Chapter One ONE
BLY FROZE UNDER THE COLD stare of the witch’s eyes that burned a brighter blue against the backdrop of fresh snow glittering in the fading sunlight. In another life, she might have found the eyes pretty and the witch handsome with his curly dark brown hair that just brushed his square jaw.

Or not. He wrapped his hands around the iron bars of the cage he stood in, glaring down at Bly with disgust on his face. That was no way to look at someone who was supposed to be saving you.

Especially when you hadn’t been freed yet.

“Bly.”

She turned at the sound of her name. Hazel watched her with raised eyebrows. The other woman understood why she hesitated but wouldn’t tolerate it.

Bly focused on Hazel. The older witch had kind eyes. The same blue as the witch in the cage. The same blue that still haunted Bly’s nightmares. Sometimes Bly just needed to look at Hazel to remind herself that not all witches were the ones who stole Elise. Hazel had been kind to her during the witches’ trials, and Bly had even caught her in the woods freeing humans during the Games. Plenty of witches were compassionate and good. Her mind understood that, but her heart still surged to cast blame in moments like these.

“Hurry up, human,” said the caged witch in front of her.

Bly turned back to him, baring her teeth as if she were a vampire capable of taking a bite out of him. He gave her a snide grin. Maybe he was a bad witch. She could picture him laughing at Elise’s head lolling to the side as he jostled her onto the stretcher.

She shook away the thought and forced herself to speak to him. “What are you here for?”

He continued to look at her as if she were a mouse scurrying over his boot.

“Answer or I’ll walk away.”

She hoped he’d remain silent. Then she could leave him. That was their rule. Everyone had a chance to explain why they were in one of these prisons tucked away in the woods. Both the vampires and witches built these hidden places full of people they weren’t supposed to keep alive: vampires and witches who were turned over in the Games or taken away as punishment for harming a human in the market. The rules said they should be killed, a onetime prize of enemy blood. None of them were supposed to be kept indefinitely for the miserable existence of providing an endless supply.

And then there were the humans—most of whom had committed crimes of desperation while struggling to survive. Or people like Elise who’d done nothing more than touch a cursed mushroom and ended up being traded to the vampires by the witches.

She was starting to turn away when he spoke.

“I was turned over during the Games three years ago.” Some of the snark had left his voice.

Bly eyed his worn clothes, the rusty stains on his shirt at the creases of his elbows.

Of course, he could’ve been lying just so she’d free him, but it was surprising how many of them told the truth. The witch in the cage next to him would not be freed. She’d admitted to death-cursing a human woman for accidently splashing mud on her skirts in one of the Gap’s markets, allowing the vampire guards to seize her as punishment. She’d been proud of it.

Bly’s hand clenched around the spell that would break the lock to his cage.

This witch could go on to hurt a human.

Hazel’s shoulder lightly brushed Bly’s as she came to stand beside her. “Would you like me to do the honors?” Hazel asked.

“Please,” snapped the caged witch.

Hazel focused solely on Bly. “He’s not the one.”

“I know.” But that was part of the problem she still had. Bly looked at every new witch like they were the one who had taken her sister.

Sighing, Bly spoke the spell in her hand and broke the lock. Before she could even step back, the witch shoved through the door, hitting Bly’s shoulder with a metal bar and sending her stumbling back. Only Hazel’s hand on her elbow kept her backside from hitting the snow.

Bly hissed, pulling an arrow from the quiver on her back on instinct. She didn’t have a bow, though—she wasn’t a good shot yet, but she’d tied binding spells to the arrowheads, giving her the ability to spell someone in a fight without getting as close. She took a step after the witch, then stopped. What was the point? Nothing she did would get her what she wanted. Shoulders slumping, she looked around at the empty cages.

This prison had been hidden deep in the woods that surrounded Vagaris in a thick ring of pine trees that vampire guards had rested their backs against before the rebels rendered them unconscious. A cluster of gleaming metal cages that were tall and too narrow to lie down in sat in a tight circle in the center of the clearing.

The guards had mostly gone down peacefully, spelled to sleep by rebels wearing invisibility. But those spells were rare, and the group had to use them sparingly, so there’d still been a fight. One guard had been decapitated after drawing blood from half their group.

Bly blinked as she took in the aftermath. Red marred the white landscape.

