. The girl only knew that no place would keep them safe for long.

She looked into the faces of her followers: old men, young women, children, soldiers, farmers, convicts. All she saw were corpses, more bodies for the Darkling to lay at her feet.

The Apparat wept, shouting his gratitude that the Sun Saint still lived, that she had once again been spared. In his wild black gaze, the girl saw a different truth: A dead martyr was less trouble than a living Saint.