The town wasn’t awake yet as I made my way to Ryker’s. They were all still asleep in their beds, probably having no idea that we were about to head out and start a war.

I hesitated for a moment in front of Ryker’s door before I pushed it open without knocking. Stalling for a few minutes wasn’t going to make a difference. Burn and Sneak were there, but I’d expected them. I hadn’t expected Ruck and Sinsy.

I walked to where the two of them stood, the sacks slung over their shoulders telling the story. “What are you doing here?”

“Going with you,” Ruck said.

Sinsy nodded. “The others wanted to come too, but this is more of a stealth mission, and Ruck and I won the draw.”

“You won the right to die? Because that’s what this is, a suicide mission.” I wasn’t screaming, but I was fairly certain Burn and Sneak heard me from across the room.

“Then so be it. Not letting you go alone. We’ve been together since we were kids, and we’re going to be together until we’re dead.” Sinsy held up two fingers, crossed together, like her sister would’ve.

This was the exact reason I loved them. They were loyal to the core. And this was why I wasn’t getting them killed. I was the one cursed with Wyrd Blood.

“Even if being dead is next week?” I asked, searching both of their faces.

“We go down together,” Sinsy said.

“I want to go down alone.”

Ruck shrugged.

“Do you realize we’re going through the Ruined Forest?”

He mouthed “fuck.”

“Now will you stay here?” I asked them.

“I can’t say that I’m happy about the path forward, but I’m still going,” Ruck said. “Sinsy?”

“Same.” Sinsy had a stubborn expression on her face.

Ryker made his appearance, and I threw him the evilest eye I could conjure. This was his fault. He looked at Ruck and Sinsy by my side, as if acknowledging he knew what had set me off, and then shrugged. The next person who shrugged at me would get a dislocated shoulder.

Ryker moved toward the door and said, “Let’s head out.”

“I knew we couldn’t take the chuggers, but I was kind of hoping we’d be able to take the horses.” It was the first complaint Ruck had uttered, and it had to have killed him to wait an hour to do it.

I’d never seen the horses. I’d never seen the cows or pigs, either, but apparently, there were lots of farms on the northern side of the Valley.

I hesitated for only a second before I made myself predictable. “You could always turn around.”

He grimaced, as if he had held on to some hope I wouldn’t actually say it. Silly boy.

“Can’t take horses through the Ruined Forest,” Burn said. “They get spooked.”

With good reason. I’d figured Ryker would get me killed at Bedlam. He might get us all killed before then, though.

“Bugs, you got another biscuit in that sack?”

I narrowed my eyes and stared at Ruck for a minute. He shouldn’t be here, with us, marching to his death. Did I really want to encourage him?

Not giving him a biscuit wouldn’t make him turn around. He might be dead in days because of me, and I didn’t want it to be on an empty stomach.

He smiled, ignoring my disgruntled appearance as I handed him and Sinsy one each, and then I got wiped out completely as Burn and Sneak swooped in for more. Did nobody pack their own biscuits?

Our group got quieter the closer we got to the Ruined Forest. No one had willingly walked into the Ruined Forest since after the Magical War of 810, not even crazy people. Only us. I wasn’t sure what that said about our group, but it probably wasn’t anything good.

I sped up until I was beside Ryker. “You do know this is crazy, right?”

“That depends on perspective,” he said, eyes straight ahead on the dense forest we were about to walk into.

I shook my head, thinking back. I should’ve run the moment Reilly came and warned me Ryker was looking for a Wyrd Blood. If I’d left, Sinsy and Ruck wouldn’t be walking into the Ruined Forest today.

“How did you know there was a Wyrd Blood in the Ruined City, anyway?” I was going to need some names so I knew who to kill once I got out of this. I already had suspicions, but for the revenge I was planning, confirmation was a necessity.

“The chugger raids.”

“I don’t see how that would alert you to a Wyrd Blood.” I’d used a bow on the chuggers. Lots of normal people used bows. Not that many Wyrd Blood did.

He turned his head toward me, peering as if he saw all sorts of things that didn’t exist. “Do you think most shooters can hit a moving target far enough away that the chugger wouldn’t spot them?”

“I think some can.” I didn’t know of any, but that meant nothing.

“You do? A regular dull?” he asked.

“A dull who was a really good shot could.”

He was looking straight ahead when he casually asked, “How much magic do you think it takes, then, if the chuggers were protected by wards?”

I let out a low groan. That was why Marra, the best shot we had, could never shoot them but I could. I’d been broadcasting myself and hadn’t even known it.

“I satisfied your curiosity,” he said. “Now it’s my turn.”

This was another reason I’d avoided questions, but he was right. It was only fair. “What did you want to know?”

“Do you know anything about your lineage, magically speaking?”

My mind drifted back to a time I didn’t like to think of.

My mother sang as I sat in the tub in our kitchen.

“First thing we do is we wash our ears, suds it behind, and then rinse it clear. Then what we do is wash our hair…”

My mother’s hands froze and she stopped singing.

“Mama?”

I felt fingers trailing along my back before she called my father. “Nadim!”

He ran into the kitchen. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Look.” Her hands were touching my back.

“Mama?” I asked again, wanting to know what was wrong.

“It can’t be. There’s no magic in our families,” my father said.

My mother stood, leaving me in the tub to argue with father. “But what about Great-Aunt Marmie?”

He shook his head, and I could see how upset he was. “That’s too distant. There’s no way she could have gotten enough to be marked on her back. It might be a bruise.”

“And if it’s not?” My mother was wringing her hands as she stared at me. “Then what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

But they’d figured it out.

“My parents weren’t Wyrd Blood, and neither were my grandparents. As far as I know, there wasn’t any magic in my family tree except for some great-aunt.”

He nodded, and I caught the sideways glance and knew bitterness must’ve leaked into my voice.

“Why did you want to know?”

“I have a theory that the more generations magic skips, the stronger when it shows. It spreads out or condenses depending if the magic is passed from grandparent, to parent, to child, or shows up several generations later.” Ryker turned his head toward Burn. “How many people in your family have magic?”

“Every single one of them has a little.” Burn smiled and held up his finger, lighting it.

“Two examples hardly prove the case,” I said.

“There’s many more than two,” Ryker replied. “It’s been true of every person I’ve questioned.”

Was he right? It was an interesting theory.

I nearly went flying over a branch, but Ryker’s hand on my arm stopped me from face-planting. I regained my footing and there we were, officially in the Ruined Forest.