Commander Hamidou was wrong; there wasn’t a single traitor in Ksar Alahari.

There were a dozen, a council full of them that hadn’t hesitated to snatch power from Karina the first chance they’d gotten. And now her people were going to suffer because of her own weakness.

Karina paced around her bedroom, twisting her mother’s ring around her finger. She’d been locked in there since she’d left the Midway, and now it was just past sundown on the fourth day of Solstasia. She could still see the glow of the carnival from her windows and feel the beat of the music pounding through the stones of the palace. Her only contact with the outside world had been the servant who brought her meals. Each time she’d come, Karina had tried to accost the poor girl, only for the servant to drop her tray and flee. Even the abandoned servants’ exit was blocked off. She’d thought her escape route secret for years, but it seemed that all this time, the council had only been humoring her.

Ksar Alahari had always felt like a prison, albeit a beautiful one. Now it was truly a cage.

The Final Challenge would occur tomorrow at sundown, and the Closing Ceremony would be two days after that. Only three days remained for Karina to complete the Rite of Resurrection, yet she still hadn’t figured out Santrofie’s riddle, much less gathered any of the items. The beginnings of a migraine pulsed at the edge of her temples, and she gritted her teeth against the pain as she tried to think of a way out of her predicament.

Surely Aminata didn’t know that the council had taken over the city, or she would have tried to contact her, right? Karina never should have yelled at her. Maybe if she hadn’t, her friend would be here helping her find a solution to this ever-worsening situation.

And Afua. For all her magic, she was still just a child trapped in a foreign land. Worse, she was a child Karina had sworn to protect, and Karina had failed her.

Just like she’d failed the Kestrel.

Just like she’d failed Baba and Hanane all those years ago—

Pain ripped through Karina’s head as if someone had taken an axe to her skull. She hit the ground in an ungraceful heap, and when she regained consciousness, she was lying on the ground with her mouth full of bile. Harsh tears stung at her eyes as the world spun.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stop the council, and she couldn’t protect the people of Ziran when she could barely think about her own father and sister without falling apart.

But the Kestrel could.

Her mother was the only person who could wrest control of the city from the council’s clutches. Ziran needed her now more than ever, more than it had ever needed Karina.

Karina sat up, shaking. Her servant would be there any minute with her dinner, so she needed a plan now. If she was going to figure this out, she was going to have to think like Hyena. There was no riddle the trickster legend could not solve.

The blood moon flower grows only in the darkness beyond the darkness, taking strength from the bones of the gods who weren’t. Trust the river to take you there.

Adil had suggested “the gods who weren’t” meant the pharaohs of Kennoua. Ziran had been built on the ruins of a Kennouan stronghold after the Pharaoh’s War, so that phrase could refer to any place in the city. And was “darkness beyond darkness” figurative or literal?

“Trust the river . . . trust the river,” Karina muttered, blinking back tears as she rubbed at her temples. The Gonyama River had been the heart of Kennoua, but the only remnants of it existed beneath the city in the reservoirs from which Ziran took water for its wells. Karina had never been beneath the city—

Except once.

On Solstasia Eve, when the Kestrel had taken her down to the Queen’s Sanctuary, Karina had smelled water. The Gonyama was the only major water source within hundreds of miles of Ziran, so any water that far underneath the city had to be connected to the river somehow.

If she wanted to solve this riddle, she was going to have to find a way underground.

She had to get to the Queen’s Sanctuary.

Karina sprang to her feet and threw her full weight against her window grate, but the metal held tight. She scanned the room for another possible exit, and her eyes fell on the lanterns hanging near her bed.

Fire. Powerful, all-consuming fire.

Karina stepped toward the lanterns but froze. Memories of charred bodies and white funerals flickered in her mind, and her hand began to shake.

But she couldn’t risk not renewing the Barrier or not performing the Rite of Resurrection. Plus, the council didn’t want her dead, or else they would have killed her already. All she could do was light this spark and trust they wouldn’t leave her to burn.

Before she could stop herself, Karina grabbed various perfumes and oils from her vanity and poured them over her bed. She unhooked a lantern from its stand and took one last look at her bedroom, her eyes lingering on the half of the space that had once been Hanane’s.

She dropped the lantern.

The fire caught her oil-soaked bedding almost immediately. Karina backed away from the rising flames as they engulfed her bed and the wood supporting it. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

She was eight years old again, and Baba and Hanane were rushing into a blaze to save her. She’d make it out of the fire, but they wouldn’t, and no one would ever forgive her for it and—

Karina struck herself across the face on the same cheek Afua had clawed, and the pain brought her back to her senses enough for her to scream, “Fire!”

Her bedroom door flew open. Her new servant ushered Karina out of the room, yelling for the guards to fetch water. Karina slipped away during the commotion, running faster than she ever had in her life. Most of the court was still at the Midway and would be until midnight, but enough people remained for the alarm to spread fast. She pushed past people scrambling in every direction, not stopping even as several called her name.

She rounded the corner that would lead her to the Kestrel’s garden only to dash back. A pair of soldiers stood dutifully outside the door, glancing nervously at the smoke wafting through the air. Great Mother help her, of course there would still be guards stationed outside the sultana’s quarters, whether she was alive or not. However, there was no way Karina could return to her own bedroom now, as it was currently in the process of burning to the ground.

Karina dove into a room that faced into her mother’s garden. The window was mercifully unlocked—her first stroke of good luck all day. Her eyes stung as she took in the two-story drop and climbed onto the windowsill, tensing her muscles to leap.

“Karina?”

Poised like a ghost in the doorway, Aminata stared at Karina with wide eyes. For days, Karina had gone over what she’d say to her maid once she saw her again, but now the moment was here, and the words wouldn’t come.

“Have you found her?” yelled someone from the hallway.

All the things Karina wished to say crammed in her throat. I’m sorry, her heart whispered. I’m scared. I can’t do this alone. Aminata opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again.

“She’s not here!” Aminata yelled, slamming the door shut behind her. Swallowing down all the things she couldn’t say, Karina jumped.

One of her mother’s argan trees broke her fall, but not without a huge gash to her arm. Though it had gone only a few days without care, the Kestrel’s garden was already untamed. Vines curled into the paths, and the petals of the more delicate flowers had already shriveled into husks. Fighting the nagging feeling that someone was following her, Karina raced to the fountain that hid the Queen’s Sanctuary and found the gryphon hidden in the stone. She pressed her ring into the groove and pushed as hard as she could.

Nothing happened.

Swearing under her breath, Karina tried twice more with no results. Wait, her mother had said a phrase as well when she’d opened the lock, but what was it?

“Open sesame!” she said, feeling very foolish even as she recited the cliché. “Reveal before me your true form!”

The stone didn’t move. Karina forced herself to relive that fateful day, before the revelation of magic and the assassination, back when it had been just her and her mother sitting among the flowers. The wound was still so fresh, and yet Karina fought through the pain to the moment when her mother had changed her world forever.

“Despite it all, still we stand.”

The ground rumbled as the stones at the base of the fountain split apart. Karina was halfway through the entrance when something heavy closed around her ankle, and a jolt ran through her body as it dragged her backward.