As the carriage thumped through a deep divot in the softened road, moonlight speared into the carriage. It bounced off the cat’s green eyes, which glimmered like Kahina’s ring. Instinctively, Stix rubbed her thumb.

Pain spiked through her.

She flinched, startled by the intensity of it, by the lightning flaring up her arm and down her spine. She jerked her hand into the dim light, only to find a raw, blistering line striped around her thumb.

The cat stopped her purring. Ryber gasped, and Stix gulped over a sudden tangle in her throat. The voices, for once, were silent—as if they too were stunned by what Stix saw. As if they too had grown cold with horror.

“What is that?” Ryber asked. For some reason, she was whispering.

And for some reason, Stix was whispering too when she answered, “I don’t know, Ryber. I really don’t know.” Except that in the most remote corners of her brain, a place fully usurped by voices, there was a quiet memory of a green ring, the person who’d worn it, and the pain that came from breaking a bargain bound in jade.

Vivia awoke with the sense that something was off. She’d forgotten where she was. Why, how. Then came the scent of sandy earth and plant exhales. Thick, alive, a smell she’d never known she missed until it reached her again.

This was Nihar, a place that had been dead for so long. The place where her father had been raised, and then Merik after him. She’d always wished it had been her to come here, even if she never admitted that to anyone but herself—and only then during these dark, solo moments of the night.

Katydids choired aboveground, outside of this prison where Vivia’s crew waited for her to do something. To lead. If only she knew what steps to take, if only someone were here to tell her.

What a great queen she was.

She pushed off the earthen floor and fumbled for Vaness nearby. The lanterns had been extinguished outside the cells—all save one—yet no amount of squinting was making Vaness’s unconscious form appear.

She isn’t here. It took Vivia several moments to realize this. Too many moments to realize the floor beside her was empty, and the rest of the cell too.

Horror battered through her. She scrambled to her feet, ready to shout for guards and demand answers. Yet as soon as she pounded her fist against the door, it creaked open. Lantern light slid in, and Vivia gaped, brain too stunned to understand. Muscles too stunned to move. Her door was open, Vaness was gone, and …

Footsteps. Soft, lethal, moving away.