She barely registered what Ongrum said. Her eyes were only for the witch. The girl lay on her side, eyes closed, body so ravaged by disease that her ribs pressed against her skin.

But Ranka would have known her anywhere.

Ongrum left Ranka there, standing listlessly in the face of all the horror, drinking in the sight of what she’d wrought, and it was then a pit of despair opened up in Ranka—one so deep, it threatened to swallow her whole.

She wanted to turn and flee. To leave this nightmare behind, to let the palace and the ones she’d betrayed burn to the ground. But all she could see was the witch before her. All she heard was the echo of a thousand promises she’d never made right.

Ranka took one uneasy step forward, then another. The witch was either asleep or in a stupor. She lay with her arms bound to the bed with leather straps, her narrow chest rising and falling rapidly. If the attending Hands noticed Ranka approaching, they didn’t care.

The witch stirred.

Ranka dropped to her knees beside her bed. “Hello, Asyil.”

Asyil had decayed horrifically since Ranka had last seen her. Gone was her confident smirk, her lanky muscles, and her beautiful dark hair. Now she was a living corpse, panting in the musty air of the infirmary, waiting to die.

Ranka forced herself to remain calm, though she wanted to scream and rage, to flip the infirmary beds over and break them in half. Asyil panted, her skinny frame soaked with sweat. The sores on her skin were small—only the size of a fingernail. She was only in the early stages of infection, then, as Talis had been.

But her fate was sealed.

Asyil’s fever-dull eyes searched Ranka’s face. Her voice emerged in the barest croak. “Ranka?”

Everything in Ranka threatened to collapse. “Hi.”

Asyil’s gaunt face stretched into a weary, crooked smile. She was missing half of her teeth. “You look terrible.” She hesitated, her smile faltering. “My sister?”

“She’s gone,” Ranka croaked. “I—I failed. I am so, so sorry. Yeva… I couldn’t… she’s…”

Asyil closed her eyes. “I knew. I woke up one morning, sweating half to death, and I just… knew.” She struggled against the bed restraints and then slumped back down, defeated.

Ranka leaned her forehead against the bed. She trembled. None of this was right. Asyil should have been home, healthy, with Yeva at her side, not dying in some distant human city, ravaged by a man-made disease.

“How did you get sick?” Ranka asked faintly, though the dread filling her whispered the truth she already feared.

“She told us it would make us strong. That we could go anywhere and do anything.” Asyil laughed bitterly. “Ongrum loves her lies.”

“But the Hands were the ones that had it. They were the ones injecting them. They…”