Once, Tafa might have gotten under her skin with ease, might have soothed her screaming instincts with a few well-placed lies. But Ranka had spent weeks under Isodal’s sun, fighting against and then alongside two children raised in a court where the only weapons were their words. No Skra held a candle to them.

Ranka made her tone go carefully neutral. “Tafa, where’s Asyil?”

The color drained from Tafa’s face. “What?”

“Asyil,” Ranka said slowly. “I didn’t see her walk in with the Skra—but everyone else is here.”

Tafa wouldn’t meet her eyes. “She’s… waiting in the city.”

“With Ongrum?”

“What? No—”

“So she’s alone?”

“No,” Tafa snarled. “She’s just waiting, okay? With the others who can’t come in yet.”

“What others?” Ranka’s heart started beating harder. “If Ongrum is here, then who else is with Asyil in the city?”

Horror washed across Tafa’s face. Her pupils shrank to two tiny, dark points. The whispers of fear that had been building in Ranka all night evolved into full-blown screams.

“Tafa,” Ranka asked slowly, her hand drifting to her hip, where her axe typically sat, and finding only leather. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

Tafa’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air. Her eyes darted frantically across Ranka’s face, and she took the slightest step backward, as if to bolt. The hair on Ranka’s arms stood on end.

A whistle split the air.

It was a sharp, earsplitting sound—two long blasts, one short, two more long. She’d heard that whistle a dozen times over—it was the first signal a new Skra learned when they joined the coven.

It meant: Get ready to fight.

Ranka turned.

A pale-skinned noblewoman stood in the middle of the ballroom, obliviously adjusting an emerald brooch in her hair. Behind her, Nadya stood immobile, looking rough and out of place amid the glittering silk and perfumed bodies that swirled over the dark-tiled ballroom floor.

Nadya was smiling at Ranka.

And Nadya was holding a knife.

The Skra raised her fingers and whistled again. Time slowed. Gold flashed in Ranka’s periphery as several guards drew pins depicting a fist wrapped in flame from their pockets and donned them. The noblewoman gasped. Red bloomed at her ribs, flowering across her lilac gown. The woman raised a hand toward Ranka—and collapsed.

Behind Ranka came the soft click of the ballroom doors being locked.

And then the screaming began.

51

THE TILES SHIFTED FROM BLUE to red as the revelers died.

All around Ranka, Skra, Murknen, and humans wearing Hands pins pulled their weapons free, cutting down anyone who was within their immediate circle. Screams of terror spiked in the air, mixing with the coppery tang of blood.

It’s too soon.

I had until tomorrow.