“I didn’t—” Ranka sputtered. “I wouldn’t have—”

Nadya dropped a vial. It shattered, shards of glass tinkling as the precious vaccine pooled on the floor. “Oops.”

How would the Skra have known the location of the workshop? How had they known about the cure at all? Had she said something tonight without thinking?

Had Ursay betrayed her?

Nadya approached the second table and swept her arm across it. A dozen vials shattered on the salt floor. All the eyes in the room swung to the cabinet behind Ranka. The most recent batch of vaccines—the ones that had not quite saved the Kerth but had come far closer than anything before.

Ranka’s mind whirred. All night she’d searched for Ongrum. All night the Skra had been standoffish and strange. But they’d always been cold to her. Only Ongrum’s love had shielded Ranka. Had given her a home, when no one else would.

Nadya hadn’t been the only Skra to make her displeasure with Ongrum known. What if she’d seized power somehow?

Ranka’s heart did a panicked flip.

What if they’d betrayed her, and Ongrum was hurt somewhere?

Ranka forced herself to stand taller. “Stand down, all of you. No one makes a move until we have Ongrum’s orders. I have information for her regarding our mission—and no one is to act until she’s briefed.”

At the word mission Aramis jerked to look at her. Ranka forced herself to stare straight ahead, her heart giving a painful squeeze.

Nadya gave her a funny look. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?” When Nadya said nothing, she looked to the other Skra. “What is she talking about?”

If they knew, they didn’t say. These witches had made up their minds. That much was clear. Bloodlust had driven them to betray their coven’s vision—and now they’d all pay the price if she couldn’t sway them.

If appealing to their loyalty meant nothing, maybe she could appeal to their desire to save their own skins.

“Listen to me,” Ranka said in a low voice. “None of you have been here in this city, haven’t seen what I’ve seen. The Hands are not your allies. I serve the Skra. I have only ever served the Skra. So believe me when I say that whatever your feelings about the Sunra twins are, we need them. All of Witchik relies on that princess and the cure she’s built. If you destroy those vials, you’re killing us all.”

Nadya gave her a sad, pitying look and pulled an axe from her hip. Ranka’s legs tensed. But instead of attacking, the older witch offered the weapon to Ranka. It was an old, worn thing, with a nicked handle and a gleaming gray head. A woodcutter’s axe instead of the ice axes the Skra favored, but a weapon still.