For a while, she lay in the dark on her foul, soft bed in her foul, safe room, her thoughts winding up and spinning out like a spindle. Would Tatterhelm send a piece of someone else in the morning? Or would he cut off more of Pa?

Would she let him?

Every heartbeat in her ears was an accusation.

Draga was right: the whole Crow caste hung on Jasimir reaching the throne.

Jasimir was right: he understood what was at stake.

Tavin was right: he could have done something better with his life than die.

Fie searched the dark for answers and found none.

But that made sense. She had no right to expect answers here in this safe, quiet, too-damned-soft room, not with her people caught in Tatterhelm’s hell.

If she wanted a way out, she had to hunt it down herself.

Slipping out was easy enough: a Peacock-tooth illusion crafted a second Fie to stumble from her room, startling the guards long enough to let the true Fie sidle behind them. Once she’d rounded a corner, she sent the illusion back to her room, then traded the Peacock tooth for a Sparrow’s.

And then she hunted.

Fie wound through hall after darkened hall, some narrow, some yawning, some guarded by grim-faced Hawks, others empty as a gambler’s oath. Her slippers left no mark on the stone as she passed.

All she needed was a way out, she told herself. Then she’d take up her teeth and her steel and bring down as many Vultures as she could before—

Before they killed her. Or worse, kept her alive. Tatterhelm had more skinwitches than she had Crows, and he had grunts, and he had skin-ghasts. All he would do was start sending pieces of her to Jasimir.

It was always going to come to this.

Tavin had always known. So had she. Ever since she’d crawled out of Cheparok. No—ever since she’d fallen from the bridge of the Floating Fortress.

No—ever since Pa had thrust the chief’s sword into her hands.

What do you want, Fie?

Her caste, or her kin. Thousands of Crows, ridden down by day and night. Or ten of her own, dying by pieces.

That’s the game, get it?

The road had trapped her, and she couldn’t see which way was right. Every hope, every oath, every scrap of faith she’d had in Hangdog, in Tavin, in Jasimir, one way or another, they’d turned to arrow after arrow in her eye.

She stumbled. Smacked into a wall. Sagged against it.

One way or another, she would lose everything.