Amaris looked within herself for a happy memory. She didn’t want to die thinking of pain, of destitution, of failure. Amaris didn’t want to die at all, but it seemed like she might not get much say in the matter. If she was to be killed, she wanted to die thinking of how Odrin had beamed with such pride at her swearing-in ceremony. She wanted to die remembering the first time she’d kicked Ash’s ass in the ring. She wanted to die in a cloud of plums and spice as Nox held her, allowing her to feel safe and loved in her arms.

Her search for joy was cut short.

A clang came from somewhere around the curvature of the beige-stone hall.

No time in the world would have been long enough to prepare her for whatever was to come next. She didn’t want to spend her life rotting in a cell, but she wasn’t ready to be torn from the reevers. Ash leaned against the bars of his cell and met her eyes while they listened to the boots. Wet, helpless tears matched her own. She saw it on his face. He was saying a silent, heartbroken goodbye.

The heavy scrapes against stones belonging to footsteps came bouncing off the jail’s curved walls as armed guards made their way to the reevers.

Three men—none of whom seemed particularly interested in the reevers—strode into view. The faces before her were pocked, scraggly, and entirely forgettable. The unremarkable guards with their unremarkable faces and ordinary armor paused in front of the cell that held Ash and Malik.

Clinking metal was the only sound in the cell as the man in front retrieved the circlet of keys from where they tangled at his waist. He wouldn’t be so foolish as to unleash the reevers. Instead, he located a smaller key and slipped it into a hatch on the cell’s floor scarcely big enough for a cat. The jailer slid a metallic tray to the boys through a slot on their cell floor.

At least the reevers were being fed, even if it was a single loaf to be shared between them and a tin cup for water. The presence of bread and water in their cell sent a message perhaps as chilling to them as starvation was to Amaris. Ash and Malik were meant to be kept alive for whatever awaited them, perhaps making them wish that they, too, had died with her. Whether through their action or inaction by refraining from offering anything to Amaris, the guards had more or less said it themselves: Ash and Malik had been set apart to see her die. The guard turned to Amaris and smiled. His teeth were yellow, with a terribly greenish hue to the edges.

“I’m afraid you won’t be needing a meal where you’re going, girl. You seem to have made a powerful enemy.”