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A S SAFFRON TOOK THE MEANDERING ROUTE THROUGH MOONLIT Atherin, she thought of her parents, of their ramshackle home in Lunes, and of their favorite board game.

“Today, we’re going to play something different,” Joran had announced one Plenting eve, dropping an unfamiliar wooden box onto the low table in the living room.

Saffron, sitting cross-legged on the floor, had frowned. “But I like chess best.”

Joran had smiled, opening the box and pulling out a large board folded into quarters.

He’d spread it on the table to reveal an intricately painted map, with a series of squares charting a path from one side to the other.

The trail went through forests and mountains and rivers, volcanic eruptions and flooded marshland, the board textured to reflect the terrain.

“It’s called Flight of the Raven. Look how beautiful the artwork is.”

Saffron had sighed dramatically, blowing an errant curl out of her face. “I don’t want beauty. I want to win.”

“Six years old and already so headstrong.” Mellora had laughed, her eyes glazed with honeywine as she joined Saffron on the floor. “Never lose that, sweetling.”

Joran had pulled three wood-carved ravens from the box, setting them all on the starting square.

He’d tapped their feathered backs, and their initials appeared on each: S, J, and M.

“The aim of the game is to maneuver your raven across the board so it can deliver a message to the king. Some squares require you to pull a Fate Card, and you might be pushed back due to dragonfire, or stumble on some good fortune and move forward on a tailwind. Whoever gets their raven to the king first wins.”

“So there’s no skill to it,” Saffron had grumbled. “Just the roll of the dice and the words on the Fate Cards.”

“No, you have resources you can allocate as you wish.” Joran had dug out a series of other wooden miniatures.

“Scouts who can fly ahead, a single-use golden feather to skip a square. And you’ll have to choose when to descend from the sky to the land to pluck worms from the soil.

Flying hungry will cost your raven in the long run. ”

“Besides,” Mellora had chuckled, ruffling Saffron’s wild silver-blond curls—a mirror of her own. “It’s not always about outthinking your opponent. Sometimes it’s about spending time with them.”

“Sounds like something a loser would say,” Saff muttered.

The game had gone on for an hour, and Saffron was in the lead until the very last moment.

On the square before the King’s Keep, she pulled a disastrous Fate Card that sent her back to the mountains to retrieve a dropped letter.

She’d already wasted her golden feather earlier in the game, so Mellora swooped in and took the victory.

Saffron had thrown herself dramatically onto the couch, arms folded and forehead scrunched. “See? This is why I like chess best. You don’t have to worry about bad luck. Whoever plays best wins.”

Joran had nodded sagely, as though this was the lesson he’d wanted to impart all along.

“And that’s why games like Flight of the Raven better represent real life.

Sometimes you can do everything right and it still won’t work out.

Sometimes it won’t be fair, and you’ll have to adjust accordingly.

To plot a new course. The art of adaptation is one that will serve you well, my love. ”

The memory was warm, wine-scented, cast in golden light. A reminder of all Saffron had lost, and all she would do to even the score.

But it was also resonant, a bell tolling deep in her chest. This experience inside the Bloodmoons was not a neat, simple game of chess, but instead a Flight of the Raven. Every encounter she had was a Fate Card, a roll of the dice, and she just had to stay nimble. Adjust, adapt. Plot a new course.

Which is why, when she returned to the mansion to find Vogolan waiting in her bedroom, she did not panic.

At least, not at first.

Vogolan perched on the edge of her bedspread. The cut from Lyrian’s backhanded slap across his cheek had already been magically healed, leaving no trace of its existence. His greasy gray hair was slicked back from his face, his slate-colored eyes sinister and knowing.

“Are we feeling nice and clean, Filthcloak?” he drawled.

Saints. Had he been following her, after all?

She’d been so careful, but the kingpin’s right-hand mage was a Brewer. Did he have invisibility tincture in his arsenal? It was famously difficult to brew and required an array of rare and unruly ingredients. But with all the ascens in the world …

She was struck by the memory of Vogolan morphing from a curtain drape into a man. Had he somehow concealed himself in the baths?

At least Aspar had the foresight to cast a makeshift silencing shield.

“Erm, yes?” Saffron said, forcing herself to remain steady. “Why?”

“Had a nice little bath, have we?”

“I think we’ve established that I have.”

A sickly grin spread over Vogolan’s face. “By the time I entered the water, you were the only one there. And yet as I disrobed, I could’ve sworn I saw a familiar figure leaving the gallery. The silverest of Silvercloaks.”

“Maybe you did,” Saff said evenly. “But I was the only one in the baths.”

Vogolan rose from the bed and strolled slowly over to where she stood in the doorway. “Are you telling me it was coincidence that Captain Elodora Aspar, the very woman who gave evidence against you at your trial, just so happened to be in the baths at the same time as you?”

“I have a loyalty brand.” She swallowed hard, heart thudding, and forced herself to meet his hateful gaze. “If I’d done anything to betray the Bloodmoons, I’d quite literally be dead in the water.”

