quite put her finger on…and suddenly it had shown itself.
Ramson had been working for Kerlan all along. And Kerlan was working with Morganya.
Tears stung her eyes. She thought of Ramson, the way he had looked at her beneath the falling snow, his eyes bright like a boy’s.
It had been an act, every moment of it. Every piece of that man she’d seen had been a lie. And she’d fallen for it all.
But there was no time to pity herself.
Ana lifted her gaze to the alchemist. There was nothing left to do, no more pieces left to puzzle over. “I’m going back to Salskoff to stop Morganya,” she said, “and you’re going to come with me.”
Tetsyev wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I’ll be executed for treason,” he whispered.
“I’ll grant you mercy if you cooperate.” It sickened her to say the words, when she’d waited an entire year to see this man die. But she was no longer just Ana, the frightened girl who’d stumbled into the Syvern Taiga and wanted nothing more than to have her home and her family back.
She was Anastacya Mikhailov, Crown Princess of Cyrilia, and her empire depended on her.
Tetsyev had crawled over to her, his tears tracing streaks down his cheeks. He clung to her skirts and kissed them. “Thank you, Kolst Pryntsessa,” he wept. “Kind, good, merciful—”
Ana tore her skirts from his hands. “I am none of those things,” she said. “I only grant you mercy because your life is worth nothing to me. But make a single mistake again, and I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
She turned from him in disgust and retrieved Ramson’s pocket watch. She wanted, more than anything, to hurl it across the room and see it shatter into pieces.
She checked the time. Forty-eight minutes past nine.
“We leave now,” she said, whirling around and snatching the torch from its sconce. Ramson had told her it took roughly five minutes to get to the end of the escape tunnel. “Follow me.”
She stretched her Affinity down the tunnel as they walked, sensing for the warm thrum of blood in bodies, feeling out any traps. There was a possibility that there was no carriage awaiting her at the end of the tunnel, that Ramson had tricked her and this was a trap. Still, it was the only way out.
But the corridors were empty. There was only the sound of her and Tetsyev’s breaths, their harried footsteps echoing against the stone walls. The ground grew rougher, the air wet and then dry again.
A door met her at the end of the tunnel. Moonlight filtered through its cracks. Ana snuffed out her torch and twisted the handle in the same combination as the one upstairs. It swung open.
She let out a breath of relief.
They were in the back of Kerlan’s gardens, a single path cutting between tall trees that obscured mostly everything else from view. A trellis covered the entrance, overgrown with ivy and small white flowers.
A carriage stood on the grassy lawn in the shadows of the trellis. Two valkryfs pawed the ground at her approach.
Ramson had told the truth.
She turned to Tetsyev. “Get in,” Ana began, but Tetsyev was no longer standing behind her.
Another man stood in his place, dressed in a black doublet. The moonlight cast a long shadow in his wake, reminding her of a different dungeon filled with the pungent smell of fear and Deys’voshk.
“Hello, Kolst Pryntsessa.” Vladimir Sadov smiled widely at her, pressing his long white fingers together. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
There was a soft whooshing sound. A sharp pain pierced her shoulder, and the world went black.
The darkness came and went, but the pain was endless.
Ramson tried to rein his consciousness back from the depths of sleep, but then someone shook him.
He groaned and cracked an eye open. He immediately regretted it as bright light pierced his vision and the world swayed around him.
The air held the faded stench of blood and sweat. He recognized this room, with the bleeding walls and countless chains and the cupboard with vials of unknown poisons. He was once again in the dungeons of Kerlan’s estate—only this time, he was the prisoner.
His shoulders ached. He strained forward and found the familiar feeling of cuffs chafing against his wrists. Ramson sank back against the wall.
He had been here for hours, or perhaps longer—he couldn’t tell anymore. His interrogator, a hulking man in a black mask, was nowhere to be seen. Ramson’s eyes caught the pail of black water in the corner. A