Night falls quietly over the so-called ruin, broken by distant birdsong and the low whine of the airjet. Its engines spin slower and slower, shutting down after our journey north. The shocking blue tinge of electricity beneath each wing fades, until the only light comes from inside the jet and the stars above.

We wait, silent, in the hope that our landing has gone unnoticed.

It smells like autumn, the air perfumed by dying leaves and the damp of distant rainstorms. I breathe it deeply at the bottom of the ramp. The silence is punctuated only by Kilorn’s distant snores as he catches a few much-needed moments of sleep. Farley has already disappeared, a gun in hand, to scout out the rest of the hidden runway. She took Shade with her, just in case. For the first time in weeks, months even, I’m not under guard or closely watched. I belong to myself again.

Of course, that doesn’t last long.

Cal hastens down the ramp, a rifle over his shoulder, a pistol on his hip, and a pack dangling from his hand. With his black hair and dark jumpsuit, he could be made of shadow, something I’m sure he plans to use to his advantage.

“And what are you doing?” I ask, deftly catching his arm. He could break my grip in a second, but doesn’t.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take much,” he says, gesturing to the pack. “I can steal most of what I need anyway.”

“You? Steal?” I scoff at the thought of a prince, and a brute of all things, doing anything of the sort. “At best you’ll lose your fingers. At worst, your head.”

He shrugs, trying not to look concerned. “And that matters to you?”

“It does,” I tell him quietly. I do my best to keep the pain from my voice. “We need you here, you know that.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but not to smile. “And that matters to me?”

I want to beat some sense into him, but Cal is not Kilorn. He’d take my fist with a smile and keep on walking. The prince must be reasoned with, convinced. Manipulated.

“You said yourself, every newblood we save is another strike against Maven. That’s still true, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t argue either. He’s listening, at least.

“You know what I can do, what Shade can do. And Nix might be even stronger, better, than both of us. Right?”

More silence.

“I know you want him dead.”

Despite the darkness, a strange light glimmers in Cal’s eyes.

“I want that too,” I tell him. “I want to feel my hands around his throat. I want to see him bleed for what he’s done, for every person he’s killed.” It feels so good to say it out loud, to admit what scares me most of all, to the only person who understands. I want to hurt him in the worst way. I want to make his bones sing with lightning, until he can’t even scream. I want to destroy the monster that Maven is now.

But when I think about killing him, part of my mind wanders back to the boy I believed him to be. I keep telling myself he wasn’t real. The Maven I knew and cared for was a fantasy, tailored specifically for me. Elara twisted her son into a person I would love, and she did her job so well. Somehow, the person who never existed haunts me, worse than the rest of my ghosts.

“He’s beyond our reach,” I say, both for Cal and for my own benefit. “If we go after him now, he’ll bury us both. You know this.”

Once a general and still a great warrior, Cal understands battle. And despite his rage, despite every fiber of him begging for revenge, he knows this isn’t a battle he can win. Yet.

“I’m not part of your revolution,” he whispers, his voice almost lost in the night. “I’m not Scarlet Guard. I’m not part of this.”

I almost expect him to stamp his foot in exasperation.

“Then what are you, Cal?”

He opens his mouth, expecting an answer to tumble out. Nothing does.

I understand his confusion, even if I don’t like it. Cal was raised to be everything I’m fighting against. He doesn’t know how to be anything else, even now, alongside Reds, hunted by his own, betrayed by his blood.

After a long, terrible moment, he turns around, retreating into the jet. He casts off his pack and his guns and his resolve. I exhale quietly, relieved by his decision. He’ll stay.

But for how much longer, I don’t know.

ELEVEN

According to the map, Coraunt is four miles northeast, sitting at the intersection of Regent’s River and the extensive Port Road. It doesn’t look like more than a trading outpost, and one of the last villages before the Port Road turns inland, weaving around the flooded, impassable marshlands on its journey to the northern border. Of the four great byways of Norta, the Port Road is the most traveled, connecting Delphie, Archeon, and Harbor Bay. That makes it the most dangerous, even this far north. Any number of Silvers, military or otherwise, could be passing through—and even if they aren’t actively hunting us, there isn’t a Silver in the kingdom who wouldn’t recognize Cal. Most would try to arrest him; some would certainly try to kill him on sight.

And they could, I tell myself. It should frighten me to know this, but instead I feel invigorated. Maven, Elara, Evangeline and Ptolemus Samos—despite all their power and abilities, all of them are vulnerable. They can be defeated. We only need the proper weapons.

The thought makes it easy to ignore the pain of the last few days. My shoulder doesn’t ache so badly, and in the quiet of the forest, I realize the ringing in my head has lessened. A few more days and I won’t remember the banshee’s scream at all. Even my knuckles, bruised from striking Kilorn’s cheekbone today, barely hurt anymore.