A scoff, raspy and rough. “You know, Filthcloak, I’m not a religious man. I believe most things to which the pious ascribe divine meaning are simply random chance. Coincidence. Yet this coincidence is a stretch too far, even for me.”

Saffron’s mind rerouted, remapped, seeking the least treacherous patch of terrain.

“Fine, you caught me. I despise that woman for what she did to me.” She spoke coolly, calmly, as the kingpin and his son did when discussing cold-blooded murder.

“I went to kill her, if you must know. After slitting Neatras’s throat, I realized it isn’t that hard.

But when I got there, Aspar had already left. Happy?”

A flimsy, unconvincing story. Aspar’s death would have been the easiest murder to solve of all time—clear motive, a bathhouse entry parchment with both their names on it. But Saffron was thinking on her feet, and sometimes feet were clumsy.

“Delighted.” Vogolan’s breath reeked of stale tobacco tea. “Do you know what else makes me delighted?”

Saffron said nothing, only glared.

“Gelato.”

The singular word, coupled with the self-satisfied sneer on his face, was enough to make her blood run cold.

He grinned grotesquely. “You see, our kingpin does so love banana cream pie gelato. And so I thought to myself, why don’t I pay a visit to Papa Marriosan myself? Kill two ravens with one rock?”

No.

“Papa Marriosan works out of the Arollan Mile shop on Oparling afternoons, serving the customers himself. Such a humble, hardworking man, is he not? And so I swung by, for some banana cream pie.”

Saffron couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

“Although … perhaps I should start at the beginning.” Vogolan twiddled the edge of his gray moustache. “Earlier this morning, I found Auria Marriosan. Lovely little thing, isn’t she? Such interesting scars. So innocent-looking, but such a bad temper, my my.”

“What did you do?” Saffron asked coarsely, dread pooling in her gut.

“I only asked her how the search for Nalezen Zares was going. Just to coax her along, offer some gentle encouragement. To remind her of the stakes, as such. And the curious thing was, she had never heard the name before in her life. Not even under the influence of truth elixir.”

Saints.

Saffron hadn’t ever told Auria the name.

And now …

Vogolan’s jaw twitched. “Which led me to think one of two things: either she was a remarkable liar … or you are. Perhaps you never asked for her help at all. Perhaps you invoked her name to buy yourself time—to weasel your way out of this mess before you ever had to get her involved.”

Saffron shook her head fiercely. “No, that’s not it. I couldn’t find Auria that first night, so I asked a different contact. So that I’d get the information faster.”

One tiny detail—the omission of a name—was unravelling everything.

Reroute, recalibrate, readapt.

Vogolan sighed emphatically. “I do find myself hoping that isn’t true. Because that would make what I did to Papa Marriosan this afternoon rather unfortunate, indeed.”

He searched every inch of her face, savoring her reaction. His expression was almost … aroused. He wanted to see her squirm, and she would not give him that gratification. Instead, she met his slimy satisfaction with squared shoulders and a hateful stare.

“I’m actually rather proud of it,” he said silkily.

“You do quickly run out of different ways to kill people, in this line of business, and when you do the same thing over and over again, it does grow tiresome. But gelato cones make fantastic weapons, when jammed so far into an eye socket that the brain weeps out the ears.”

Somewhere deep in her belly, a wounded animal let out a roar.

Sweet Papa Marriosan, with his jovial laugh and his potbelly and his famous, glorious ice cream.

Dead because of her. Because of a single misstep.

Auria would never recover. Would she know that it had been Saff’s fault? Would she connect those damning dots? She was one of the best detectives Atherin had ever seen. Of course she would see the bigger picture—and Saffron’s role in it.

“Oh, and Filthcloak?” Vogolan growled, raising his wand.

“Don’t approach your former captain again without our consent.

That is an order, and to refute that order would be a death sentence, as far as your brand is concerned.

” He lowered the tip to her forearm, a hungry, almost feral expression on his greasy face. “ Sen efractan. ”

The bones should have snapped in an instant.

Should have, had Saffron not been immune.

Reeling, she couldn’t cast an illusion fast enough.

When nothing happened, a white bolt of fear snapped through Saffron, hot and fast.

Vogolan peered down at his wand, frowned, then repeated, “ Sen efractan .”

Again, nothing happened.

“Invisible shield,” she said calmly. “I cast it before I ever set foot in this room. But nice try.”

Yet slowly, terribly, the pieces arranged themselves in Vogolan’s mind. He looked up at her, a look of cold accusation in his pallid eyes, the truth of it all playing out over his sallow face.

“You’re immune to magic,” he drawled, pupils flashing with a satisfied glint. “That’s why you willingly drank the truth elixir. That’s why you so willingly offered yourself to the brand. You’re still a Silver—”

“ Sen ammorten, ” Saffron said, and the killing spell landed true.