lips and let Jasimir go. He shook his head and tried to protest around the gag. It sounded something like “You can’t.”
“Trust me,” Fie said, “it’s too late for that, Highness.”
She shoved him to the Vultures.
“No!” Tavin shouted, wild-eyed.
Jasimir stumbled through the dust—one pace, two—and Tatterhelm seized the scruff of his neck.
Now. Fie licked her lips, drew breath to whistle—
And the ashes erupted at her feet.
Gray, flat hands slapped about her ankles. Another pair roped round her throat. She screamed, half fear, half fury, thrashing like an animal in a snare.
She’d forgotten the skin-ghasts, and now—it had all fouled up.
Fie choked out a furious scream before the clammy hands yanked tight.
Cinders rained from two skin-ghasts as they swelled from below, slick gray hides gorging like water skins. The one grasping her ankles yanked them up with him as he rose, until she hung by both her neck and feet.
And then the skin-ghasts’ faces filled in, hollow, dreadful. Known.
Hangdog’s eyeless face yawned at her, narrowing his hold on her throat.
The thing that had once been Swain began to drag at her ankles.
Panic shrieked through her veins. She flailed for—for aught, a rock, a scrap of bone, even a handful of hide. But the skin-ghasts simply folded out of the way, pulling like they meant to tear her apart.
Pain ripped along her jaw, up and down her spine, at her ankles. She heard screams that weren’t her own. Some sounded like they might be her name. One sounded like it might be Tavin.
The skin-ghasts said naught, for they had no tongue, no bones, no teeth to speak with. Only Hangdog’s slack face. Only Swain’s.
The queen had, in the end, turned even Fie’s dead to her ends.
How much more, Jasimir had asked, will you let them take?
She’d never expected to die quiet. Young, maybe. But not like this.
She’d not come here to die.
She’d come to look after her own.
Fie wet her lips and forced the last of her breath into an earsplitting whistle.
If Tavin were a Crow, he’d know that whistle signal. It meant drop.
If Tavin were the prince, he’d know what was coming.
And if Tavin were only a Hawk, he would have died when Fie loosed the Phoenix tooth that had burned, hidden, in Jasimir’s bound fists all along.
But Tavin wasn’t only a Hawk.
And so when the cyclone of Phoenix fire swallowed Tavin, his prince, and his captor in one starving snap of golden teeth, only the skinwitch burned.
The Crows flattened themselves to the earth in a chorus of iron bell-song. Phoenix fire swept over them, scattering the skinwitches like sparks.
Greggur Tatterhelm rolled from the fire, skin blistering over his valor marks, and leapt for her. The plain, brutal knife swept down—
And jolted away as Jasimir threw himself into Tatterhelm’s side. They toppled into the skin-ghast at her feet, knocking its grip loose.
Fie’s feet hit the dirt. Hangdog’s hollow hands dug into the flesh of her throat. Through watering eyes, she saw more skin-ghasts bursting from the ash, grasping for the Crows—she had to get free—she had to look after her own—
The Phoenix tooth burned yet in Jasimir’s fist. She called it once more.
Golden fire rushed round her, devouring empty skin with a horrid crackle. Swain crumpled like paper, shriveling in an instant. The other skin-ghast let her go.
Fie crashed to the cinders, gasping air stained with old grease.
Hangdog’s skin-ghast staggered, peeling and charring, until he collapsed. The dark sockets of his face warped as flames ate him whole.
Why? she wanted to ask. You sold us to them, and this is what they made of you. Why?
He crumbled away, into the ash.
“Fie—!”
She wrenched about on her knees. Jasimir crawled toward her. Fie yanked the prince’s cloak aside and freed Pa’s broken sword from where it dangled along Jasimir’s backbone. The weight of it steadied her as she reached for Jasimir’s bound hands.
The prince’s eyes snared behind her and flew wide. She couldn’t turn fast enough.
A fist like a hammer smashed into her jaw, knocking her back into the dust. Pain shot through her teeth. She heard another crack and cry paces away.
“Get up!” She’d know Tavin’s voice anywhere, even raw and hoarse.
A steel-toed boot thudded into her ribs. She tumbled through ash again, slipping and choking on a mouthful of grit. Pa’s sword slipped from her grip.
Blistered fingers locked around her throat and hefted her to dangle before the skinwitch. The world reeled in Fie’s eyes, painting a streaking picture: the fire fading, the Vultures and