A dagger flies through the air and lands at my feet—not an attempted attack, I realize quickly. The woman whose face Raze’s talons tore into abandoned it to throw her arms over her head, screaming at a pitch even higher than the bird’s. Blood drips from the scored claw marks down her face, and she curls into a shivering ball.

Raze’s form blurs and shifts back into his human shape, landing heavily on his feet.

The woman doesn’t get up.

“If you have something to say about me,” he pants, advancing on Aris, “you should say it to my face.”

She smirks, looking not even a little surprised by his sudden transformation. Her fingertips start to glow, white light beading into a ball hovering over her wrapped palm.

Raze takes another step forward, flexing his fingers at his side. Preparing for her attack? Or an attack of his own?

Then Raze’s eyes widen, his knees give out, and he stumbles.

The morning air is shattered by a loud retching as he heaves the contents of his stomach over the edge of the cliff.

My own stomach clenches—because it’s gross, not out of any concern over him.

“Raze, why?” Olani growls, even though it seems obvious: he’s red-faced and nauseous from over-exerting his magic. Isolde is at her side, a furious storm of blows and flashing blades.

It takes everything in me not to turn my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I need to watch, no matter how horrible it is. I need to be here for her.

The woman Isolde is fighting holds her own surprisingly well, but she can’t land an attack. I watch her dodge and parry and shift her eyes away just long enough for Olani to knock her in the back of the head with a hollow thud. She collapses like a rag doll. Is she dead or unconscious?

It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone else.

“Thanks for the distraction,” Olani says breathlessly, but Isolde’s attention is already focused over her shoulder.

Isolde flicks her wrist back, then sends her knife in a gleaming streak that narrowly misses grazing Olani’s cheek. It buries itself in the shoulder of the man sneaking up behind her, narrowly missing his heart. There’s blood, instantly, so dark it’s almost black on the blue of his clothes. I can hear the wetness and smell the iron in the sea-salt air.

I hear myself let out something like a strangled whimper.

The man stiffens, swaying on his feet. It seems like he might drop to his knees, but then Olani swings her quarterstaff, knocking him neatly off the cliff. The churning waves are too far down to hear the splash.

I look back to Raze. Aris crouches by his side, one hand raised and full of light, sweeping her lovely green eyes over him disdainfully. She twists his red hair in her delicate fingers, wrenching his head up. “Tell me how you got it to work,” she says, dangerously quiet.