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She leaps forward on a violent cry that’s raw with heartbreak.

For a moment, it looks like she might land atop Akilah and throttle her. But mid-air, the redcloaks strike.

Their magic lashes around Megaera with two mighty cracks, and she falls back sharply. I flinch, feeling the force of it as she hits the ground and her knees crumple.

“You’ll die for this.” The agony in Megaera’s vow claws into my chest.

The crowd shuffles and murmurs; the barrier burns under both my hands now.

My chest tightens; my voice is too broken to shout. I have to stop this.

Megaera has already lost so much—her father is gone, and she’s suffering. But she can’t hurt Akilah, either. My stomach heaves.

I pound against the barrier and, even as she kneels on the hard stone, Akilah’s gaze shifts, meeting mine with a warning.Quiet. I’ll do this. Trust me.

The judge raises his hands, quelling the noise. “Former official Temenos died between ten and eleven last night. According to his daughter and aklas, the last thing he consumed before retiring was a glowing blue pill given to them by an aklo claiming it could cure him.

“One might criticise him for taking an unknown spell, but desperation can drive a man to extreme measures. True, his life was already shortened. Yet this end feels premature.”

Akilah speaks the words knotted in my throat. “Something else must have happened. I am sure my spell works.”

“Full investigation,” I yell hoarsely.

A few others in the growing crowd are beginning to echo this when a white-robed luminist presents the judge with a sheaf of new documents. The judge glances over them and rings a spiritual bell at his side. “The directing vitalian concludes that the spell ingested ought to halt the poison of the life-shortening tea—”

Megaera tries to struggle up again. She strains against the shimmering magic that leashes her at arms and waist and binds her to her spot on the cobblestones.

The judge strikes his bell again. “However, it clashed with ippifras running through Temenos’s body.”

Ippifras?

He points his stick at Akilah, and my stomach sinks. “Any decent vitalian would run a proper check of spells their patient had been treated with.”

It’s my fault.

The judge is speaking. I haven’t heard his words.

I killed a man.

“. . . and since you are unable to produce your soldad,”—my thoughts scatter and my chest seizes, heart pounding so hard I can barely hear the words as they land—“you are convicted of impersonating a vitalian and causing death.”

Acid lurches up my throat and I stumble forward. The barrier throws me back and I crash heavily to the ground. Blink.

I killed a man.

A luminist bell chimes. I push my trembling limbs up.

Redcloaks are marching Akilah into the dark archway leading to the cells as Megaera storms from the courtyard.

River drops his chin to his chest, weeping silently. The judge tells him he ought to find a better master and leaves with his bell. The barrier dissipates.

I scurry onto the stage.

Let him cry. How could he let Akilah take the blame? Why did he give us up?

Why didn’t he say that it was me?

River’s fingers are black with bruises. Welts lacerate his arms.