Ranka hesitated. She saw it in her mind’s eye—the sores, the agony, the blood spilling over the floorboards, but instead of Soma it was Talis who died in that tavern. It was Yeva. It was the nameless witch wearing her bracelet in the morgue and the one who’d fled north only to die beneath foreign pines.

Did she suffer?

How could they not, in this world? A treaty strangled them, humans burned them. Now a foreign queen had taken the one thing that gave witches an edge and perverted it into a horror, and the humans sought to use it as a tool of extinction.

“Not long.” She couldn’t lie to Ursay. “But any moment with winalin inside you is a lifetime of torture.”

Their nostrils flared. “And just how close are you to a cure?”

“Painfully close. The Kerth has been in a coma, but she’s alive. The winalin hasn’t gotten better—but it hasn’t gotten worse, either. We’ve subdued it for now.” Ranka’s throat bobbed. “If we have a cure, we can inoculate healthy witches against the plague and save those already sick. But we need the Sunra twins alive to do it.”

Ursay released Ranka at last, their lean body uncoiling as they stepped back. Ranka’s heart hammered so hard, she thought she might pass out. The Oori leader looked her over, and a humorless smile twisted their lips. “The Oori will never support the current treaty.”

“But—”

“Let me finish, little one.”

Ranka’s mouth clicked shut.

“We do not support the Bloodwinn treaty,” Ursay continued, “for the same reasons as your coven. It’s killing us all, strangling us year after year. The treaty was a mistake, signed out of desperation. But”—they lifted a tattooed brow—“we will support you.”

Ranka hesitated, feeling more than a little foolish. “I don’t understand.”

Ursay looked right through her. “I know the rumors about you, Ranka of the Skra. I have my suspicions of why you came here out of the blue after months of running. Truly, I’m impressed by your restraint. I thought he’d be dead by now.”

“That’s not—”

“Shhh. I’ve just begun to like you. Don’t ruin it by lying.” Ursay stepped back, considering Ranka, and nodded. “Our interests are aligned for now. Make no mistake—the lives of the Sunra twins mean nothing to me. But the lives of my coven mean everything. You’re in a position to rewrite the future here, little girl. When winalin is no longer a threat, I expect you to do it.”