that the specter of Jasindra was bizarrely solid when they crashed into it, they paid no heed.
Fie let the glamour go anyway. It felt oddly exposed, to wear her own face, let her teeth show plain, but there was precious little point in subterfuge now.
A hand locked around Fie’s elbow: Khoda. “We need to get out,” he shouted.
“But Draga—” Fie twisted to try to see through the pandemonium. She heard the tiger snarling, clashes of blades, shrieks and shouts of guards. Someone had the master-general’s arm around their shoulders—the war-witch. Their bloody hand was laid on Draga’s head. Fie saw gaps of pink in the crimson and realized the master-general’s gashes went to the bone.
“She can manage,” Khoda said, shoving them onward. “We need to find Jasimir and get to safety.”
“We need to find Tavin,” Fie spat. “How long did you think it would take me to find out?”
Khoda made a face. “Honestly? I was hoping for one more week. I know you’re angry with me, but we need to focus—hold on.” He yanked her and they popped through a side exit, stumbling into the south wing of the Divine Galleries.
Jasimir was waiting by one of the statues, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“It’s all rutted,” Fie said, “and Tavin has been on our side the entire time, and Khoda’s been hiding it from us, and I’m pretty sure Rhusana just figured it out.”
“What?” Jasimir’s jaw dropped.
Khoda looked pointedly over his shoulder at the Peacocks flooding past. “Can we do this somewhere else?”
“No. Not a one of them gives a damn.” Fie bent down and started tearing away the bottom half of her gown. “Rhusana’s done something to Tavin. I’m going after him.”
“Why … why would you…?” Jasimir was staring at Khoda like he’d drawn a dagger on them.
Khoda’s face almost seemed to break open, furious and guilty all at once. “Because this is exactly what I was afraid of! Hells, you didn’t even have to know he was working with us before you started trying to save him! But this is what ruling is about, it’s about sacrifice. Someone always has to pay the price. Rhusana was going to make it the Crows. I gave Tavin the option to choose himself.”
Fie kept tearing the gown. The open air was welcome on her knees. “Funny,” she said, frosty, “the ones who always say there’s a price never seem to be the ones paying it. You know what my pa says?” She ripped the last of her skirt away. “He says even Phoenixes need ashes to rise. But I reckon you know that, aye. Because it’s your job to make sure they’re never the ones who burn.”
She pulled Tavin’s sword free, scabbard and all, and handed it to Jasimir. “The master-general’s hurt, and it’s a mess in the hall. They need your help. I’ll be back with Tavin.”
“You can’t put yourself at risk.” Khoda put a hand on the prince’s elbow—
—and the prince threw it off. “I’ll decide that.”
“Jasimir, please.” The note of desperation in Khoda’s voice sang so clear, it shook Fie. It wasn’t duty, it wasn’t agenda, it wasn’t born of long-laid schemes.
She wondered when, precisely, the Black Swan had realized his devotion to the crown prince’s welfare ran deeper than a throne.
But if Jasimir heard it, too, he had no time for it.
“We can’t do nothing, so make yourself useful or make yourself scarce.” The prince thrust the scabbard through his sash. “Fortune’s favor to you, Fie.”
“Fortune’s favor,” she echoed. Then she dove back into the fray, let it carry her out of the Divine Gallery, calling first a Vulture witch-tooth, then a Pigeon witch-tooth. Wishing for fortune was one thing. She needed more than wishes now.
Tavin’s own tooth stayed clenched in her fist, an anchor for the Vulture Birthright as it traced his trail. It wove north, dead west, straight down through the gardens—
Dread shot through Fie’s gut.
Her Hawk’s trail ended in the catacombs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE SETTING SUN
Fie made it perhaps a third of a way into the garden before she saw the first skin-ghasts.
A Phoenix tooth joined the song in her bones, clearing the ghasts from her path with great sweeps of flame before she realized they were leaving her be. Ghast after slinking ghast slithered by, some loping, some on their bellies like snakes. All of them bore a gash over their throat and the muted pattern of the Sinner’s Brand over their arms, and not a one so much as swiveled its eyeless face toward her.
Instead they all