When she opened her eyes again, the boys’ weight still pressed the branch, but they were nowhere to be seen. Her own hands looked solid enough, but she’d be as good as a ghost to the others.

Across the clearing, two more Sparrow sparks kindled in her senses. Pa had gone to work. Fie blinked, and her gaze skidded off the other Crow-laden trees. It’d take a fight to look at them head-on while those Sparrow teeth burned.

“Put out the fire,” Tavin said under his breath.

“And how do I do that from a tree, pray?” she demanded.

“Use a Phoenix tooth.”

Her grip tightened on the branch. So far she’d only called a fire, not banished one. But it was worth the risk. Maybe if the Oleanders thought the camp was abandoned, they’d pass by.

The boys reappeared as Fie let the Sparrow witch-tooth stagnate. One of her three Phoenix teeth lit up, searing against the hollow of her throat. She found the spark of the owner—an old princess from centuries past—and tried to bend it to her will.

The bark under her fingers began to smoke.

No. Fie bit her lip. Take the fire. Take it away.

She tried to sense the campfire. It was wild and wicked, dancing from her mind’s grasp. Go, she willed. Go away.

The fire leaned and cowered—

“It’s not working,” said the prince. Her focus splintered.

The campfire spat a fountain of sparks, crackling higher than before, calling to the torches now strung along the road like a garland.

The bough trembled as Tavin shifted, uneasy.

Fie sucked in a breath and pushed at the campfire with every ounce of command the dead Phoenix princess had in her. For a moment it held, relentless, roaring its fury—and then collapsed. The flames huffed out, the logs cooling to black. Even the coals darkened to a sullen gray.

She let the breath go. The Phoenix tooth simmered yet, its spark far from expired. Be quiet, Fie ordered, smoke still threading her fingers as she returned to the Sparrow witch-tooth.

The boys began to vanish again. There was a scrape to her left as Jasimir adjusted his perch. Then a startled curse—a flash of steel—

The prince’s dagger slid free from its scabbard and landed on the branch below them, a swaying silhouette, ready to drop and betray them at the slightest breeze.

And as the camp flooded with mottled torchlight, Fie saw Jasimir hadn’t wrapped the gilded, jewel-scabbed, gods-damned hilt in rag after all.

“Can you make it disappear?” Tavin whispered.

Fie pushed the Sparrow tooth’s range beyond their branch, but near the dagger, her bones buzzed a warning. She wasn’t about to foul their cover by straining too far.

“No,” she wheezed. The dagger would have to stay as it was. And they’d have to pray the thousand dead gods would, for once, be kind.