Blood and snow and no Elise. It had been almost a year and a half since her sister had touched the cursed mushroom and the witches had stolen what Bly believed was her dead body, and forty-six days since Bly had entered the Games to win the witches’ prize and raise her sister from the dead, only to win and find out that Elise was not dead at all.

Her only lead on Elise had come from the most unlikely of sources—Donovan, the very vampire prince she’d handed over to the witches to win their prize in the first place. Before the witches had dragged him away, Donovan had told her that he knew where her sister was, but everything came at a price, and he’d only tell her if she could free him.

He’d given her hope, but after months with no other leads, it had become barely enough to keep her going.

Yet she’d gotten her hopes up again. She hadn’t found Donovan at the Havenwhile prison they’d raided last week, but if Donovan knew where Elise was, it had to mean she was in a Vagaris prison, so when Bly had gotten the lead on this place, she’d let herself believe that this was it.

But Hazel said there were many prisons out in the woods—kept hidden and outside the walls of the city so the rulers could deny their existence, and kept small so that their whole blood supply couldn’t be wiped out in an attack.

Bly just had to keep working with Hazel’s group toward their goal: Free everyone who didn’t deserve their fate, and eventually, Elise would be in one of the prisons they raided, but in the meantime, others deserved their help. It was just hard to care about others when the person you loved most was missing.

Hazel understood Bly’s true motives though. Bly didn’t think the older witch cared if her goal had never been to free everyone: Bly’d been the one to bring the group the location of this Vagaris prison. She’d risked her neck for it. Hazel surely didn’t care if Bly’d done it for Elise and not the witch who’d almost knocked her to the ground seconds ago. Hazel saw the bigger picture.

Hazel squeezed Bly’s elbow before letting it go. Bly hadn’t realized she’d still been hanging on to her.

“Are you coming home with us?” Hazel asked.

Bly didn’t understand why Hazel insisted on calling it home. The rebels moved to different locations at each new moon. With a group that was a mix of vampires, witches, and humans, there was no safe home in the vampire city of Vagaris or the witch city of Havenwhile, and nobody had ever really been safe in the poverty-stricken human villages that sat in the Gap between the warring cities.

Bly shook her head. She wasn’t going, and it certainly wasn’t a home. She didn’t have one of those.

After the Games, she hadn’t known what to do. Elise was somewhere with a death curse running through her veins. Bly had assumed Elise was trapped in Vagaris, but she wasn’t sure.

She couldn’t go back to her parents and tell them what they’d already guessed from the moment she’d entered the Games: She’d lost—even though she’d won—because she’d failed to retrieve Elise, and she hadn’t even managed to get the money from either prize.

So no, she couldn’t go home. Home was a place for rest and comfort. Her parents’ place had never even been that for her before Elise was gone.

Elise wasn’t a ghost anymore, but Bly had turned into one. All she did was haunt the living, searching for the things that had once made her alive.

In a moment of weakness, she let her thoughts stray to Kerrigan, the one person who’d made her feel again even when she didn’t think it was possible—and now the one person whose memory she avoided at all costs. After all, it was useless to dwell on what she could never have again, not after what she had done to him. Kerrigan had willingly gone with her as a sacrifice to the witches, but when the idea of losing him became as unbearable as the idea of not saving her sister, Bly had betrayed him in the worst way by handing over his brother, Donovan, to the witches instead.

She’d stolen his sibling to save her own.

Better to stay a ghost.

That’s how she’d ended up with the rebels. She’d sought out Hazel after the Games, mostly because she didn’t know what else to do. Hazel didn’t call herself a rebel though. The word held too much violence for her taste, which was why Bly preferred it. Hazel called her band of prison breakers “Healers.” They were a group formed from witches, humans, and vampires who saw the evil at the very foundation of their world and fought to change it in any small way they could. They didn’t just work to empty the illegal prisons held on both sides; they also stole supplies from wherever they could to pass to those in the Gap who needed it most.

They called themselves Healers because they wanted to save and not hurt… at least whenever possible.

Bly’s gaze flicked over the headless vampire again.

They were slapping bandages on a wound that would never heal.

But Bly didn’t need to heal the world, just find Elise.

And the Healers had need of ghosts—or at least people who didn’t care if they were harmed while chasing their goals.

