Ishita’s finger twitched first. Just a small movement, barely noticeable against the white hospital sheet. Then her eyelids fluttered.

Consciousness returned slowly, dragging her up from a heavy, dark place. She stared at the ceiling for a long moment, confused by the bright lights and the steady beeping beside her.

Her body felt heavy, every breath pulling at bruised ribs. Pain throbbed in her head like a drum.

She was alive.

***

Ishita is awake.

Sasha’s voice pushed through the mind-link, and Ruby stopped walking.

Her heart dropped straight into her stomach, and she stood completely still in the middle of the room, her jaw tight, working through the implications as fast as her mind would let her.

The room Ruby had been confined to was small and almost bare. A narrow bed, a single chair, walls that had nothing on them, and a window that let in just enough light to remind her that the world outside was continuing without her.

She had been moved here directly from the medical centre, and since then, nobody had come through the door except the gamma who brought her meals and left without making eye contact.

No visitors. No communication. No information.

She had been pacing, which was the only thing left to do. Back and forth across the short length of the room, her arms crossed tight over her chest, her mind running in circles that kept arriving at the same dead ends.

She needed to think clearly.

But she doesn’t remember anything yet, Sasha said.

Ruby let out a sigh of relief.

And Connor is seriously searching for the car that hit her.

The car was the thing she kept thinking about. If Connor found it, there was still no direct line from it back to her. She had been careful.

She had always been careful. But Ishita was a different problem entirely, because Ishita had been about to speak to Derek in that kitchen.

Now, she is awake. Although she wasn’t speaking, and her memory of that evening had not fully returned yet. That was still a window. A small one, but it was there.

What are you going to do? Sasha asked.

I’m thinking, Ruby replied.

Ruby. Sasha’s mental voice carried the particular weight of someone who had been holding something in for too long. I warned you. I told you this was going too far. I told you not to do something reckless and you—

Shut up, Ruby said sharply. Let me think.

There was a brief silence through the link. Then a quiet, flat, Okay.

Ruby pressed her fingers to her temples and kept pacing. The window was closing. She could feel it, the way you felt a room getting smaller, the walls not moving but the air somehow thinner.

Once Ishita started talking, everything unravelled. The herbs. The instructions Ruby had given her word by word in that kitchen while the rest of the house slept.

Why was that stupid old woman so curious?

There was only one way to close the window before it closed on her.

Ishita cannot tell anyone what she knows, Ruby said into the link.

*What do you mean?*

I mean, she cannot be allowed to remember. Ruby stopped pacing.

Her voice had gone very quiet, the way it did when she had made a decision and was done deliberating. The only way to guarantee that is to make sure she never gets the chance to speak.

The silence from Sasha lasted longer this time.

Ruby.

Listen to me carefully. Ruby said. You are going to go to the medical centre. You are going to dress as a surgical nurse. There will be spare scrubs in the staff changing room on the ground floor, there always are. You go to Ishita’s ward, you find her IV line, and you inject potassium chloride into the fluid that will stop her heart. It will look like a complication from her injuries. No one will question it."

What?

You heard me.

Ruby, I— Sasha’s voice cracked slightly. This is not what I signed up for. Helping you pass information is one thing, but this is—

Survival, Ruby said. Mine and yours. Because if Ishita talks, everything comes out, and when everything comes out, your name is in it too. You have been my eyes and ears in this palace for years, Sasha. Do you think they won’t trace that back to you?"

She let that sit for a moment. "We are in this together, whether you like it or not. So pull yourself together and do what I am telling you."

Sasha said nothing for a long moment. Then, quietly, What do I tell the ladies? They keep asking about you. Whether it is true what they are saying, that you tried to kill the Queen.

Ruby closed her eyes briefly. Tell them whatever you need to tell them. Tell them it is gossip, tell them I am unwell, tell them anything. I will be out of here soon. I just need to stay calm and think. She exhaled slowly. Luck has always been on my side. That has not changed. You will kill Ishita toni—

Sasha’s suddenly cursed through the mind-link.

Oh goddess—

Ruby’s spine went rigid. What? What is it?

King Derek. Sasha’s voice was almost hysterical now, the words tumbling over each other. He... he is standing outside your apartment right now. He is right here, Ruby. He is looking at me.

Ruby’s body went completely still. What?

Her apartment. Derek was at her apartment.

No. The word formed in her head before she could stop it. No. He cannot be there. He has no reason to be there.

Sasha. Her mental voice came out carefully controlled even as her thoughts scrambled. Listen to me. Do not react. Act normal. Whatever he asks you, you don’t know anything. You haven’t spoken to me since before the incident. Do you understand? Sasha—

The mind-link had cut.

One moment Sasha was there and the next she was simply gone, the connection severed from the other end, and Ruby was standing alone in her bare little room with nothing but the silence and the sound of her own breathing.

She stood there for a few seconds processing it.

Then she moved.

She crossed the room in four steps and hit the door with both palms, the sound of it cracking through the quiet of the corridor outside.

"Open this door!" Her voice came out raw and loud, nothing like the composed woman who had sat in council meetings and managed pack affairs and kept every feeling neatly filed away. "Open it right now! I need to get out! Open the door!"

No response. No movement on the other side.

She pounded again, harder, until her palms stung, until her voice had gone hoarse from shouting into a corridor that simply did not answer her.

Derek was in her apartment and she was locked in this room and she had no idea what he was looking for or what Sasha had said before the link went dead, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about any of it.

She pressed her back against the door and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor, her chest heaving, her hands shaking in her lap.

For the first time in her life, Ruby Veyle had no plan.