“It was never one. It was always three. The Blood Shrike is the first. Laia of Serra, the second. And the Soul Catcher is the last. The Mother watches over them all. If one fails, they all fail. If one dies, they all die. Go back to the beginning and there, find the truth. Strive even unto your own end, else all is lost.”

He shudders and holds my gaze to his. “Tell them. Swear it!” He sounds like himself again, but when he claws at my arm, there is no strength behind it. His hand falls and a rattle escapes his chest.

“Elias,” he says. “Remember—”

He whispers something, two words I only just catch. Then the jinn burst out of the trees and I streak away from them, not stopping until I reach the clearing near my cabin, where I know I’ll be safe.

I stumble toward it, my heart thundering in a visceral reminder of my own mortality. In the forest, the ghosts wail, in need of solace. But I slam the door shut on them. My body trembles and I wait, panting, for Mauth to heal my singed skin, to take away the thoughts in my head. Laia. Helene. Keris.

When the magic surges through me, I want to weep in relief. But though my burns fade and my heart ceases its frantic beat, no tide of forgetting washes the memories away. They parade across my vision, sharp as knives stabbing into my brain.

Shame consumes me when I think of all those I killed as a Mask. I can’t count their number anymore, there were so many. Not just strangers but friends—Demetrius. Leander. Ennis.

No, no. These memories are folly, for emotion has no place in my world.

Mauth, I cry out. Help me.

But he does not respond.

IX: The Blood Shrike

Ninth bell tolls as we reach the quay and Laia pants like she’s run a hundred sprints in the dead of a Serran summer.

“Do you need a minute?” I ask. The glare she shoots me makes me take a cautious step back.

“Or ten,” she wheezes. I stop in an alley that leads to Adisa’s westernmost bay. Wind whistles through the wharf, but the snow has stopped and the Adisans are out in droves.

Hawkers sell steaming noodles steeped in garlic broth, fried honey-cakes dusted with sugar, and a hundred other foods that make my mouth water. Young thieves weave through the crowd, swiftly relieving victims of their coin.

And everywhere, Nikla’s soldiers patrol in groups of two and four, scaled blue armor flashing.

“We need to get out on the water,” Laia says. “Musa will not be on the quay. He’s too well-known.”

“There.” I nod to where a scrawny, white-haired fishmonger shouts loud enough to wake the dead. Despite that, the old woman has few customers, situated as she is at the end of the quay. An unattended punt bobs on the water at her back.

“Just big enough for two. And maneuverable enough to get us through the night market.” Lantern-lit boats ply Fari Harbor—Adisa’s renowned floating merchants. “I’ll take out the old woman. You get the—”

“We are not knocking out an old woman!” Laia hisses. “She could be someone’s grandmother.”

The Scholar girl steps out onto the quay and knifes through the teeming crowds with her elbows. The fishmonger spots us and shakes a giant pink-and-silver fish in the air.

“Winter siltfish, fresh-caught!” she shouts as if I’m not two feet away. “Chop it, roast it, put it in a pot!”

Laia glances at the barrels of unsold fish behind her. “Business rough, old mother?”

“I’m not your mother,” the fishmonger says. “But I’ve a nice fat siltfish for you. Ten coppers and it could feed your family for a week. How many children do you—”

“We have need of your boat.” I nudge past Laia. There’s no bleeding time for pleasantries. Along with Nikla’s soldiers, I’ve spotted Martial troops—Keris’s men—patrolling the edges of the market. I hand the old woman a gold mark. “And your discretion.”

A mark is a fortune for someone who probably makes one silver in a month. But the fishmonger tosses the coin, catches it, and hands it back to me. “Boats aren’t cheap, Martial. Neither is silence.”

The woman slings up her catch again. “Winter siltfish, fresh from the harbor!” she bellows, and I fight not to cover my ears. “Fry it, stew it, feed it to your barber!”

Keris stole the treasury before betraying Antium. As such, I am low on coin. But I grit my teeth and add two marks to the first. The fishmonger pockets them and nods to her punt, yelling all the while.

As Laia and I make for the boat, I give her a dirty look. “Glad we let the nice old grandmother live?”

The Scholar shrugs. “Murder is not the answer to everything, Shrike. Grab that hat. Your hood is too conspicuous.”

