“Where are we?” Ettie asks.

I ignore the question.

It takes a ridiculous amount of time to clamber through a window and hoist Ettie up, since she’s awful at climbing. She’s awful at a lot of things …

Ettie wrinkles her nose at the stench; a toxic smell from the arsenic used to dye the wall coverings, hats, and dresses of the nobility hangs in the air.

“How long will we stay here?”

I’m in no mood for Ettie’s questions. “I’m not sure—a day or two, maybe.”

She looks around, not liking what she sees. “Will you tell me a story?”

“This is hardly the time for a story!” I snap, making my voice as hard and ugly as I can, for it is an ugly thing that I am doing.

She shrinks from me, eyes wide.

I try to calm myself, but my thoughts aren’t so easily cowed; they whir and screech in my head, accusing and shouting, clawing at me with a thousand knives of guilt. What kind of person sells another?

The kind of person who would do anything to get her sister back, I remind myself grimly.

I’ve no choice; it’s the only way. Azelma safe. Isn’t that worth the cost?

And yet I know I’m not just condemning Ettie to the Guild of Flesh. Whispers speak of Sisters smuggled in boxes, of living cargo traded to the Tiger’s allies overseas.

The horror rises and threatens to overwhelm me. What he does, what he is, is an abomination, forbidden by the Law. The Law that is meant to protect us, to keep us safe.

And yet I cannot help the Sisters hidden in the shadows. I cannot save all the women in the Fleshers’ houses. But I might free one of them. I can make Azelma safe.

For a terrible price.

I eye Ettie shivering in the corner.

“I’m sorry,” I say, for snapping at her. And for what is about to happen, and for my part in it. I am so filled with regret that it threatens to burst out of me.

As if she can sense the turmoil I’m in, she gives me a small, forgiving smile, which is so typical of Ettie. It is not enough that she is beautiful; she is also kind. She rises and comes nearer to me and sits down on the floor.

“Tell me what happened to Ysengrim’s daughter when Rennart found her.”

I swallow. Ettie is obsessed with stories. And yet … what harm is there in finishing the tale? In giving her one last good thing before the end? And so I begin.

“Rennart the Fox went to the house of Ysengrim the Boar,” I say. “He stole into his lair in the darkness. There he found the daughter of Ysengrim, and he gazed upon her beautiful face as she lay sleeping.”

Ettie inches toward me and leans into me, like she did on the nights when she couldn’t sleep; like I did when Azelma relayed stories to me.