Bly shook herself. Hazel had drifted away to help some of the freed prisoners who hadn’t run. The other rebels milled about doing the same and securing the vampire guards in the empty cages where they’d be found by next shift.

She should have helped, but instead, she pulled her cloak over her head and drifted into the woods.

“Bly.” Hazel’s voice caught up to her, but Bly didn’t want to listen. She was done pretending to care about the cause for tonight.

“We have a new lead on Havenwhile prison,” Hazel said. “It could be nothing, but they spotted a man with red hair.”

That made her stop. A new lead on Donovan? Something in the pit of her chest stirred—the dying gasps of the hope she was trying to keep alive.

“Where?” Bly breathed, finally looking over her shoulder.

Hazel shook her head, too smart to trust her with the location when she was fresh with disappointment. “We leave for it at midnight in four nights.”

“We can get there sooner than that,” Bly snapped.

Hazel tsked. “And be at our best strength? We need to scout more. Make our plan. You’re welcome to come back to camp with us and help with preparations. Keep yourself busy.”

Bly sighed. She didn’t like preparing. She wanted action. Hazel knew that.

“I’d rather locate another lead here.” It helped to have something else once they’d raided a prison and found nothing. It helped if she stayed restless and searching. If she paused, she was afraid she might lose whatever was pushing her forward.

Hazel didn’t press. Bly appreciated that about her. She might have thoughts about how Bly was going about this, but she understood that it was Bly’s choice and still helped her.

“Stay safe,” Hazel said.

Bly didn’t say she would. She walked away and slipped through the trees with the same ease she’d always had, letting her palms scrape across the rough oak bark and her fingers comb the pine needles, knocking loose soft piles of snow. The horror of the Games had tried to strip her of her love for the forest, but it hadn’t won. She’d refused to let it. The unknown hidden behind the densest brush had always held both danger and possibility, and that hadn’t changed.

Although her heart sped a little more from fear than anticipation these days.

She’d gotten good at ignoring both feelings. They didn’t bring her closer to finding her sister.

She reached the walls of Vagaris easily, slipping through one of the hidden cracks she’d learned to find, thanks to watching Demelza during the Games.

At least she had one thing to thank the witch for.

Two, actually. Demelza had chosen to break the rules and leave Donovan alive.

He was the tangible thread to getting Elise back. And Kerrigan. Though the latter seemed too much to hope for.

She slipped through the wall and slid down the dark streets like she belonged there. Once, her dreams had been bright and flowery, more like Havenwhile, but now she felt safer in Vagaris, not because it was closer to Kerrigan, but because it was farther from Demelza and Nova.

Before she’d found Hazel, Bly had gone back to Demelza. She wasn’t sure why—she had nothing to barter for Donovan’s release, but for some reason, she thought pity would prevail. It hadn’t. Demelza had sent Nova after her. The witch had made Nova one of her personal guards, and Nova had been all too eager to accept the task of making sure Bly couldn’t reach Demelza again. Nova clearly still held Bly responsible for Vincent’s death. During the Games, Bly had worked with the siblings, agreeing that they would split the prize: They would keep the money while Bly claimed the resurrection spell. But after Nova died, Vincent had tried to claim the resurrection prize to bring his own sister back. To settle the fight, Demelza had made Bly and Vincent duel, and Bly had won.

Which left Vincent as the human sacrifice who would fuel the resurrection spell that ultimately brought Nova back from the dead.

Nova would never forgive Bly for that, and Bly didn’t blame her.

So when Demelza had sent Nova after her, Bly had barely gotten out, and she hadn’t been inside Havenwhile since.

Bly reached a house that was like so many of the others in Vagaris: solid stones overtaken by moss that let off a chill only a vampire wouldn’t notice. She shivered, realizing for the first time that the cold had numbed her face. Clenching her stiff fingers, she knocked.

The door swung open as if he’d been standing behind it, waiting, and Emerson’s stare slid over and behind her to the empty spot where he’d undoubtedly hoped to find Elise.

She shook her head, confirming what he’d already guessed.

His face fell as he stepped back, turning away from her for a moment.

It didn’t hurt like it once would have. She knew too well that her feelings for Emerson had never really deepened beyond friendship—they’d been part of a childhood fantasy she’d misinterpreted as reality.

She’d found true passion and then had snuffed it out while trying to save it.

Emerson moved to the table, and she followed, sitting across from him. His home was no warmer than outside.