Evening deepens as we pull away from the dock and into the traffic of the harbor. “I don’t suppose you can use your disappearing trick?” I ask Laia. Far easier to have someone watching my back if no one can see her. But she shakes her head.

“The Nightbringer is in the city. I can’t—” She looks over my shoulder, eyes widening. I whirl, expecting a Mask, the Commandant, a platoon of Mariner soldiers. My daggers are already in hand. But there’s nothing but the fishmonger’s stall and the quay.

“Sorry.” Laia puts a finger to her temple, jumping when another punt bumps ours. “I thought . . . never mind.” She wags her head and I’m reminded, uneasily, of her mother, Mirra of Serra, who I knew only as Cook.

Laia collects herself as I maneuver through the busy harbor. Musa went on and on about it, and to my surprise, I find he didn’t exaggerate its beauty. We pass an Ankanese dhow, its blue sails adorned with a huge eye. In its wake, a dozen vessels drift by, glowing with paper lanterns and poled by Mariners peddling ice plums and siltfish, wriggling shrimp and warty blue pumpkins.

“Shrike,” Laia whispers. “Mask!”

I spot him immediately—he’s on the deck of a ship so massive it casts half the floating market in shadow. Beneath the cloudy sky, the mast flag is clearly illuminated. It is black, with a white K emblazoned upon it. Keris’s flag.

Only she’s altered it from the last time I saw it. A spiky crown rests atop the K now. The sight of it makes me want to snap my oar in half.

“That’s the Samatius,” I say. “One of the ships I left in command of Quin Veturius in Navium.” Skies only know where the old man is now.

At that moment, I spot another Mask rowing through market traffic. My heart trips. This one has the good sense to dull the silver on his face, and wears a floppy fisherman’s hat.

“Harper’s here,” I say, and after a moment, Laia spots him.

“He’s alone. Do you think Darin and Musa got out?”

“I bleeding hope so,” I say. We don’t have enough smiths in Delphinium. As Darin is skilled enough to make unbreakable Serric steel blades, we need him. I can’t take my nephew’s throne back if I don’t have any scims.

We make our way toward Harper, stopping frequently to buy goods so as not to call attention to ourselves. The market is beautiful—one of the wonders of the world.

But it is Antium I long for. I miss the high pillars of the Hall of Records, and the domes and arches of the Illustrian district. I miss the orderly bustle of the markets and the soaring white peaks of the Nevennes Range, visible from anywhere in the city.

I miss my people. And I fear what they must be suffering under Grímarr’s rule.

“Worrying won’t help.” Laia gauges the tenor of my thoughts. “But talking about it might.”

“Without the Mariners’ help,” I say, “things are only going to get worse for us. Right now we have support because the Paters of Delphinium know what happened in Antium. But in the southern part of the Empire, the Commandant’s betrayal is a rumor. One she’s crushed ruthlessly.”

“She has the support of all the southern families,” Laia says. “And she has the army. But that doesn’t mean she’s won. What is it you always tell me when I’m too tired to pull a bowstring? Defeat in your mind—”

“Is defeat on the battlefield.” I smile at her. When I began teaching her archery, I’d expected her to give up after she realized how difficult it was.

I was wrong. When I was short with Laia, she’d work harder. Some nights I’d see her out on the archery pitch near the Black Guard barracks, practicing. She’s no Mask, but she can kill a man at thirty paces.

“You’re right, of course,” I say. “Keris might want us dead, but I’m not in a hurry to get to the Waiting Place—are you?”

Laia’s body tenses. Too late, I realize what a callous remark it is.

“I’m uh—sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Laia sighs. “Men are a terrible waste of air.”

“Utter garbage,” I agree.

“Useless rubbish,” she adds, grinning.

I chuckle before unwittingly glancing at Harper, camouflaged amid a cluster of longboats. Laia follows my gaze.

“He’s one of the few who isn’t, Blood Shrike.”

“We’re almost there.” Harper is not a subject I have any interest in discussing, now or ever. But Laia shakes her head.

“Poor Avitas,” she says. “He does not have a chance, does he? Skies, his eyes will fall out of his head when he sees you in those Mariner leathers.”

My face gets hot and I feel stung. I didn’t expect unkindness from her.