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“No.” Wordlessly Lunaya stretched out her arms, showing him the marks.

He stared at her skin, at the fresh cuts, but also at the other disfigurations. The black web of necrotic veins that covered every inch of her body. “What are you?” he whispered, horror in his eyes.

“I don’t know, Persis,” she answered, her voice tired, so very tired. “Sometimes I don’t know anymore.”

The boy looked taken aback. “You know my name. Then you know my father. Lord Pansera will come for me.”

Lunaya forbore pointing out that no one knew they were here. All of the children had been transferred from other places. No one knew what was happening here at the O’Rourke manor, so conveniently close to the Bonewood. “I hope he will,” she said gently.

A huge shadow suddenly passed across the tall window panes, and Persis stepped back quickly. “The dragon,” he whispered.

“Molindra,” Lunaya agreed.

“You have a dragon,” the boy persisted. “So, why don’t you leave?”

Lunaya’s eyes were tired, briefly flashing with frustration. “Don’t you think I would if I could?” Her face softened. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

For one so young, Persis knew to be suspicious. “Come where?”

“You’re not the only one trapped here.”

She led him down the corridor and then to a door that opened into another, smaller hall. Down the hall they walked, and Lunaya stopped before a tall door. She pointed to symbols that had been drawn on the door in red. “Blood wards,” she said quietly.

Persis’s eyes widened as he saw the symbols. Lunaya pressed her palm to the ward. The marks flared and glowed. The door’s lock opened with a click. Inside the room, the only thing there was a cage.

“Oh!” Persis breathed as he saw what lay curled up inside.

The fluffin was a puff of cloud-soft golden fur. As they stepped into the room, the little creature lifted its head to look at them, overlarge ears flicking back at the sound. Its eyes were round and too large for such a small face. Too expressive and too knowing, as well.

“I’ve never seen one before,” the boy whispered. He looked at Lunaya. “What’s its name?”

“She doesn’t have a name yet. What would you like to call her?”

The boy’s face soured. “Why is she here?”

“You already know the answer to that. Because they want to use her for something terrible.”

Persis swallowed, eyes going back to the cage. The fluffin had settled on her belly, paws stretched out in front of her primly. She stared at him with glowing, trusting eyes. “She’s practically a baby. That’s not fair,” he whispered.

“No, it isn’t,” Lunaya agreed. She touched his sleeve. “But we won’t let them.”

In the cage, the little fluffin made a faint trilling sound. As if she understood the words the girl had spoken for exactly what they were: a promise.

Chapter 2

MEDRA

Before this morning, if someone had asked me what I thought of Kage Tanaka, I wouldn’t have known exactly what to say. I might have said he was infuriating, arrogant—just like another man I knew. I might have said he was always a little too cryptic. A little too sharp for his own good. And that half the time I couldn’t figure out if he wanted to protect me or prove something by getting in my way. I would have said that he led House Avari with a wisdom that seemed to go beyond his years. That he was efficient and dangerous but knew when to stay his hand, when to be gentle, how to be fair.

I would have said I wasn’t sure if I trusted him. But none of that would have been the whole truth.

The truth was there were no easy answers. Kage had never been the type to soften himself to make people comfortable. He’d challenged me—maybe simply because I’d needed it. And even what I’d viewed as a betrayal I knew to him had been an act of loyalty, even friendship. He’d never hesitated to act or risk his life protecting others. He’d fought for the city, for his people. Even for the people who didn’t deserve him. I thought of his wolf. Of the way people were saying he’d raced toward Veilmar with Regan on his back. Regan, of all people.

Now here I sat by his bedside, in a hard-backed, uncomfortable wooden chair. The kind that always seemed to be plentiful in infirmaries. My hands were folded because I didn’t know what to do with them. Outside the dawn had broken. Blake was gone. Florence hadn’t returned. And in the bed beside me, Kage Tanaka was probably dying. Lysander had found him at the foot of Peace-bringer’s Hill hours ago, his body broken, barely breathing. There’d been no sign of Regan or Viktor anywhere.

I snuck a glance at Lysander: The Orphos leader sat in a chair on the other side of the bed. He’d rolled up his sleeves and sat hunched forward, his hands clasped together. I’d never seen Lysander like this before. He’d always seemed so aloof, so composed. Even after his sister, Lunaya, had been taken, he’d walked around the school as calm as ever. Yet now he looked destroyed sitting beside the sick-bed of a man not even from his own house, his hands clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

“Do you think the healers are right?” I asked him quietly.