They stared at each other, two cold people hoping to find someone to bring them back to life.

But at least they had each other. The Games had put their friendship through fire with Emerson questioning her every step of the way, but the experience had forged them into a perfect blade, each of them a sharp and equal side with the singular goal of cutting down anyone who tried to stop them from finding Elise.

He’d apologized more than once for not believing in her. Elise was alive somewhere, and he’d be dead if Bly hadn’t fought for him.

Bly had never noticed before the Games that their friendship had been strained—that he’d looked down on her dreaming as foolishness and that she’d resented his cautiousness in turn—but things were different now. They talked through all their ideas together. He appreciated her ability to make a reckless plan, and she appreciated his ability to help shape it into the safest option.

And they were always planning. Although, once in a while, they’d share a rare peaceful moment together when the plan was done, and there’d be nothing to do but wait. The solid absence of Elise would fade away, and it’d be just the two of them. Sometimes Bly would bake an apple tart, and they might even joke about how it wasn’t nearly as good as what Elise could do. Sometimes Bly would bring Emerson a block of wood from the forest and watch as he began to carve a figure that he’d never finish. It was enough for them to hold on to some shreds of who they’d be together once they found Elise.

Today wasn’t a day for that, though.

Bly spoke first. She felt like she had to give him something. “They have another lead on a Havenwhile prison.” She left out the part about the man with red hair. A little hope could keep you going, but too much hope could kill. “Can you get away? We’d need to be at camp in four days’ time.”

“I’ll try to get someone to cover.” He hadn’t been able to make tonight’s raid. As a vampire prince, he’d taken over handling many of the vampires’ forges. His own father worked for him now. And even though she knew Emerson was still as much a ghost as she was without Elise, she could tell that he actually liked the job. He’d already managed to improve working conditions for the humans. She’d been right about that at least: Emerson made a kind and good vampire.

Still, she wondered if he had regrets—if all the sadness on his face was the absence of Elise or if some of it was the loss of his human life.

She was afraid to ask him… afraid of how he’d feel if they didn’t find Elise before the death curse stole her.

Emerson stood up from the table and lit the fire like he always did for her even if she never mentioned the chill. He rarely bothered for himself despite the fact that vampires loved fires even though they didn’t really feel the cold. Emerson said the heat from a flame was enough to make their skin feel a tiny bit human.

Bly preferred the numbing cold, but she appreciated the gesture.

They sat for a while in the empty silence of people who shared a pain they didn’t want to talk about.

Bly’s fingers and toes began to ache as she thawed. She couldn’t let herself get too comfortable. Her night was just beginning.

She rose from the table. “I’m going to change.”

Emerson finally focused on her. His muted expression betrayed a flicker of worry, but he gave it no voice. This was a plan they’d both agreed on—both reckless and practical.

Bly kept trying to tell herself it’d work, but she’d burned up too much of her hope during the Games.

The goal in the Games had been clear: Win and get Elise. There were rules and outcomes.

Finding Elise now seemed even more like a dream, and Bly’s dreams had a history of not panning out.

Her chair scraped as she pushed it back against the table, wanting a noise to fill the silence.

Emerson reached out a hand as she moved by him, grabbing onto her wrist for a moment. The gesture always gave her strength, but his hand was cold, and he let her go, still saying nothing.

She moved to the bedroom she had here, pulling open a wardrobe where she kept some of her clothes. Her fingers brushed against several silky gowns created by spelled spiderwebs. Hazel had given her the spells because Bly had told her she wasn’t just looking for Elise at these parties, that she might also overhear key information about others that needed rescuing. And Bly had delivered. She’d been the one to find the prison they’d just freed—she’d followed Kerrigan to it three nights ago, but she’d been looking for Elise and Kerrigan was surely looking for Halfryta, the head of the witches, who they’d handed over in the Games to win Emerson his immortality.

Demelza had promised Kerrigan a fair trade for Donovan if he’d return her mother. Unfortunately, Donovan would only tell Bly where to find her sister if she freed him before Kerrigan traded the witch who killed their parents for him.

She was racing against Kerrigan, and he didn’t even know it.

She selected a bright red dress that reminded her of blood in the snow. The neckline plunged almost to her navel, but the sleeves were warm and long. The skirts were cut high in front with a waterfall of material in the back, but she wore skintight black pants underneath. She’d be warm enough while still looking the part.

