He lay in a heap at her feet, his temple bleeding. Kestrel fumbled with the key, her breath loud, gasping. It wasn’t until she moved to set the key into the gate that she thought of the possibility that it was the wrong key, that she had been tricked, or Verex had, or the senator.

Horror spiked through her. But the key went in smoothly and it turned, making no more sound than a knife in butter.

A giddy rush. Her heart soaring in her chest. Her ribs spread wide with relief. A laughing breath.

She pushed the gate open. She slipped out onto the tundra, stealthy at first, then running as fast as a deer.

She was free.

Her foot plunged into a puddle. The ground was soggy, the vegetation short and shrubby. Little cover. Nowhere to hide. She was too exposed. Her breath rasped. Her heart faltered. Her legs were hot and thick and slow.

Then: horses.

A sob of fear burst past her lips. She heard them behind her. Fanned out wide. Galloping. A hunt.

A shout. She’d been seen.

Little rabbit, little fox.

Run.

She fled. She couldn’t really see where she was going, couldn’t look back. Gasps tore at her throat. She stumbled, nearly fell, forced herself forward. She heard the horses stop and that was worse, because the guards must be dismounting now, they were close, and she didn’t want to know this. It could not be over.

But someone caught her from behind. Pitched her down. She screamed against the wet earth.

She was dragged back inside the prison gate. She refused to walk. They pulled her through the mud and then finally carried her.

As on her first day in the camp, she was brought before the silver-braided woman. A thin purple welt cut across the woman’s throat. Kestrel should have killed her. She should have locked all the women prisoners in their cells. Her escape had been too quickly discovered. She hadn’t had enough of a head start. Yet another mistake.

“I told you that if you behaved, no one would hurt you,” the woman said. She unhooked the whip from her belt.

“No.” Kestrel shrank. “Please. I won’t do it again.”

“I know you won’t.” The woman shook the looped whip. It snapped out loose at her thigh.

“That makes no sense.” Kestrel’s voice got threaded and high. “I won’t be able to work if you do that.”

“Not at first. But afterward I think you’ll work much better.”

“No. Please. Why punish me if I won’t remember it? I won’t, I’ll be just like the other prisoners, I’ll forget it, I’ll forget every thing.”

“You’ll remember long enough.”

Kestrel twisted wildly, but hands were already opening the back of her dress, she was being turned around, pushed up against the gate, tied to the bars. The wind whispered across her bare back.

I have been whipped before, she heard the memory of Arin’s voice. Did you think I couldn’t bear the punishment for being caught?

Kestrel strained against her bonds, terrified.

“Princess,” said the guard behind her.

Kestrel’s muscles went tight. Her shoulders hunched. She couldn’t breathe.

“Every new prisoner shines with a little light,” the guard said. “Your light happens to shine brighter. It’s best for everyone if it goes out.”

Kestrel pressed her forehead against the bars. She stared at the tundra. Her breath was coming again now. Hard and fast.

There was a sharp, whistling sound like a bird taking off.

The whip came down. It carved into her. Something wet ran down her ribs.

She wasn’t brave. She could hear herself as it continued. She wasn’t anything she recognized.

It used to be that Kestrel would treasure the memory of Arin singing to her. She’d worry that she’d somehow forget it. The sliding low notes. The sweet intervals, or the way he’d sustain a long line, and how she loved the sound of him taking a breath as much as she did the way he could hold a musical phrase aloft until it ended exactly where it should.

But after the guards untied her from the gate, when her back was on fire and she couldn’t walk and her bones were a trembling liquid, she looked at the cup in the woman’s hand. Kestrel reached for it. She begged to drink.

The cup was set to her lips. She caught the silvery scent of the nighttime drug. The thought of becoming just like the other prisoners no longer seemed so bad.

It would be a blessing to forget.

After all, what was there to remember?

Someone she never could have had. Friends dead or gone. A father who did not love her.

The cup tipped. Water ran over her tongue, cool and delicious. She forgot the pain, forgot where she was, forgot who she’d been, forgot that she had ever been afraid of forgetting.