The twins made a face.

“Promise. Me.”

“We promise,” both muttered.

Ranka looked between them, Foldrey’s words ringing through her ears.

I have loved them, more than I ever had a right to.

Ongrum said she loved her, but she’d never looked at her like that.

The guard closed his eyes, made a prayer circle on his chest, and drew his sword.

Foldrey had said they’d secured the winalin witch in an abandoned house. As Seaswept sank into late evening, it loomed into view. In a past life this home had been beautiful—whorls of peeling yellow paint depicted flowers across the siding and tattered cloth that used to be a mat was stretched across the cement porch. Now it, like this city, was rotting.

The faintest trace of blood lingered in the air, nearly lost amid the reek of the fish canneries. Ranka stepped inside—and saw only dry-rotted walls.

Foldrey approached warily. “She’s gone?”

She nodded, eyes tracking the room. There were no scuff marks—no blood, no signs of a struggle.

Relief washed across his face as he turned to the twins. “My men wouldn’t just abandon their post. They must have taken her to the palace. We should head back.”

Percy gave Foldrey that funny look again.

But if they’d gone back to the palace, why not leave a note or some kind of sign? She stepped deeper into the abandoned home, scanning the cobwebbed walls and dusted floors.

Ranka dropped into a crouch and inhaled.

For a precious beat she was back in the Northlands, tracking a wounded stag through knee-deep snow. She was home. Scent had always been her map to make sense of the world. It told her not only where people died, but how, and why.

And if they lived—where they went.

There.

Ranka followed her nose, moving to the far wall, ghosting her hand over a boarded window. It creaked under her touch. Her fingers came away wet. Ranka pushed, and the board fell to the street with a dull clatter. Evening light lanced through, revealing where other boards had been broken and carefully replaced. Blood gleamed on the street alongside upturned stones and scuff marks. She rubbed it between her fingers. Iron and earth. Human and witch.

Found you.

“Back here,” Ranka called softly. “Foldrey, one of your men is bleeding. There was a fight—and it looks like he lost.”

The color drained from Foldrey’s face.

Percy stepped forward, his expression grim. “Can you follow the trail, Ranka?”

She met his eyes, trying to understand why he was looking at her like that—like he was worried for her. Doubt flickered, but Ranka nodded.

“Then let’s go,” Aramis said. “And don’t even start, Foldrey—we’re seeing this through.”

Foldrey gritted his teeth, looking for all the world like he regretted ever stepping foot in the city at all.

Ranka followed the blood.