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“Hello, you,” I tell it. “I thought you’d been killed.”

It glares at me, as if I should know better. And then I see what I couldn’t in the dark of the night—the particular shade of its yellow-green eyes, the deadpan expression that is the same in every form.

My brows raise. “Ollinde?”

The cat rolls its eyes. And then it grows. It’s the size of a panther before its fur starts to shrink into skin and its feline features transform into something more human. Its skin bubbles and its bones morph beneath muscle. In moments, my stepsibling is sitting on the grass beside me, arms looped around their legs.

They look at me with a flat, bored expression. “You are quite. Fucking. Welcome,” they say.

I sit up fully. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it was them. “You helped me in the graveyard.”

“I saved your life.” They roll their eyes again. “Saints, Fontaine. Keeping you safe is like minding a toddler.”

I ignore their barb—I’m simply too overcome with gratitude, too grateful to see them breathing. I throw my arms around their shoulders, tackling them to the ground.

They curse violently. “You’re covered in filth! Saints, what did you get into?”

But I can only laugh and squeeze my muddy, bloody frame against the fine stitching of their formal vest. Finally I pull back. “You love me,” I tease.

Their lips curl. “Do not.”

“You saved my life. You attacked Galvin. You love me.”

Their eyelids half close. “I tolerate you. Reluctantly.”

“Sounds like love to me.” My grin falters. “Where’s Orla?” She sacrificed herself by shutting herself in the charnel house with Poppy. But Poppy died by the silver stake. She was Orla’s sire, so Orla should be safe and mortal once again.

“While you were running amok in the school after your boyfriends, some of us found a use.”

I raise an eyebrow in question.

They stand upright and brush off their dress pants. “Come along, then, if you’re so curious. I’ll show you.”

Ollinde leads me through the school, and I try not to cringe at the rubble of stone, the shattered glass, the streaks of blood that mar our beloved school. It’s over, I remind myself. But I know a thing or two about scars. Gossemort will bear the Ridding’s scars for years to come. War is not kind to human memory. The final battle might be over, but the echoes of pain continue to ruin lives. There is no escaping that poison.

We arrive at the doors of the infirmary, which are thrown wide. People stream in and out of its doors in a hurry, carrying supplies. The halls are littered with makeshift beds on the floor. Even from outside the doors, I can hear the barking voice of Nurse Verne.

“You’d think I was a miracle worker, the way they expect me to snap my fingers and mend every bone and stitch every wound. Dozens of patients! Not a lick of trained help. And without the headmaster, damned turncoat! Never did pay me enough. Now here I am, cleaning up this mess—stop that squealing ! You’re a meiga, not a piglet, boy.”

A male voice shouts, “That hurts!”

“Not as much as it will when I amputate your eyeballs because they’ve been infected!”

I try to wedge my way through the door, only to run smack into Orla. She blinks. There’s a flash, a moment of recognition and relief, so small I think I almost imagine it. And then cool loftiness coats her expression. “Oh. You survived.”

“Good to see you too.”

She huffs and scoots past me. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve spent half the night trying to treat these helpless whiners. Half of them are too injured to stay conscious, and the conscious half complain too much for my sanity, so let’s skip the family reunion and do something useful, please.”

When her back is turned, I smile.

I make myself useful, helping in the infirmary where I can. But I notice that a great number of students have no injuries at all. They help with the injured or Nurse Verne orders them out of the infirmary, claiming they’re incompetent. Although I secretly think he can see the exhaustion in some of their eyes and is giving them permission to rest.

A small girl passes me, a first-year. Her midnight-black dress is free of tarnish, and even her hair is still perfectly braided. “How is that possible?” I murmur to Orla as we wrap a broken leg.

“You didn’t know? Verne got a lot of them out.” That makes me lift my head. She nods. “The teachers were ushered out of the school through a hidden passage, to the village.” I’ve known of such passages. Gossemort is a fortress, after all. Any good stronghold has escape routes. I just didn’t know where they were.

“The headmaster told the teachers that they were to allow the students to be tested, and he led them all down the passage to the village. Verne was the only one who refused to go. He stayed behind and snuck students out.”