“Aramis,” Ranka said. “If anyone can save her, it’s you.”

And she meant it. Ranka had blood-magic, Galen his terrible Skybreaker winds, but Aramis had only ever had her mind.

Her lips thinned and the scared girl vanished, replaced by the iron will of a healer, the steady determination of a scientist with a problem to solve.

“Solomei, guide my hands,” Aramis whispered, and she drove the needle home.

Aramis acted with military precision. She moved around the Kerth, fingers flying to the jar of leeches, placing them at major artery points. Throat, thighs, wrists. The leeches pulsed, and Ranka’s stomach turned.

The Kerth began to seize.

“Hold her.”

The Kerth thrashed. Her blisters swelled, gathering blood and pus, darkening to the color of a day-old bruise as they threatened to split across their crown. Her nails shifted from gray to black, and her eyes flew open. Her irises were gone, swallowed by a sea of eerie blood-witch white. An animal scream tore free of her throat. Ranka thought it sounded like kill me.

Perhaps it really would have been kinder to let her die.

“Hold. Her.”

More needles, more leeches.

And then, as suddenly as she’d started fighting, the witch collapsed.

They waited for her chest to rise. Waited for her to twitch, or moan, or show any hint they had not failed. But the stillness of her body was the kind that came only with death.

“No,” Aramis said. “No.”

In seconds she was on the chair, one hand over the other, pressing on the Kerth’s chest. The veins in Aramis’s arms popped as she timed out her compressions. She dropped, pinched the witch’s nose, and pressed her mouth to hers, forcing air into her lungs.

It did nothing.

Eventually Aramis staggered backward. “I don’t understand. I did the math—numbers don’t lie. We did something wrong. It should have worked.”

The leeches continued pumping away, oblivious they’d failed.

“It should have worked. We tested it over and over again. We’ve spent months.” The words left her in a panicked babble. “It should have worked.”

“Aramis,” Percy said, and on his lips, her name sounded like an apology.

“I tested it. I studied every angle. The math was right. Everything we’ve been counting on—we’re back to square one. Damn it!” She closed her fingers around a vial and hurled it against the wall. Glass shattered. The pieces clinked to the floor as remnants of the cure slid down the salt. She knocked the jar of leeches over, and they spilled across the chair to the floor, curling in pain when they made contact with the salt.

Ranka’s heart broke for her. “Aramis.”

Aramis made a choked noise and sank to the ground. She buried her head in her hands and dug her nails into her scalp.

“Aramis,” Ranka repeated, softer.

Percy moved to edge of the room to clean up the glass.