Ranka dropped her. Aramis toppled to the ground with a thump and leapt to her feet, looking more than a little ruffled. She smoothed her skirts and shot Ranka a look of horror. “Lights above, what do they feed you up north?”

Ranka bared her teeth. “Little girls who stray too far from home.”

“Ha, ha. You’ve been spending too much time with Percy.” A funny expression crossed her face as she looked Ranka up and down. “What are you, six feet of solid muscle?” She poked Ranka in the stomach, her brow furrowed, as if she expected her finger to crack against marble. She blinked, and poked her again. “Huh. You’re squishy.”

Ranka slapped Aramis’s hand away. “Stop that.”

“Well, at least if I get tired, I know you’re here to carry me.” The princess smirked.

Ranka’s face burned. It had been terribly easy to lift her up. Ranka could probably carry Aramis for hours if she needed to. Not that she’d ever need to. Why was she even thinking about that? The stables were suddenly uncomfortably warm.

Ranka cleared her throat. “So I’m coming with you?”

“Yeah, yeah, teamwork, hooray,” Aramis said in a resigned tone. She turned away. “Let’s go, muscles.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay, grumpy.”

“Grumpy?”

“Only every second of your life.” Aramis swung herself down into the tunnels. Pale light flared as she activated a mage-light and wrapped the glowing beads around her fist. “Sometime tonight, witch!”

Ranka scrambled after her and yanked the hatch closed behind them with a bang, cursing herself for meddling at all. “Where are we going, exactly?”

Aramis trained her attention ahead, her earlier mirth hardening into grim resolve. “Percy found the base of the Hands of Solomei.”

35

THE CITY HAD EVOLVED. THE pins were everywhere, gleaming like a warning, and posters decrying the Sunra twins now flapped alongside the ones claiming Ranka was a monster. Aramis and Ranka exited the tunnels at a tiny fishing port in the western quarter of the city, navigating through winding streets, sidestepping puddles of stagnant water choked with sickly green algae blooms. The deeper they walked, the more gold they saw.

Aramis kept her head high. It wasn’t until they turned a corner that her hands started to shake.

A three-story tavern glowed ahead. Six windows winked at them from old wood frames. Thick black paint streaked across the glass, creating a veil between the tavern and the world. The reek of humans came from inside, but there was a wrongness to the air, too.

A guard stood at the door. When someone approached, the guard held up a light. “Hands.”

The hair on Ranka’s arms stood on end.