I want so badly for the magic to respond. For it to communicate with me. To guide me. To tell me what I should do.

A child howls from nearby, a heartbreaking sound. I should go to him. I should see what’s wrong. Instead, I ignore it. I pretend I am Shaeva, cold and unfeeling, attending my duty because that is my only concern. I pretend I am a Mask.

Far in the Forest, I feel the magic rise.

Love cannot live here. I repeat the words in my head. As I do, the magic twines out of the Forest, inching toward the Mask in me while still wary of the man. I harness that old patience the Commandant drilled into us at Blackcliff. I watch, I wait, calm as an assassin stalking a mark.

When the magic finally seeps into me, I grab on to it. Aubarit’s eyes widen, for she must sense the sudden influx of power.

The paradox of the magic tears at me. I need it to save the people I care about, but I can’t care about them if I want to use the magic.

Love cannot live here.

Immediately, the magic fills my sight, and that which was hidden becomes apparent. Dark shadows cluster everywhere like malignant tumors in a tortured body. Ghuls. I kick out at those close by, and they scatter but come back almost immediately. They congregate near the tents where Aubarit and the other Fakirs have put those who are afflicted.

Relief sweeps through me, for the solution to this is so simple that I am angry I didn’t see the ghuls before.

“You need salt,” I say to Aubarit and Mamie. “Those afflicted by this malady are surrounded by ghuls, who hold on to their spirits. Put salt around those who should be dead. The ghuls hate it. If you disperse those foul creatures, the afflicted will pass, and you should be able to commune with the spirits again.”

Aubarit and Mamie disappear almost immediately to find salt and to tell the other Tribes of the antidote. As they sprinkle the salt around the afflicted, the hisses and snarls of thwarted ghuls fill the air, though I’m the only one who can hear them. I walk with the Fakira through the camp, the magic still with me, ensuring that the ghuls are not simply waiting for me to leave before slinking back.

I prepare to return to the Waiting Place when a distant shout stops me in my tracks. Afya pulls her horse up beside me.

“The Martials have mustered a legion,” she says. “Nearly five thousand men. They’re moving against us. And they’re coming swiftly.”

Bleeding hells. The moment I think it—the moment my worry for the Tribes rises—Mauth’s magic leaves me. I feel empty without him. Weak.

“When will the Martials get here, Afya?” Tell me they’re a few days away. Perhaps if I wish for it, it will be true. Tell me they’re still outfitting their troops, preparing weapons, readying for the assault.

Afya’s voice shakes when she answers.

“By dawn.”

   PART III

   ANTIUM

XXXI: The Blood Shrike

Avitas Harper and I do not stop to eat. We do not stop to sleep. We drink from our canteens as we ride, halting only to change horses at a courier’s station.

I can heal my sister. I can. If only I can get to her.

Three days into the journey, we reach Serra, and it is there that I finally stop, dragged bodily off my horse by Avitas, unable to fight back because of fatigue and hunger.

“Get off me!”

“You will eat.” Harper is equally enraged, his pale green eyes bright as he pulls me toward the door of the Black Guard barracks. “You will rest. Or your sister has no hope, and neither does the Empire.”

“A meal,” I say. “And two hours of sleep.”

“Two meals,” he says. “And four hours of sleep. Take it or leave it.”

“You don’t have any siblings,” I snarl. “Not any who know who you are, anyway. Even if you did, you didn’t watch as your family—you weren’t the reason they—”

My eyes burn. Don’t comfort me, I scream in my head at Harper. Don’t you dare.

Harper watches me for a moment before turning away, snapping at the guard on duty to get food and quarters ready. When he turns back, I am composed.

“Do you wish to sleep here in the barracks,” Harper says, “or in your old home?”

“My sister is my home,” I say. “Until I reach her, it doesn’t matter where I bleeding sleep.”

At some point, I fall asleep half-slumped in a chair. When I wake in the middle of the night, plagued by nightmares, I am in my quarters, a blanket tucked around me.

“Harper—” He rises out of the shadows, hesitating at the foot of my cot before kneeling beside my head. His hair is mussed, his silver face unguarded. He puts a warm hand on my shoulder and nudges me back to the pillow. For once, his eyes are transparent, filled with concern and exhaustion and something else I don’t quite recognize. I expect him to lift his hand away, but he doesn’t.

“Sleep now, Shrike. Just a little longer.”

* * *

Ten days after leaving Serra, we arrive in Antium, coated in sweat and grime from the road, our horses panting and lathered.

“She’s still alive.” Faris meets Avitas and me at Antium’s massive iron portcullis, warned, no doubt, of our approach by the city guardsmen.

“You were supposed to protect her.” I grab him by the throat, my anger lending me strength. The guards at the gate back away, and a group of Scholar slaves mortaring a nearby wall scatter. “You were supposed to keep her safe.”