Ranka stared at him, stunned. Percy’s chest rose and fell. Spots of color touched his cheeks, and for some reason her eyes were stinging. An awkward silence lapsed between them as they stood there, Percy in his anger, Ranka in her shock. She wanted to tell him she didn’t know the last time someone had cared that she came back from a fight. That she came back at all.

She wanted to tell him thank you.

Foldrey cut in. “I can send word for extra soldiers. By the time Ranka has the witch restrained, they’d be there, with chains and a cart to bring her back safely—but I don’t know how much longer my men can hold her until then.”

Percy gave Foldrey a long, strange look, then glared at Ranka. “Fine. If you insist on getting yourself killed, I guess I’m dying with you.”

Gratitude rushed through her, so overwhelming it threatened to make her knees buckle. They’d never been direct enemies before—but they’d certainly not been friends. Something had changed in their days of sparring and bloodletting and quiet conversations in the mines.

Something was changing still, and it terrified her.

“Quit looking at me like that,” Percy said half-heartedly. “I’m just protecting Aramis’s science experiment.”

“Right.” Ranka cleared her throat. “Let’s go. We don’t need to watch this.”

She turned to leave—and stopped short.

Oh no.

“Ranka?” Galen asked, his voice small. “What’s going on?”

The Sunra twins were so poorly disguised, it was nearly comical. Their faces were too clean, their clothes too new, their posture proud and wildly out of place. Horror dawned on Foldrey’s and Percy’s faces as they recognized them.

“It’s smoky,” Aramis said, her voice edging toward hysteria. “Why is there so much smoke?”

“Princess—”

Aramis shoved her way forward. Foldrey stumbled to stop her, to block her view, but she shoved past him, forcing a path through the crowd until she could see what had worked them all into a fever pitch. Every line in her body went rigid.

Ranka came to stand beside her. Behind them, Foldrey and Galen whisper-argued, Foldrey demanding to know what they were doing there, Galen saying he’d heard Foldrey mention something to a guard about dealing with a witch problem in the city. Ranka didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Could she even be surprised? Aramis had spent day and night working toward a cure, trying to use Ranka’s blood to bridge the gap between a healthy witch and the winalin that killed them. Not even a hurricane could have kept the princess out of the city. All she had to do was follow the smoke.

Ranka put a hand on Aramis’s shoulder. “Princess, we need to leave.”

Aramis twisted to look at her, wild eyed and furious. “Leave? Ranka, they’re—they’re going to burn her alive.”