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L YRIAN SPAT A CURSE WORD SO VILE SAFF PHYSICALLY RECOILED.

The perimeter dome stretched over all twelve shacks, tucking itself behind each of the outer facing walls like a blanket.

The domes could only be cast from inside them, which meant the Silvercloak responsible was in one of the shacks.

Yet the enchanted windows held up, and from Saff’s vantage point, every single abode seemed just as abandoned as when they’d arrived.

Fear swelled in her chest like a balloon.

It all ended here; she knew that in her very bones.

“ You, ” Lyrian snarled at her, a few seconds before lunging for her throat, wielding his wand like a blade. “ Sen ammort —”

Levan moved in a flash, tackling his father to the ground as Saff threw up a mattermantic spellshield.

Pinning his knees into the hollows of his father’s shoulders, Levan held his wand tip to Lyrian’s chin.

“She didn’t do this. She’s branded, for hell’s sake.

This is likely happening because of your idiocy on the docks.

” Behind her shield, Saffron fought the urge to frown.

Did he really still believe in her innocence?

Or was he just trying to prevent his father from murdering her?

“And if you make another attempt on her life, I’ll—”

“Less of the tavern brawling,” snapped Castian, hauling Levan off his father in a surprising show of strength—perhaps she was wind-wielding under her breath.

“We might need Killoran. Sen exarman. ” Saffron’s wand shot from her hand into Castian’s.

“Neutralize her, don’t kill her. She’s leverage.

If she’s theirs, they won’t let her die. ”

I wouldn’t be so sure of that, thought Saffron, livid at herself for losing her wand, frantically recalibrating, reworking her plan.

But the truth was, she didn’t have one. For the first time in many years, she did not have a plan.

She felt trapped in some kind of liminal space, a terrible in-between, neither a Silvercloak nor a Bloodmoon, a helpless passenger in the upcoming wreckage.

Survive, she told herself. Just survive. That’s the only plan you need.

“Disarmament is not enough. She needs to hurt for this.” Climbing to his feet, the kingpin lifted his wand to his mouth. “ Et vocos, Zirlit. ”

Zirlit—the tall Nomarean mage with the monocle and macaw cane.

His response crackled through the kingpin’s wand immediately. “ Fair featherroot. ”

Lyrian waited a single agonizing beat. “Kill the uncle.”

It took a moment for the meaning to land.

“ No! ” screamed Saffron.

“Yessir,” replied Zirlit.

And then the wand went silent.

All the breath was knocked from Saffron’s lungs, and she fell to her knees. Pain, hot and bright, flogged her chest, her heart. The magic in her well shimmered with it, ameliorating into something raw and potent, responding to the agony as surely as if she’d been whipped.

Which uncle, which uncle, which uncle—

Her brain scrambled, trying to come up with an explanation for how her uncle might survive, how he might overpower Zirlit, how he might flee with his life intact, but she knew, had always known, that in every situation where the worst could happen, it did.

“ Stop, ” Castian snarled at the kingpin once more. “The time for revenge will come. For now, we need to get out. How?”

Levan, breathing unevenly, looked from Saffron to his father, then around at the shacks, reality setting in. “Impossible to know how many cloaks are here.”

Uncle Mal, Uncle Merin, who was it, and how, and maybe he could have—

The grief was almost too much to bear. It was a fist banging against her sternum, a blade driven into her gut, a crescent moon carved into flesh.

It hurt so fucking much, and her magic responded accordingly.

Yet without a wand, there was nowhere for this bright, searing power to go. It just burned her from the inside out.

Enough.

With immense force of will, Saff shoved the mental image of her dead uncle into a sealed box.

Pain would not serve her now. It would muddy her instincts, warp her emotions.

She needed to keep her wits about her to survive this—to execute the raid the way it should’ve been executed on the docks.

There would be time to mourn when all the Bloodmoons were in manacles, and she was back in the Silvercloak common room, where she belonged.

Think.

Assess.

Reroute.

The Silvercloaks would have brought at least one tac team of six. Likely two, given how much the last confrontation had escalated. They’d also be able to hear every word the Bloodmoons were saying, so accurate and powerful were their amplifying charms.

Would they move in if they thought Saff’s life was in immediate danger?

