“Who—” She tries to see me, but her ravaged face is drenched with blood.

“It’s Laia,” I say. “You must walk, do you understand? You must.”

“I saw white smoke.”

“Walk, Shrike—walk!”

Step by step, we make our way up the Pilgrim Road until we are high enough to see over the bodies and into the Karkaun force, diminished but still enormous. High enough to watch as my mother picks them off one by one, grabbing the arrows the Karkauns are hailing down upon her, giving us as much time as she can.

And then I do not look back anymore. I just move, half dragging, half urging the Blood Shrike onward and upward. But it is too far and the Shrike is too injured, her clothes soaked with blood, her body heavy with pain.

“I’m so-sorry,” she whispers. “Go—go on without—”

“Blood Shrike!” A voice from up ahead, and a flash of silver. I know that face. The Mask who helped me at Kauf. The one who set me free months ago. Avitas Harper.

“Thank the bleeding skies—”

“I’ve got this side, Laia.” Harper throws the Shrike’s other arm over his shoulder, and together we pull her up the path, then down across a shallow bowl to a cave where a handsome, dark-skinned Mask waits. Dex Atrius.

“Harp—Harper,” the Shrike slurs in a whisper. “Told you . . . collapse the tunnels. You disobeyed orders.”

“With respect, Shrike, they were stupid bleeding orders,” Harper says. “Stop talking.”

I twist my head around as we enter the cave. From this height, I can see down the hill to the Gap.

To the Karkauns who are now making their way up the path with no one to block their way.

“No,” I whisper. “No—no—no—”

But we are in the cave now, Dex ushering us forward quickly.

“Blast it,” Avitas says. “Laia, come quickly. They’re not far behind.”

I don’t want to leave her, I want to scream. I don’t want her to die alone. I don’t want to lose her again.

When we are at the end of a long passage lined with blue-fire torches, an earth-shattering rumble booms out, followed by the unmistakable sound of thousands of pounds of rocks falling.

And then silence.

I slip down onto the ground beside the Shrike. She cannot see me, but she reaches out her hand and takes mine.

“You—you knew her?” she whispers. “The Cook?”

It takes me a long time to answer. By the time I do, the Shrike has lost consciousness.

“Her name was Mirra of Serra,” I speak, though no one can hear me. “And yes. I knew her.”

   PART V

   BELOVED

LVII: The Blood Shrike

Laia of Serra cannot hold a tune to save her life. But her hum is sweet and light and strangely comforting. As she moves around the edges of the room, I try to get a sense of my surroundings. Lamplight filters through an enormous window, and I feel a nip in the air—a sign that summer closes in the north. I recognize the low, arched buildings beyond the window and the large square it faces. We are in Delphinium. There is a weight to the air. A heaviness. Distantly, lightning flashes over the Nevennes. I can smell the storm.

My face feels strange, and I reach my hands up. The mask. The jinn. I thought it had been a nightmare. But as I feel my own skin for the first time in seven years, I realize that it was not a dream. My mask is gone.

And a piece of my soul with it.

Laia hears me move and turns. I see the blade at her waist, and on instinct I reach for my own.

“No need for that, Blood Shrike.” She tilts her head, her face not exactly friendly but not unkind either. “We didn’t drag you through a hundred miles of caves so your first act upon waking would be to stab me.”

A cry sounds from nearby, and I force myself to sit up, eyes wide. Laia rolls her eyes. “The Emperor,” she says, “is always hungry. And when he doesn’t get food . . . skies, help us all.”

“Livvy . . . they’re . . .”

“Safe.” A shadow flickers across the Scholar girl’s face, but she hides it quickly. “Yes. Your family is safe.”

A whisper of movement at the door, and Avitas is there. Immediately, Laia excuses herself. I understand her quick smile, and I flush.

For just a second, I see the look on Harper’s face. Not the carefully controlled blankness that all Masks wear, but the heartfelt relief of a friend.

Though, if I am being honest, it is not the look of someone who thinks of me as just a friend. I would know.

I want to say something to him. You came for me. You and Laia dragged me from the claws of Death himself. You have more of your father’s goodness in you than you will ever acknowledge.

Instead, I clear my throat and swing my legs, shaking with weakness, over the side of the bed.

“Report, Captain Harper.”

His silver eyebrows flick up for a moment, and I think I see frustration in his eyes. He crushes it, the way I would. He knows me by now. He knows what I need.

“We have seven thousand five hundred twenty Martials who fled Antium,” he says. “Another one thousand six hundred thirty-four Scholars. We believe that at least ten thousand more—Illustrians and Mercators—left before the invasion or were siphoned out by the Commandant.”