Ahead of me, solid ground is less than ten yards away.

Behind me, Thom’s voice rises in a tremendous roar of fury.

“For Baalboden!” he yells.

I twist in my saddle and see him throw the acid onto the planks at his feet. There’s a split second of silence as the liquid splashes through the air, and then the bridge explodes, sending a hail of wood, metal, and bodies to the river below.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

LOGAN

“No!” Frankie spurs his horse forward and meets me as my mount leaps onto solid ground. I duck against the horse’s flank as chunks of debris slice into the surrounding trees. A hole the size of two wagons lined up end to end rips the bridge in two. The shorter piece, the one closest to us, remains solid. The longer piece, bereft of support and filled with soldiers, twists slowly in the air as if at any moment, it might rip free of the few pillars that still hold it in place.

Huge freckled hands reach for me and haul me out of the saddle.

“He doesn’t know how to swim. Do you hear me?” Frankie shakes me like I weigh nothing. “He doesn’t know how to swim.”

Letting go of me, he rushes to the edge of the drop-off and stares into the pile of wreckage and bodies littering the river below. “Thom!” he screams. “Thomas Kocevar, you get out of that water. You raise your head right now. Thom!”

A flash of golden skin runs by us, and suddenly Willow soars off the cliff’s edge. Jackknifing in midair, she splits the water between a slab of iron and a body dressed in red. Seconds later, the unsteady portion of the bridge rips free of its moorings with an earsplitting shriek of metal on metal and tumbles into the water below.

“Willow!” Quinn rushes to my side at the cliff’s edge, and we scan the river. “Willow!”

Bodies flail in the water, but all of them are wearing red. Another kind of red is spreading in an ever-widening circle from the epicenter of the bridge’s fall. The current tugs at the wash of crimson and slowly pushes it downstream until everywhere we look the water runs red with the blood of its victims.

Willow doesn’t surface. Neither does Thom.

“She’s a strong swimmer,” I say. “Give her more time. She’ll be okay.”

But time passes, and she still doesn’t surface. Two Carrington soldiers haul themselves out of the water and flop onto the bank on our side. A handful do the same on the opposite bank.

Willow is nowhere to be found.

Quinn makes a strangled noise in his throat, grabs Frankie’s cloak, and throws him against a tree. Frankie raises his meaty arms, but Quinn plows a fist into his stomach and then pins him to the tree trunk with his forearm across Frankie’s throat.

“Are you satisfied now?” Quinn yells. “Are you?”

Frankie’s face turns red, and his lips move, but nothing comes out. I grab Quinn’s shoulder.

“Let him go, Quinn.”

Quinn ignores me and leans closer to Frankie. His dark eyes are cold and furious. “From the moment we joined your group, you’ve done nothing but degrade us and cast false accusations at us. Do you know why Willow jumped into the river? To prove you wrong.”

Frankie gurgles, and his lips begin turning blue. He punches and kicks at Quinn, but Quinn parries the blows with swift, graceful movements, never once releasing Frankie’s throat. It’s like watching a cat toy with a mouse already half-dead.

“Quinn, you’re killing him. Let him go,” I say.

“She jumped in to prove you wrong. Not because she cares what you think of her, but because she cares what you think of me.” His voice is calm. Deadly. The voice of a predator who knows his prey is helpless. “Your opinion isn’t worth her life. You aren’t worth her life.”

“Quinn!” I slam into Quinn from the side, knocking his arm away from Frankie’s throat. Frankie falls to the ground, gasping and choking. Quinn snarls at me and lunges toward Frankie again.

I jump in front of Frankie, and Quinn plows into me. We hit the dirt. I grab Quinn’s tunic with both hands before he can get back up again.

“Stop!” I say, and Quinn looks at me—really looks at me—for the first time since Willow dove into the water.

“He dishonored her.” He spits the words in Frankie’s direction.

“Yes, he did. But Willow rose above it. For you. Because she admires who you’ve become. It was her way of defending your honor. Honor you’re about to destroy by killing Frankie.”

Quinn stares at me, his breath heaving. “I wasn’t . . .” He stares at Frankie, who is rubbing his hands against his throat and coughing in harsh gasps.

“You were killing him,” I say quietly.

“Yes.” Quinn’s voice is quiet.

“I’m sorry about Willow.”

A flicker of pain lights Quinn’s eyes, and then his customary emotionless mask slides back into place. Wordlessly, he rises and turns away from me. Away from Frankie.

“Logan!” Jodi is on her hands and knees, leaning out over the drop-off, her feet digging into the soil to help her keep her balance. She’s pointing at something below.

I scramble to her side and peer over the edge.

Willow is slowly climbing out of the water, blood pouring from a gash in her back. Some of the pressure squeezing my chest eases. I whip my head around and say, “Quinn, she’s alive. We need to help her.” Then I jump to my feet and race to the supply wagon for the length of rope I have stashed inside.