No. Lyrian had been a single syllable away from killing her where she stood, and Aspar had not given the order to move. Much more important to take the Bloodmoons alive than to save Saffron. The captain was like Saff, good at honoring the big picture. But truthfully, it still stung.

The Bloodmoons swung into an oval formation, their backs to Levan, Lyrian, and Saffron, wands outstretched.

“Castian, set fire to the shacks,” ordered Lyrian, no longer spitting with rage but instead coiled with that dangerous, serpentine hatred. “Smoke them out.”

Castian nodded. “ Don incend —”

“ No, ” bellowed Levan, not caring who heard. Castian stopped mid-enchantment. “We. Are. Not. Burning. The. Havenwood.” Levan bit out every word through clenched teeth, his gaze swinging around the settlement like a pendulum. “Why are they not moving in on us? Something isn’t right.”

Saffron had been wondering the same. There were countless ways the Silvercloaks could’ve approached this capture—they’d drilled so many different set pieces during tactical villages just like this one. So why was everything silent, taut with a pulsing tension?

A few moments later, the answer emerged.

Through the chimneys of every shack but the one they’d just left, a violet mist wafted up on magical air.

Saffron recognized the smell before her brain fully caught up.

Pepper and ash and rotten rose petals—the airborne weapon they’d deployed at the docks.

Whorls of it drifted around the shacks, through the trees, not breaching the perimeter dome but brushing right up against it, like a velvine against its master’s shins.

This time, though, Levan was prepared.

“ Ans espirabullan, ” he said, pointing his wand to his face.

A small bubble, made from the same shimmering ephemera as a spellshield, formed around his nose and mouth.

Just as the first hacking coughs rippled around the Bloodmoons, he tapped each of their faces in turn—starting with Saffron, she noted with a pang—so that each of them could breathe normally through the crude purple haze.

Beside her, Segal stared at the dome with that strange glassy expression on his face.

Sweat poured from him in rivulets, his cloak clinging wetly to his chest, his wand hanging slack at his side.

When Levan drew a breathing bubble over his mouth, he didn’t appear to notice.

In fact, he had the distinct appearance of a mage who’d rather be anywhere else.

Like a soldier who would not actively resist orders, but who would also not take their own initiative, would not enter into battle of their own free will.

Saffron assumed he was here because of the brand, and the brand alone. Even the Risen were not free of it.

Another small notch in the Silvercloak advantage column—reluctant fighters were rarely effective ones.

This had to go differently.

“Alright, the cloaks have shown their hands,” Levan muttered, raking his hand through his hair.

The words had a strangely warped echo to them.

“They’re spread thin in each of the shacks.

We split up in pairs and take them down one by one until we find the perimeter caster.

Silver and I will take the tunnels—it’s the most dangerous, since they might be sealed off and we could be trapped, but we’ll have the element of surprise. ”

Saffron’s chest thudded like a military drum. The Silvercloaks would almost definitely have sealed off the tunnels … if they knew about them. If not, they’d be scrambling at Levan’s words.

Silent and grim-faced, the pairings split off into the moonlit village, crouching beneath windows and pressing ears to wooden walls.

Saffron felt like a leather belt was strapped too tightly around her chest. Prickling fear stabbed at her hands and feet, and she felt as though she might die at any moment. Like any breath might be her last.

Levan’s ungolden hand found hers, and he tugged her toward his childhood shack. At the touch of his skin, bolts of lightning shot up her arms, straight into her heart.

Surely he knew. Surely he knew this was her doing.

A poisonous purple cirrus clung to the shack like the tendrils of some ethereal beast. The front door opened onto the central clearing, so they were horribly exposed as they entered. Even though the Order all knew, by now, that she was dirty, she lifted her hood anyway.

She felt naked and vulnerable without her wand, but the onslaught of effigias spells she was expecting never came.

Perhaps the Silvercloaks were too busy watching their own doors to mind the windows.

They knew the Bloodmoons were splitting up to take them down, and they knew the Bloodmoons would fire nothing less than killing spells.

Two lone figures and a fallowwolf creeping into an unmanned shack were a distant threat—but a threat, nonetheless.

Once inside, Levan let go of her hand and pointed his black elm wand at the floor of the storage space.

“Et aperturan.”

A trapdoor swung up into the room, revealing a hole wide enough for a single body to slip through. A narrow rope ladder disappeared into the darkness below.