She laced up black boots to her knees.

Turning to the small mirror above the dresser, she undid her curls from her bun, letting them roll off her shoulders in soft waves. Most bleeders wore their hair up, showing off the vulnerable expanse of their neck, but Bly felt somehow safer with her hair down, like it was a shield.

Silly. If she drew the wrong attention, having her hair down wouldn’t offer any protection.

She touched the choker at her throat—a fine gold chain magicked on with a red jewel shaped like a drop of blood in the center. It was the mark of a bleeder. She hadn’t realized how coveted the job was until she’d needed something that would let her stay in the vampires’ city. Emerson had reluctantly helped her secure the position with his new status as a prince.

She hid it when she didn’t need it. She knew he hated her taking the risk, but tonight, she needed it on display.

Watching herself in the mirror, she picked at the fraying end of the blue ribbon around her wrist—the constant reminder of her own selfishness, which had destroyed so many lives. A token that never let her forget why she was doing this in the first place.

When she came out of the room, Emerson had gone.

She tried not to let his absence bother her. He did his own searching when he wasn’t working, placing himself in bars where he could hear the gossip.

Vampires loved to brag.

Maybe they’d get lucky. Or maybe they were both searching for a girl who was dead by now. Each second they didn’t find her could be the moment the death curse struck.

Her chest tightened and her breathing turned shallow before she forced herself to inhale and exhale. She needed to move without thinking or she’d end up curled into a ball, trying to avoid the crushing weight of worry.

Slipping out the door, she moved through the darkness. Vagaris was a raucous place under the moonlight once you’d drifted away from the side streets and onto the main ones filled with bars and vampires drinking blood and booze in equal measure. An occasional human joined the mix, laughing while unhealed wounds dripped, but bleeders were rare and strictly monitored and most would be in the fortress where the wealthiest vampires held their parties.

That was where she needed to be. She spent most of her nights there. She moved past the guards and walked through the long hallway with an ease she didn’t feel. She was always keenly aware of how easy it would be to find herself with fangs in her neck that wouldn’t release until she died. She’d hardly be the first bleeder to disappear.

Everyone’s luck ran out eventually in this blood-soaked world.

Entering the ballroom, she paused, mouth gaping slightly as she took it in. She’d heard the vampires liked to change their décor on a whim, but she hadn’t seen it before now.

Gone was the maze of golden berry bushes that surrounded the giant fountain. Instead, golden oak trees with red-tinted leaves overtook the room. Orbs of light hung from them, casting everything in the shadows of their clawing branches. Plush black-velvet sofas and chairs were strewn haphazardly beneath the canopy, and even though the night was young, they were filled with couples embracing or feeding.

Bly took a tentative step inside. She preferred the sharp golden maze where it was easier to hide. Even though she wore the jewelry of a bleeder, she’d yet to let another vampire feed on her. Only Kerrigan’s fangs had punctured her skin.

In the past, she’d been able to drift around the room, brushing off anyone who asked her for a bite with the excuse that she’d already committed to someone else. It worked. Some of the wealthiest employed their own bleeders and did not like to share.

It’d be a harder lie without the winding maze.

She needed to find a good spot to blend into the shadows. Instead, she found herself searching. She hated the way her eyes always looked for him first. She told herself the only reason she found him so easily was because of his height and the copper shine of his hair. It was impossible to miss him even if she tried.

Though, she never tried.

Her throat always tightened when she spotted him, as if he’d reached out and slid his hands around her neck. But he’d never gotten close enough to touch her.

This time, she heard his laugh before she saw him. Not his real one—the fake one that made him sound like an asshole who only cared about having a good time.

Spinning on her heels, she faced him. His lips were curved into a flirtatious smirk, but his eyes weren’t on her—they were on the pretty brunette vampire on his arm. He seemed so enamored with her that he wouldn’t have even glanced at Bly as he passed if his shoulder hadn’t bumped hers.

“Pardon,” he said with a laugh that died a slow death as he actually turned and took her in. His face shifted to a blank expression with a swiftness that made her head spin.

This was the closest she’d been to him since that day he’d walked away from her in the woods. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to get close to him at these parties, to say how sorry she was one more time, but he’d always turned his back and disappeared the moment she tried. So she watched him flirt and laugh and waited for his eyes to land on her, but they never did—she didn’t even catch him looking quickly away.

