One held Aramis. She’d not fared well in the hours since Ranka’s betrayal—her hair was a mess, her dress torn, and blood ran sluggishly from her nose. The skin on her wrists was rubbed raw from chains, and the princess was slumped sideways, her eyes closed and her mouth parted. For a moment panic flashed through Ranka, until she saw the gentle rise and fall of Aramis’s chest. The princess was alive—just unconscious.

But the cell beside hers was empty.

Galen was gone.

61

“NO,” PERCY WHISPERED. “HE WAS supposed to be here.”

Ranka put a hand on Percy’s shoulder and breathed in. Scents swirled over her tongue: old water and worn rock, pain and grief, and there, the scent of metal polish, of windy days and old ink. Galen had definitely been here, but there was no sting of death.

“He’s still alive,” Ranka said quietly. “Or at least—he didn’t die here.”

For all they knew, the Skra could have dragged the prince out of the dungeons and killed him in the gardens. Percy swung toward Aramis’s cell and whispered her name, but she didn’t stir. She lay painfully still, left hand splayed open as though she’d reached for something right before slipping into a drugged stupor.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Percy pressed his knuckles into his eyes as he paced back and forth. “They had to have known. Where would they have moved him? Where could he have gone?”

“We can keep looking,” Ranka said, her voice low. “I can search the rest of the dungeons—”

Behind her came a light.

It was faint, no bigger than a pinprick, but someone was definitely coming. And with the light came a familiar scent—old leather, woodsmoke, and a lifetime of disapproval.

Terror opened a well in Ranka’s stomach.

“It’s her,” Ranka said weakly.

“I can’t just leave him,” Percy said, his voice cracking. “He won’t last here alone, Ranka. I told him I wouldn’t leave him—I told him…”

She’d never seen him like this before. For all his pomp and arrogance, Percy was just a boy. A child, caught up in some great and terrible game. And Percy was not well. His breathing was labored, and he leaned against the wall to support himself, his left eye swollen shut from Tafa’s beating as the bruise overtook the left half of his face. It would be a miracle if he got Aramis out of here on his own, and he seemed to know it.

He needed her. They both did.

And when they no longer need me?

No matter. She’d chosen this path, and she would walk it until its end.