“Well, it worked.” He gripped the ship’s railing, his knuckles flexing white. “Someday I’m going to put an arrow through that bastard’s neck.”

I heard the echo of the Darkling’s voice. There are no others like us. I pushed it aside and reached out to lay my hand on Mal’s arm. “You found the stag, and you found the sea whip. Maybe you were meant to find the firebird, too.”

He laughed outright, a rueful sound, but I was relieved to hear the bitter edge was gone. “I’m a good tracker, Alina, but I’m not that good. We need someplace to start. The firebird could be anywhere in the world.”

“You can do it. I know you can.”

Finally, he sighed and covered my hand with his own. “I don’t remember anything about Sankt Ilya.”

That was no surprise. There were hundreds of Saints, one for every tiny village and backwater in Ravka. Besides, at Keramzin, religion was considered a peasant preoccupation. We’d gone to church only once or twice a year. My thoughts strayed to the Apparat. He had given me the Istorii Sankt’ya, but I had no way of knowing what he intended by it, or if he even knew the secret it contained.

“Me neither,” I said. “But that arch must mean something.”

“Do you recognize it?”

When I’d first glanced at the illustration, the arch had seemed almost familiar. But I’d looked at countless books of maps during my training as a cartographer. My memory was a blur of valleys and monuments from Ravka and beyond. I shook my head. “No.”

“Of course not. That would be too easy.” He released a long breath, then drew me closer, studying my face in the moonlight. He touched the collar at my neck. “Alina,” he said, “how do we know what these things will do to you?”

“We don’t,” I admitted.

“But you want them anyway. The stag. The sea whip. The firebird.”

I thought of the surge of exultation that had come from using my power in the battle against the Darkling’s horde, the way my body fizzed and thrummed when I wielded the Cut. What might it feel like to have that power doubled? Trebled? The thought made me dizzy.

I looked up at the star-filled sky. The night was velvety black and strewn with jewels. The hunger struck me suddenly. I want them, I thought. All that light, all that power. I want it all.

A restless shiver moved over me. I ran my thumb down the spine of the Istorii Sankt’ya. Was my greed making me see what I wanted to see? Maybe it was the same greed that had driven the Darkling so many years ago, the greed that had turned him into the Black Heretic and torn Ravka in two. But I couldn’t escape the truth that without the amplifiers, I was no match for him. Mal and I were low on options.

“We need them,” I said. “All three. If we ever want to stop running. If we ever want to be free.”