In the end I decided that the fact Nikola wants it so desperately is reason enough for me to deem it Bad. That we stand a better chance of surviving in some remote district of Mongolia or Siberia—assuming we can finagle a border crossing—than anywhere having to do with the Bathorys.

But what of those we leave behind? Four lives have already been lost. For all I know, Nino’s might already be the fifth. No wonder I erased mine to bury it all.

Sometime midmorning, I spot movement on the ladder of the bunk beds across the room. Ana steps from the last rung without a sound, a blond-haired wraith in a white T-shirt.

“Can’t sleep?” I whisper. She looks up, dully.

It kills me to see the stars gone from her eyes.

“Come on,” I say, holding back the covers as though she were twelve. She climbs in beside me and cries against my shoulder until it’s wet, clutching me like I’m the last strong thing to hold on to in a storm.

My mind is disobedient in sleep. The last symbol, the one nothing at all like the boxy Glagolitic characters and set apart by a small space from the others, is littered through my dreams.

*  *  *

“Audra, get up.”

I open my eyes on Claudia, in a blunt-cut black wig, bangs hanging down to her shades. “We have a problem.”

“What?”

“Ana’s missing.”

I rub my eyes. “What do you mean missing—” I stop at the sight of a leggy, olive-skinned brunette with shoulder-length dreads sitting on one of the low bunks against the wall. She’s clad entirely in purple, from her dress to her tights and knee-high boots, an open laptop at her side.

“Who’s that?” I demand.

“That’s Jester,” she says.

I stare, dumbfounded. That’s Jester?

The new arrival gets up and comes over. There’s something different about one of her legs—the angle of her knee is slightly off—and only when she’s kissing my cheeks in greeting do I realize it’s prosthetic.

“How’d you find us?”

“I tracked Claudia’s phone,” Jester says. Her accent is unmistakably French. “Isn’t it exciting?”

“Tracking a phone?”

“No! That Tibor has declared war against Nikola and thrown his lot in with you. He sends his regards, by the way,” she says, dropping several German passports on the bed beside me.

“What do you mean Ana’s missing?” I say, staring at them.

“She said she was going for coffee, but that was hours ago. Piotrek’s looking for her.”

Across the room, Luka’s scratching a pencil over the pad on the desk. A few seconds later he holds it up. It’s covered with imprints from the sheet above. The last symbol from my back, drawn again and again and again.