“If you find a way out, do not come back for us,” Sethran says. “You find the cure, and go straight home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Two of the soldiers keep their hands on my shoulders as the third leads the way back onto the street. We cross the same courtyard we came in through. A few kids playing with wooden swords stop to gape at me. I lock eyes with one and stare until my head is shoved forward. If that boy only sees one Leonodai in his lifetime, I want him to remember it.

Past the courtyard, we cut through a wide walkway lined with soldiers and townsfolk. A long-legged dog trots lazily through the crowd. A couple tending to their horses waves off a merchant trying to sell them wares. Above us on the balconies, women hang clothes on lines. I linger on the sight for a moment.

The scholars say that humans don’t treat their women like Leonodai do. Their women tend to children and the house only. Sethran once told me of a skirmish he and a few other warriors had a few months back. A human actually soiled himself at the sight of warrior Io as she towered over him, twin swords gleaming. I bet he thought that a woman didn’t have the guts to kill.

She did.

As I’m dragged along, I spot what looks like a market on the adjacent street. Long lines of people wait at every stall, money clutched nervously in their hands. Even from a distance, I can tell the vendors don’t have enough for everyone.

I’m directed to a sturdy house of wood and stone guarded by one of the humans in silver and black. The door shuts behind us, cutting out the street noise like a blade cuts through thread. The hands on my shoulders are tighter now.

The staircase beneath my feet squeaks as I’m led up. The air is warm, and as we get to the second story, I see why. An enormous fireplace takes up nearly a third of the wall. The windows are tinted an eerie amber and the light they let in just as strange. The rest of the room is lined with books, diagrams, insects with their wings pinned down in shallow boxes, and a myriad of other things I don’t understand. I’m nudged into a chair, and one of the soldiers keeps the barrel of his gun on my neck until the other human has finished tying my arms and legs to the chair.

The crackle and snap of the fire is all that fills the room as the soldiers and I wait. Over on my left, three swords hang above the doorframe. My stomach clenches. The fine blades, the inlaid decorations in the traditional pattern of warriors. Those are Leonodai made. On the desk to my left a pair of human skulls stares back at me.