He truly wanted nothing to do with her.

There wasn’t even hate in his expression as he looked down at her now. Just nothing.

“Kerrigan.” His name came out tight and strangled from her throat.

He winced as if it were a barb, and she finally saw something flash across his face: disgust.

Her heart sped at the sight of it. At least he felt something toward her. She still existed to him, even if that look said he wished she’d disappear forever.

“Well, she’s lovely,” said the vampire on his arm. “Should she come with us?”

“No,” Kerrigan snapped.

“Such a pretty neck, though,” the vampire pressed.

Did Kerrigan’s eyes flit to her neck for just a moment? She almost brushed her hair away from it, but that would be ridiculous. She wasn’t actually trying to sell him her blood.

“She’s not to my taste,” he said coldly.

Bly winced.

He started to pull away, the brunette pouting slightly on his arm as she stared longingly at Bly.

“I’m—” Bly started.

“Don’t.” He snarled the word as he spun back around with viciousness that made Bly step back. Even the vampire on his arm looked startled before he twisted and pulled her away into the crowd.

Only a few minutes later, Kerrigan’s fake laugh drifted through the crowd once more. His mask was back in place. She’d ripped it off for a moment, and she wasn’t sure she should try again. Before, when he’d finally let her in, she’d seen a vulnerable boy who regretted his monstrous past. She wondered if that vulnerable boy had been swallowed by the monster once more.

She’d done that to him.

She tracked his movements, watching him lounge on a sofa with his arm around the brunette. Even though he’d be better off without Bly, she still needed him. He hadn’t completely gone back to his party-boy ways. It was just a façade to hide his true goal: searching for Halfryta to trade for Donovan. And if he found the witch and made the trade, then the truth of Elise’s whereabouts would stay with Donovan, and she was certain Donovan wouldn’t help her then.

That’s why she was here. Kerrigan was checking the Vagaris prisons for the witch, and if Donovan had seen her sister, then she was somewhere locked away here. Kerrigan could still help her get her sister back by leading her to the prisons he found—she just couldn’t let him know that she was using him. Luckily, Hazel supplied her with spells to help her track him unnoticed.

But even Kerrigan didn’t seem to know where the queens kept all their secrets. Sometimes Bly followed him through the woods and down corridor after corridor only for him to end up slamming his fist into a tree or stone wall in frustration. Bly suspected that despite his high station, the queens’ trust of Kerrigan only went so far.

He was still her best lead.

It was hard to watch him, though, to constantly want to reach out and grab him and yell at him that she knew his carelessness was an act. He was hurting underneath. She wanted to heal him even though she’d caused the wound.

And she was still causing it. He’d just confirmed that her presence was nothing but a knife cutting him again and again.

If she loved him, she’d let him go, but here she was, because at the end of the night, she was still going to fight for Elise. She’d already sacrificed too much to stop.

She would keep her distance, though. She could do that at least.

Bly clung to the shadows in the corners of the room. Twice, she told a vampire that she was already taken for the evening before drifting off like she had somewhere to be. Once, she caught the obnoxious vampire prince Benedict watching her with narrowed eyes as he often did. His attention made her uneasy. He’d tried to steal Halfryta from them at end of the Games. He was friends with Donovan, and he was Jade’s brother, which made him her natural enemy.

Ignoring him, she focused on keeping Kerrigan in her line of sight.

After an unbearably long time, Kerrigan finally extracted himself from a tangle of people around him and slipped to the edge of the room, wobbling on his feet as if he were one drink shy of collapsing. He stayed in the corner for a moment, eyes darting around and then up to the balcony where the queens held their smaller court. The queens had been hanging over the railing earlier, Melvina laughing with some of the crowd, and Allena watching everything with cool eyes. They were gone now or hidden in the darker recesses.

Kerrigan stumbled to the door at the back of the room, which she knew led to the arena. She hadn’t really wanted to see that particular place again, but she’d do what she must.

She reached into the pocket she’d carefully placed in the folds of her skirt, freezing as her fingers brushed nothing but silk. The spells she normally carried were still in the dress she wore last time: the wing of a dragonfly that would make her invisible and a tuft of fur from a wolf that softened the sounds of her movements. It was a careless mistake to come without them—she’d been too caught up in the crushing disappointment of not finding Elise again.

