Her eyes swept the dungeon, noting the insects scuttling along the floor, the old lichen dried on the ceiling, the salt stains above her head from when the dungeons were entirely submerged. The first Sunras hadn’t been stupid; they’d have known someday they might need to make a hasty escape. They’d have left themselves with multiple exits.

Ranka stepped forward and breathed.

The dungeons were a map of history. Even here, hundreds of feet beneath the earth, buried between layers of salt and rock and old bones, there was a current, a draft fed by sea air. Ranka went deeper, pulling the scents over her tongue, past the smoke of Percy’s fire, the old ghosts of witches long dead and humans who had suffered here, past the scent of wet limestone, of torches guttering in sconces and blood on the walls. And there—a whisper of salt, a hint of the sea. Deep, deep below the dungeons, the old salt mines still ran; the original Sunras had opted to build directly on top of them. That was their way out, if they could make it in time.

But there was something else, too. Something alive and rotting, moving in the dark, waiting for them. Winalin witches—packs of them, judging by the scents.

“The salt mines are below us,” Ranka said. “We can get out that way, make it into the city. I can get us to the surface.” Even if they were in total darkness—even without her blood-magic—that was one thing she was confident of.

Scent had always guided her home when nothing else could.

“And where would we even go?” Percy demanded. Had he always been this frightened, and only now it was slipping through? Or had Galen’s disappearance truly undone something in him?

But he had a point. Most of Seaswept was in shambles or occupied by the Hands. Surely, there had to be somewhere they could hide. Foldrey’s home was an option, but she wouldn’t know how to find the address from the mines—

“Lanna,” Ranka realized. “She knows Aramis, cares about her. She’ll hide us.”

Percy’s eyes lingered on Aramis. “When she wakes…”

When she wakes, she’ll never want to see you again.

When she wakes, she’ll kill you.

Ranka was ready for that. She’d betrayed them, but she’d betrayed Aramis the worst. The princess was entitled to every ounce of rage she would feel.

Another whistle pierced the air. Behind her, the lantern light grew brighter. They had two, maybe three minutes before the Skra were upon them. A scout would appear first—Ranka could take them with the element of surprise, but more witches would be only a few minutes on their heels.

“I know you don’t trust me. But if Galen—”

She couldn’t finish the words.

If Galen dies, Aramis is the last living Sunra in this world.