Surely not. No one survived the gallows. Prisoners were hung every week, and all of them ended up in the morgue. There was no way that Tilda would—

“We need to move,” Naari said as three more guards appeared at the door to the infirmary, waiting to escort them. “Now.”

Feeling numb, Kiva loosened Tilda’s shackles and the strap over her chest. She wished the woman would fight as she had a week ago, revealing that some kind of spirit remained in her. But there was nothing, just more muttering under her breath and twitching as Kiva and Tipp slung her arms over their shoulders and followed Naari and her fellow guards from the infirmary.

Kiva hadn’t carved Tilda’s left hand. She hadn’t had the heart to do so, not with the woman so ill. That meant Tilda was the only prisoner at Zalindov without a Z scarred into her flesh. She hadn’t even been given a metal identification band, and yet everyone knew exactly who she was. The rumor mill had spiraled in the time since Cresta had confronted Kiva in the shower block, with it now public knowledge that the Rebel Queen was among them. Whispers were circulating around the prison, some resentful, some reverent. The unsettled atmosphere concerned Kiva, the energy in the air similar to what she’d felt in the past before the inmates were tipped over the edge and into another riot. That was the last thing she needed, on top of everything else.

As they dragged the ill woman across the grounds, Kiva’s mind kept traveling back to Tilda’s left hand. Should Kiva have carved her flesh? What if one of the guards noticed she was unscarred? If the Rebel Queen died today without bearing Zalindov’s symbol, was she really a prisoner, or was she still free?

Kiva realized from her scattered thoughts that she was panicking, and made herself inhale deeply. It didn’t help that the closer they stepped to the end of their walk, the more prisoners they had to wade through. Their murmurs grew in volume, at first like the buzzing of insects, but by the time the quad came into view, Kiva could barely hear her own mind. If not for Naari and the three guards pushing the masses aside, they wouldn’t have made it through the crowd at all. It seemed like Zalindov’s entire population was waiting in anticipation for what was coming.

When the gallows rose up before them, Kiva’s stomach lurched so violently that she feared she might vomit. But when she made herself look closer, she saw that there was no noose dangling from the beam, no hangman waiting beside the lever.