It’d be a bigger mistake to follow a vampire without any spells to mask her presence.

But she needed another lead to grasp onto if the Havenwhile prison turned up nothing in four days.

Ducking, she wove through the crowd, for once not being stopped by anyone asking for a taste.

Opening the door, she stuck her head out into the night. The full moon lit the arena like a spotlight, but at least she wasn’t here to perform this time. It seemed like years since she’d fought for Kerrigan’s attention on these blood-soaked stones, but in this moment, all she wanted was to be invisible to him.

She shut the door gently behind her. Kerrigan had already reached where the arena touched the lake, and Bly held her breath as he looked from side to side, but he didn’t glance back. Turning right, he crept along the edge of the water.

She waited until his dark shape bled into the forest that hugged the water before scurrying down the sloped arena. At least there were no obstacles to scale, no witch waiting for her gruesome fate. She paused just at the shoreline, searching the trunks of the trees for any shift of movement. Nothing. She’d waited too long, but it would have been worse to rush after him without her spells and be caught.

Hoping to guess his direction, she took a step into the woods before pausing. There. She twisted her head like a wolf catching the scent of a rabbit.

Kerrigan would smile if he could see her like this: her the wolf and him the rabbit.

She shook herself. Of course he wouldn’t smile. It was a ridiculous thought.

Kerrigan crept along the side of the fortress. He’d doubled back. Did he already know she was trailing him? She should let him go. They had their lead on Donovan to follow, and Bly and Emerson would leave tomorrow night to make the three-day journey to where the rebels were currently camped.

But what if Elise was in this prison? She didn’t want to miss any chance no matter the risk.

She couldn’t follow him out in the open in the shadow of the fortress wall, so she headed deeper into the woods until she could barely keep track of him through the thick clusters of trees, and then she moved parallel to him, darting as quietly as possible from tree trunk to tree trunk, hoping he didn’t turn and investigate the gentle crunch of snow beneath her boots or the occasional snap of a branch.

With any luck, she’d sound like nothing more than a wandering herd of deer. After all, it was the things in the forest that didn’t make noise that you had to fear.

The stone walls ended, and Kerrigan strode on without hesitation. They continued until Bly couldn’t feel her fingers or toes and the only warmth was the running of her nose. Finally, Kerrigan stopped in a patch of forest that looked the same as everything that had come before, but he moved to a particularly wide oak tree and ran his hand across the trunk before making a sharp left.

When a thread of laughter broke the night, Bly slid behind a pine. Kerrigan was ahead of her and to the right, and he paused, leaning his back against a tree as he slipped a hand inside his vest. He vanished.

Curses. He hadn’t forgotten his spells, and she couldn’t follow the air. There had to be guards just beyond her sight, but she had no way to pass them and see what they had hidden out here in the trees, so she waited.

And waited. She probably should’ve left as soon as Kerrigan disappeared. There was no way to know if he would come back the same way or if he’d be visible even if he did. Those spells were precarious things. The amount of time they worked was never quite the same, and he might have minutes or even hours before he reappeared. Kerrigan was taking a risk even using those to slip past the guards. He was as desperate and careless as she was. At least they had that in common.

Though she doubted he’d try to free Halfryta now. He was too smart for that. He’d be looking for weaknesses, planning to come back later. She needed to see him again and read his face. She was certain she’d be able to tell if he’d found what he was looking for or not.

That’s why she lingered.

Shivering, she pulled the front of her dress closed.

Without a warmth spell, she wouldn’t last much longer.

She needed to move—at least head back toward the fortress. She’d have a better chance of catching sight of Kerrigan again if she waited there.

The guards laughed again, their chatter rising and falling as they struck up another conversation.

She took a step. The crunch of her boot on a dried pinecone echoed through the night.

Her heart pounded, drowning out everything else. No… the guards had stopped talking, and the silence was worse than if she could hear them moving toward her, but she held her muscles in place even though they begged to run. She didn’t have a speed spell, and she wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d outrun them without one.

A hand clamped over her mouth so hard that it muffled the scream that tried to rip from her. Another hand wrapped around her waist, trapping her arms at her sides before lifting her up and backward into a hard chest. Her feet began to kick until she looked down and saw nothing. She was invisible.