The beautiful piece of Rose Palace smashed on the ground inside the Citadel, flattening six taiga apprentices who had been running toward the gates to provide reinforcements. The remnants of the etched Ora crest shattered.
Sora stared at it in horror.
But Bullfrog and the other councilmembers leaped into action.
“Shoot for their eyes!”
“Kill if you have to!”
Stars, no. The new ryuu were just taigas beneath their enchantment. And the original ryuu . . . they were misguided in their beliefs, but they were still Luna’s soldiers. Kichonans.
Sisters.
Hana stalked toward Glass Lady.
“I’m relieving you of command, old lady,” she said.
“Over my dead body,” the commander said.
That only made Hana smile. “Watch me.”
She faded from view and laughed.
Glass Lady gaped, paralyzed for a moment. She didn’t know how to fight something she couldn’t see.
Behind them, Beetle’s insect horde dove down for attack.
“Fairy!” Broomstick shouted. “Now!”
She flung a vial of something into the air. Broomstick hurled a small, liquid-filled sphere at it.
The two collided. The glass of both the vial and sphere shattered, and whatever was inside reacted to the other and hissed before it exploded.
Beetle’s buzzing army dropped dead instantaneously.
He screamed, then drew his sword and charged at Fairy.
Meanwhile, Hana was running at Glass Lady.
“She’s on your left!” Sora yelled at the commander. Sora was the only one who could see where her sister was.
But it was too late. Hana reappeared, whipped out a stiletto blade from her sleeve, and said to Glass Lady, “I told you I’d take command over your dead body.” She slashed it across the commander’s neck and pushed her over the edge of the fortress wall.
At the same moment, Beetle ran right into Broomstick’s sword.
“No!” Sora shouted.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Glass Lady’s jaw dropped as her throat split open, spilling her life in crimson rivulets. Beetle held Broomstick’s blade in his hands, looking down at his impaled stomach in disbelief.
Then Glass Lady and Beetle both fell, ten stories to the ground. Their bodies smashed into the dirt, bouncing at the impact.
Sora screamed.
The ryuu below were fighting back with the full force of their magic. Balls of fire, burning taigas like meat on a spit. Storms of icicles, shot straight through like spears.
The Society was not relenting either. They had numbers on their side. They regrouped in squadrons, each one targeting a single ryuu, and charged. Blades flashed. Darts and throwing stars gleamed as they flew.
Bodies fell.
Hana looked down at them without emotion, her face now a cruelly placid mask. When she turned to Sora, she was equally collected. The eyes that had lit up at seeing Sora perform ryuu magic were now flat, as if she felt nothing for her sister.
“Hana—”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She stalked toward Sora, spinning her sword in her palm.
Daemon dispatched the ryuu beside him and came to Sora’s side. He growled, sounding more like a wolf than she’d ever heard before. “If you lay a finger on her,” he said, “you’ll pay for it.” Fairy and Broomstick came up behind him.
“No,” Sora said. “Back away, Daemon. All of you. You won’t see her coming if she turns herself invisible again.”
“We’re not going to—”
“Back away!” Sora shouted. “If I die, the League of Rogues has to continue the fight. Kichona needs you.”
Daemon, Fairy, and Broomstick stood still. Hana watched them, amused.
“Aren’t you going to listen to her?” she taunted. “You’re like a litter of puppies, still following my sister around like when we were kids. Nothing about you taigas has changed.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Sora said. “But I’d rather not change than become a tool for Prince Gin to use.”
“He’s not using me.”
“He is, Hana.”
“Stop calling me that! And the emperor isn’t using me. He trusts me and respects me! Which is more than I can say about you. It was a shame I even gave you a second chance.”
No, Sora thought. I refuse for this to be the end of me and Hana.
It was only a postponement. It had to be. Sora needed to save Kichona first, but then she’d make a third chance for her and Hana. Somehow.
No matter what happened next, as long as Sora was alive, she’d come back for her sister. Hells, even if Sora died, her ghost would devote itself to Hana. It would be a fitting afterlife for a taiga named Spirit.
“Now that Prince Gin is the emperor—” Hana was saying.
Fairy stepped forward. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s not. His sister is still very much alive.”
Hana smirked. Which was much more dangerous than a glare.
Sora froze.
“Did you think that would surprise me?” Hana said. “When Spirit revealed that she wasn’t under Prince Gin’s spell anymore and the ‘empress’s’ body disappeared from camp, I put two and two together. My sister has always been a schemer. I figured she must have been up to something, and you weren’t a corpse; otherwise, you wouldn’t be worth stealing. So yes, I already know the empress is still alive. Why do you think only half the ryuu are here? The rest are already inside Rose Palace. And they’ve got the Hearts with them.”
Holy heavens . . . Sora’s chest clenched. She’d thought the ryuu would have to get past the Citadel first. But Prince Gin had been raised in the imperial family, too. He would know about the trapdoor in the Field of Illusions and the secret network of tunnels underground . . .
Empress Aki wouldn’t know he was coming.
Emerald dust eddied around Hana, then dove into her, saturating her with magic. She vanished.
Sora summoned her own whirlwind of ryuu particles. She absorbed them and went invisible too.
No one else would be able to see them fight. Or die.
Hana called on more magic, which rushed to her and formed itself into a hundred tiny daggers and flew at Sora.
She conjured a shield of her own emerald dust and deflected the knives, each one pinging against her shield.
“Not bad,” Hana said. “But basic.” She formed a sack with the magic and brought it down over Sora’s head, tightening the bottom like a noose around her neck.
Sora panicked and sucked in too much air, and suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen. She clawed at the balloon surrounding her. The noose around her throat kept tightening.
Can’t breathe. Can’t fight. Can’t . . .
As her brain fogged, the one thing she could think was how, when Hana was a tenderfoot, she always wanted to do whatever Sora was doing. If Sora was juggling apples, Hana wanted to juggle apples. If Sora was sparring against three others at the same time, Hana wanted to spar against three others.
If Sora was being suffocated by an invisible balloon . . .
On the brink of passing out, Sora issued one last desperate command to the ryuu magic.
Throw a bag over Hana’s head too.
A mirror-image balloon appeared and tightened itself around Hana’s neck. Her eyes bugged.