Fie looked at the soldiers, then at Hangdog, and resolved to scalp him if the Hawks didn’t do it for her first.

There was a squawk from the hut’s rare-used hinges as Pa finally stepped outside.

Fie let the loose thread go, head and heart steadying. Damp red streaked down the front of Pa’s robes. He’d dealt a mercy killing, then.

Wretched slow mercy, Fie reckoned.

Her relief lasted half a heartbeat before metal rasped, dreadful, from the wall behind them.

Any Crow knew the song of quality steel being drawn. But Pa only turned toward the sound, torchlight flashing off his mask’s glassblack eyes. And then he waited.

A hush iced over the courtyard as even the Peacocks froze.

In the city streets, in sorghum fields, anywhere from Sabor’s western merchant bays to its cruel mountains of the east, a higher caste could cut down Crows for any invented slight. Brothers, aunts, lovers, friends—every Crow walked with the scars of loss. Fie’s own ma had vanished down a dark road years ago.

But for now, the Hawks kept to their walls. The Sinner’s Plague spread swift once its victim died. One body could rot a town to stone before year’s end. Here in the quarantine court, with two dead boys guaranteed to bring the palace down in less than a half moon … here was where the Crows could not be touched.

There was another rattle as the blade returned to its scabbard. Fie didn’t dare look back. Instead she fixed on the rumble of Pa’s rough voice: “Pack ’em up.”

“I’ll handle the dead moppets,” Hangdog said, starting forward.

“Not on your own.” Pa shook his head and motioned for Fie. “They’re bigger than you.”

Fie blinked. The steward had called the sinners “boys” when he led the Crows in. She’d expected tots, not lordlings near grown.

Pa caught her shoulder just as she reached for the door. She cocked her head at him. “Aye, Pa?”

The mask hid his face, but she still caught a hitch in his breath, the way the beak tipped less than a fingerbreadth to point clearer to the Hawks.

“Just … bring them out,” said Pa.

Fie stiffened. Something was fouled up, she’d swear it on a dead god’s grave. But Pa was the chief, and he’d gotten them out of worse.

Most of them, at least.

She nodded. “Aye, Pa.”

The second the door swung shut, Fie cuffed Hangdog upside the head.

“What in twelve hells were you thinking?” she hissed. “The Hawks near gutted Pa for walking out a door, and you’re aiming to try their patience?”

“Aiming to make you mad.” This time she heard Hangdog’s grin in the hut’s thick darkness. “Those scummers won’t gut the chief. Or they’ll all rot with us if they do.”