“I’m glad you’re safe,” I murmur.
May the rest of my friends…myfamilyalso be safe.
May their magic protect them.
“But what if Izolda?—”
“She’s Ksenia’s twin. Even if Ksenia is a two-faced trollop, she’d never kill her sister,” I tell him—partly to reassure him, partly to reassure myself.
“Ksenia?” Sofiya asks. “As in myniece, Ksenia?”
“Yes. She’s behind the coup,” I explain. “With Bohdan.”
I don’t add my suspicions that Salom might be involved.
Her lips ghost over a drawn-out, “No.”
As she digests the news, I focus on my friend. “El, when we walked in, you were crouched in front of the safe… Did you hear anything?”
“Lach was yelling for Salom.” Worry frames Elio’s cerulean eyes.
“From the…from the—” Sofiya licks her lips, breathing hard. “Your Crow friend and Salom are in the safe?”
“No,” I tell her. “Lach was probably in the general’s quarters—that’s where I painted one of the sigils.”
“I amsoconfused,” Sofiya croaks.
“Did you hear anything besides shouting, El?”
“Loud pops. I was hoping he’d be with you?” The rise of his voice on the end of his sentence hangs in my walk-in closet like the treacly scent of Sofiya’s spice puff.
“Knowing Lach, he’s surely hunting down the wicked as we speak.” My false cheer doesn’t dupe Elio. My friend might notbe able to see me, but that has never prevented him from seeingthroughme. “I need to…I’ll be right back.”
“Wait!” Sofiya’s whimper halts me in my tracks. “My leg—it needs healing.”
My joints lock up, and not because I don’t feel like putting an end to her suffering—I’m notthatpetty—but because I don’t know how to.
“Please, Isla.” Her inhales and exhales hasten like a woman in labor. “Please. I beg you.” She grits her teeth. “I’ll give you a bargain.”
“The bullets are made of iron,” Elio tells me in Serpent.
“What?” She stares between the two of us, drinking the air in harried sips.
“May I?” Elio gestures to Sofiya’s skirt.
She nods.
He hikes up the heavy fabric, revealing her blood-soaked stockings. “Is the bullet still inside your leg?”
“How should I”—her mouth pinches before opening around a hoarse—“know?”
“El, try to flush it out. I swear I’ll be right back. I just want to check Konstantin’s room.”
“He’s not there,” my friend tells me.
My heart stumbles. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs.
