SEASWEPT FELL APART AS THEY walked. The wind carried not just the reek of old blood, but the aftermath of true horror, clinging to the very bones of the city. Galen’s eyes widened as they passed houses missing doors, windows, chunks of their roofs, all of them still clearly lived in. A man sprawled facedown in the street, piss drunk though it was barely noon, a halo of vomit spread around his head. He groaned as they passed. Ranka put a firm hand on Galen’s shoulder and propelled him forward.

They stepped around the carcass of a horse that had to be at least a week old, its body bloated with maggots, bridle gone and eye sockets long picked clean by gulls. In the wealthy districts they’d ridden through, a dead animal would have been moved in hours. But here, where the poor and the sick worked, where the healers always arrived far too late and the guards usually never arrived at all, decay was a permanent fixture.

Galen shrank into himself with every step.

The streets were silent save for the soft crackling of palace announcements that flapped from noticeboards, their ends curled by heat. They were all gibberish to her—but Galen stopped short, reading the same one over and over again, his eyes growing wider with each line. Ranka tried to make sense of the letters, but it was useless. Education had hardly been high on the Skra’s priority list.

Not that she was going to admit that to Aramis. She’d rather the princess think her openly defiant and failing her language lessons on purpose than know of another weakness.

“It’s an order from the Grand Council,” Galen finally said. “I guess they, uh, revoked civil protection of witches indefinitely when you were found.” He pointed, his fingers tracing sloppy handwriting that looped over the original announcement. “But this—this isn’t from the Council.”

In the center of the poster, a single gold pin gleamed.

“What does it say?”

Galen gave her a long, uneasy look. “I don’t think—”

“Read it.”

Galen licked his lips. “It just says: ‘Now we burn.’ ”

Ranka turned before he could see the panic on her face. Her arrival had done this. Surely, they won’t actually burn witches, right? Not here, with a Bloodwinn poised to rule. It had to be an empty threat.

Except they already tried to kill Aramis. And they tried to kill you, too.

The princess’s voice floated through her mind.

They are still protectors, in the eyes of many.

The scent of death swirled around her, and Ranka forced herself to zero in on the problem ahead. There was nothing she could do about the Hands, the Council, or the laws Galen clearly let them pass without knowing what he was signing off on.

But answers lay ahead—and she could find them.

The city held its breath, and they turned the corner.