“Get your things.” He scans the windows and beneath the bed. “We need to get the hells out of here.”

“What’s happened?” I say. My thoughts immediately go to the Nightbringer. To his minions. “Is it—is he—”

“Wraiths.” Musa’s face has paled to the color of an unpolished scim. “They attacked Tribe Sulud, and they might be coming for us.”

Oh no. No. “The Kehanni—”

“I don’t know if she’s alive,” he says. “And we can’t risk finding out. Come on.”

We race down the back stairs of the inn and out to the stables as silently as possible. It is late enough that most of the village is in bed, and waking anyone would only bring about questions—and a delay.

“The wraiths killed everyone silently,” Musa says. “I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if the wights hadn’t woken me up.”

I pause as I throw a saddle onto my horse. “We should find out if there are any survivors.”

Musa swings up onto his mount. “If we go into that camp, skies know what we’ll find.”

“I’ve faced a wraith before.” I finish with my horse. “There were nearly fifty Tribespeople in that camp, Musa. If even one of them is alive—”

Musa shakes his head. “Most of them left early. Only a few wagons stayed with the Kehanni to keep watch over her until she was ready to leave. And she stayed because—”

“Because of us,” I say. “Which is why we owe it to her to make sure neither she nor any of her kinsmen needs help.”

He groans in protest but follows me as I leave the stables and head for the camp. I expect it to be silent, but the steady drizzle of rain pings off the wagon roofs, making it difficult for us to hear our own footsteps.

The first body is sprawled at the entrance to the encampment. It is wrong, broken in a dozen different ways. A lump rises in my throat. I recognize the man—one of the Tribesmen who welcomed us. Three more of his family members lie a few yards from him. I know instantly that they too are dead.

But we do not see the Kehanni. A quiet chitter near Musa’s ear tells me that the wights have noticed her absence too. Musa nods to the Kehanni’s wagon. When I make for it, Musa puts an arm in front of me.

“Aapan.” The strain on his face matches the foreboding in my heart. “Maybe I should go first. In case.”

“I saw the inside of Kauf Prison, Musa.” I slip past him. “It can’t be any worse.”

The back door opens silently, and I find the Kehanni crumpled against the far wall. She looks so much smaller than she did just hours ago, an old woman whose last story was stolen from her. The wraiths did not cut her—in fact, I do not see a single open wound. But the odd angles of her limbs tell me exactly how she died. I clap my hand against my mouth to hold back my sick. Skies, she must have been in so much pain.

A moan comes from her, and both Musa and I jump.

“Oh bleeding hells.” I am by her side in two steps. “Musa, go to the horses. Look in the right saddlebag—”

“No.” The Kehanni’s sunken eyes gleam with faint, failing light. “Listen.” Musa and I both fall silent. We can barely hear her over the rain.

“Seek out the Augurs’ words,” she whispers. “Prophecy. The Great Library—”

“Augurs?” I don’t understand. “What do the Augurs have to do with the Nightbringer? Are they allies?”

“Of a kind,” the Kehanni whispers. “Of a kind.”

Her eyelids droop. She’s gone. From the wagon door, a loud, panicked chitter sounds.

“Let’s go,” Musa hisses. “The wraiths are circling back. They know we’re here.”

With the panic of the wights spurring us, we race through the rain at a pace that drives the horses into a frothing sweat. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I think the words over and over, but I don’t know to whom I speak. My horse, for making it suffer? The Kehanni, for asking her a question that killed her? The Tribesmen who died trying to protect her?

“The Augurs’ prophecies,” Musa says when we finally slow our horses for a rest. “The only place we’ll find them is the Great Library. She—she was trying to tell us. But it’s impossible to get in.”

“Nothing is impossible.” Elias’s words come back to me. “We’ll get in. We must. But first we have to make it back.”

Again, we push through the night, but this time, Musa needs no urging. I spend half the ride looking over my shoulder and the other half plotting ways to get into the Great Library. The skies clear, but the roads are still treacherous with mud. The wights remain near us, their wings occasionally flashing in the dark, their presence offering a strange comfort.

When the walls of Adisa come into view in the deepest hour of the night, I want to sob in relief. Until the hazy glow of flame materializes.

“The refugee camp.” Musa urges his horse on. “They’re burning the tents.”

“What the hells happened?”

But Musa has no answer. The camp is in such chaos when we reach it that the Mariners, frantically evacuating the Scholars, do not notice two more faces amid the hundreds running through the narrow, ash-filled lanes. Musa disappears to speak to one of the Mariners before finding me again.