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“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“They’re trying to hurt you. Don’t let them win.” His dark eyes are filled with a terrible empathy. “Don’t move from your chair. Keep your eyes on me, not the arena.” His gaze flicks to Vesper and then Cato. “None of you move.”

“You bastard.” Cato leans forward, and it’s my turn to throw my arm out. He could push past my touch easily, but he stills the moment his chest makes contact. “Get out of the way.”

“Watching won’t change anything. Spare yourselves the image of their death.”

I don’t understand how he can be so controlled right now. “Did you know this would happen?”

“Death told me.” He looks pained as someone cries out behind him. “Everyone I care about is gone. I didn’t…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t think to warn you.”

Death knew. That’s what he was warning me about earlier. He knew the Wands would kill someone I cared about right in front of me, because if I interfere, they can cut me down just like they clearly want to do.

And … Mouse. Mouse knew. He must have. He got his information from my mother, and there’s no way she could have kept something like this from him. Not when the Wands snatched someone she cares about off the street. He had to know … and he intentionally kept it from me.

Did Mouse set Mara up for this? I hate that I’m even considering it. I hate even more that I can’t be sure. If he sent Mara on an errand and then moved the family unexpectedly … He’s done it before over the years, usually without explanation. I never questioned it. Why didn’t I question it?

“How can you be so calm?” I grit out. “There is a person dying right now because of their connection to you.”

“Yes, there is,” he says softly. “But I didn’t put them there, and I can’t save them.” A wealth of pain beneath those empty words. No, not empty. Numb. His entire settlement died and he feels guilt for it, whether it’s earned or not. The death of whoever the Wands grabbed can’t compete with that. Except, as I search his face, some part of me desperate to prove this man isn’t a monster, I do see sorrow in the depths of his gaze. “They don’t get to win, Kestrel. They don’t want a voice for the voiceless in the Cinque. Don’t let them win.”

“Go back to your seat.”

I was so focused on the Tower, I didn’t even register Nonnie approaching. They only come up to his shoulder, and yet they manage to be intimidating all the same.

Except he doesn’t appear bothered in the least. He turns that empty dark gaze on them. “It’s in your best interest to leave. Immediately.”

Nonnie’s mouth works, their dark eyes wide. “You can’t touch me.”

“Not yet,” he agrees easily. Too easily. “Have you ever seen a human being destroyed by the Tower’s magic, Knight? It’s messy business. Cross me and you might turn a corner on one of those nightly wanderings you like so much … and find me there.”

Nonnie goes even paler, but they manage to rally. “Fine. Do it your way. It won’t make a difference.” They turn their nasty expression on me, Vesper, and Cato. “They all die, whether you’re cowardly enough to hide from witnessing it or not.”

“Nonnie, if you don’t walk away right now, I’m going to find a way to peel your skin right off your body.” Vesper’s voice is wrong. Just as empty as the Tower’s, just as filled with vicious threat. “It will take a while and you’ll likely live through it, but I think it would be such an interesting experiment on how much pain a human can withstand before they pass out.”

“I hope you die tonight, you little bitch.” Nonnie spins around, their long hair fanning out behind them, and stalks back around the curve of the lower tier to the table where the rest of the Wands Court sits, observing us as if we’re the entertainment and not the blood sport on the sand. Because that’s exactly what we are. This is all a game to them. They watch people die in this arena all the fucking time, entertained by the suffering they’ve enacted.

“Kestrel.” The Tower’s voice brings me back. The intensity in the way he says my name vibrates through me like an earthquake. “Look at me.”

Helplessly, my gaze rises to his dark, dark eyes. So dark I can’t differentiate between his iris and his pupil. “Mara doesn’t deserve to die,” I whisper.

“None of them do.” He continues to hold my eyes, to tether me into my seat as effectively as Cato’s hand leaving a bruised imprint on my thigh, and Vesper’s fingers threaten to grind my hand to dust. “This is what the Minor Court does. The only people they consider real are their own families. Everyone else is a tool to be used and discarded.”

“That’s not—”

Someone screams, the sound cutting Vesper’s protest off. Someone else sobs, but only for a moment. And still the Tower stares at me, as if he can keep me in place through will alone. He keeps speaking in that steady, horribly empathetic tone of voice. “The moment the Sun sets, you need to run. The Chariot intends to kill your alliance tonight. Don’t let him.”

“Death told me.” I haven’t had time to properly process that. “If you’re so worried, then why don’t you kill him?”

“We have different prey tonight.”

I’m about to respond to that absurd statement when I catch sight of Mara just past the Tower’s arm. She’s running, churning up the sand, her thin arms pumping frantically.

A blade appears between her shoulder blades as if by magic. One moment, nothing. The next, a hilt buries itself in her body and blood erupts from her mouth as she falls and falls and falls. She’s dead before she hits the sand.

I can’t stop my cry of protest, can’t stop myself from covering my mouth with my free hand, can’t stop the horrible burning in my eyes. The Wands might not be the ones who wielded the weapon that killed her, but they are responsible for her death all the same.

I twist to look at the table where the Wands Court sits, to take the time to meet each of their stares in turn, to register their clear joy at witnessing the pain they’ve caused the champions—or at least most of the champions. I don’t know who among the nine in the arena is attached to the Tower, but if the Wands intended to undermine his confidence, they’ve failed miserably. They certainly failed with the former Cinque as well, who all watch the slaughter, stone-faced.