“I was in the workshop running some samples when I heard something crying, so I went into the tunnels and I found a winalin witch. And she’s alive.”

“What? How far?”

“She’s not in the city.” He gulped. “I, um, caught her. She’s here.”

40

PERCY AND ARAMIS LED THE way, their heads bowed as she filled him in on what they’d learned. Ranka followed at their heels, humming beneath her breath to calm her nerves.

It was an old hunting tune Ongrum had taught her in the days after Belren. A rhythmic, hollow melody that sat low in the throat and reverberated through the chest. Ongrum had sung it as they tracked wounded prey across the snow, the spots of blood acting like a guiding light. The song was a ghost. Ranka barely remembered the words. And yet the melody—haunting, mourning, an echo of something lost—was buried in her bones.

“Percy.” Aramis’s voice startled Ranka out of her memories, bringing reality back in. “A little light?”

“With her here?”

A hollow thud sounded.

“Ow, okay, fine.”

Gold eyes flashed in the dark, and then there were flames. Two sconces guttered to life. Percy brushed at his lips, but Ranka still caught the wisp of smoke.

The door swung open.

The Kerth lay in the chair where Percy had drawn Ranka’s blood for the past weeks. Her chest rose and fell frantically, the sores on her skin weeping watery pus, sweat-slicked as though she was caught in a fever. She’d decayed dramatically in only a few hours.

“Ranka,” Percy said grimly. “Hold her arms. I’ve got her legs.”

Aramis stooped, rummaged in a cupboard, and returned with a jar filled with writhing black leeches. “If I can draw enough of the corrupted blood out, and if the leeches can keep her blood thin enough to flow, the vaccine antigens might provoke enough of an antibody response to help her body fight the winalin off. Emphasis on the ‘might’.” Her jaw worked. “On my count. One.”

Ranka tightened her grip on the Kerth.

“Two.”

Please work.

“Three.”

Aramis didn’t move.

Her needle hovered a hair’s breadth from the witch’s neck. It winked like a promise in the light, the pale fluid sloshing inside. Aramis’s fingers trembled.

“Aramis,” Ranka said, her voice soft.

Aramis’s pupils dilated to two small, panicked points. “All we’ve worked on is dead witches. But she… if I fail…”

“She’s already dead without you.”

The Kerth’s labored breaths grew more painful with each rattle. Another sore opened on her wrist.

Aramis hesitated. The panicked shudder of her chest was an uncomfortable reminder of how young she was—how young they all were. This girl, not yet eighteen, carried the fate of every witch on this side of the border and the next on her shoulders. She’d have been a fool if she weren’t terrified.