Safi shuttered her one eye again and stared only through the lens. So far, the colors remained true.
“Not on purpose, at least. If Henrick had known I worked with you, Safiya, then I would have been executed.”
Safi’s toes curled in her slippers while heat curled in her chest. “And that would have been so bad?” She lowered the lens. “You protected your own skin, Polly, and now I have no magic while Iseult is leagues away and hunted by Hell-Bards.”
“Yes,” he admitted, and he did not even try to look apologetic. “Iseult is indeed leagues away, and your magic has indeed been severed from you. But you have that.” He tipped his head toward the Truth-lens. “And you have this. We have this.” He flipped a hand toward the bath. “Which is entirely thanks to me.”
Safi’s molars ground in her ears. She yanked the lens to her eye once more—while his words still hung in the air and the magic still might respond. But the colors remained; everything he’d said was true.
She huffed a low snarl and kicked into a prowling pace alongside the bath’s foggy edge. “I can’t deny the value of the Truth-lens, but this?” She sawed a hand at the columns. “What good does this do us? Do me?”
“Why, Safiya.” Leopold sat taller, his legs uncrossing. “I thought you would have figured it out by now: this cave connects to the outside world. Just as there is a secret way in, there is a secret way out. With this”—he parted his hands—“you can leave.”
“Leave?” She rounded on Leopold. “And what of the noose?” She fished it out from beneath her collar. “If I leave, then Henrick will simply call me right back.”
“Yes.” Leopold steepled his hands. “That is certainly the greatest challenge facing us, but I don’t believe all hope is lost. Not yet, anyway.” He reached for the Truth-lens, clutched tightly in Safi’s right hand. When she did not release it, he let his hand fall back to his side.
“That lens contains your magic, meaning whatever power was carved away from you, some yet remains.”
“Oh.” Safi stared down at the brass-bound lens upon her palm. Mist beaded against it. While she had considered that the device held half her magic, she had not considered that it might mean she was only half a Hell-Bard. “So you think … I can get my magic back?”
“That,” Leopold answered, “I do not know.” He patted the space beside him on the bench. “But if we could somehow gain access to Hell-Bard Keep, I think we might be able to find answers. Unfortunately, they guard their premises and do not welcome outsiders.”
“But Polly.” Safi sank onto the bench and grinned. A real, true grin. “Surely your spies have told you by now that I will train tomorrow with the Hell-Bards. His Imperial Majesty gave me his permission just tonight.”
“Indeed.” Leopold matched her smile.
“Indeed,” she replied. Then she popped the Truth-lens back upon her eye. “Now tell me everything you know about Iseult and where you think she might be.”
SEVENTEEN
All was silent within the cove. After the madness of the escape—after the waves crashing and the ship groaning, after the splash of oars and surge of magic—the cove felt too calm, too still.
No one moved and no one spoke for an eternity. The day’s sun lifted higher and higher while the sailors watched Vivia, still at the tiller, and while Vivia watched the snaking passage behind the Iris.
But no one came down it, and no Windwitches suddenly appeared. Vivia’s plan had worked. For now. And the instant she twisted toward her crew, everyone seemed to collectively exhale. A great loosening of spines, a great drooping of shoulders.
Sotar was the first to speak. “Stow oars,” he called, just loud enough to be heard. Though it was unlikely a shout would carry out of the cove while the tide carried in, there was no telling what lay nearby. Or who, for this was Nubrevna, and Vivia was not welcome here—not as queen, at least.
After unfurling her spyglass, Vivia scanned her gaze over the gravel beach and cliffs that surrounded the Iris. Everything looked as she remembered it, and in some ways, that was a comfort. The world here remained dead, outside of time. The same wasteland she’d always told herself she wanted no part of. This was where Merik had grown up, free on the Nihar estate several miles inland, while Vivia had been trained, groomed, molded into the queen her father wanted her to be.
Or the queen she’d thought he’d wanted. As Noden would have it, he’d only ever wanted a sycophantic pawn. Someone to tend him and flatter him. To obey him and mimic him. Share the glory, share the blame, he’d always said, but it had been a lie. Give up the glory, take all the blame was the truth Vivia now saw.
It was also where Merik’s ship, the Jana, had been blown apart by Baedyed seafire. Everyone had thought he’d died; only Vivia and Cam knew he still lived. Remnants of the Jana lingered in the cove: charred wood, shredded sail cloth, and old caulking.
“Your Majesty.”
Vivia lowered her glass and found Cam beside her. He smiled his sunny smile as he popped a bow. “I delivered food to the captain’s cabin—and the Empress too.”
Of course she’s in there, Vivia thought with a sigh. She could no more escape Vaness than she could the Hagfishes. “Thank you, Leeri.” Vivia clapped him on the shoulder; his smile widened. Then she strode for her cabin, adjusting her cuffs, her collar, her salt-crusted hair as she went.
She found the Empress standing at a window when she marched in. Vaness’s cheeks were no longer pale, her posture no longer weakened, but there was a dullness to her eyes.
“You,” she declared as soon as she saw Vivia, “must be cleaved. What you just did…” She shook her head. Her hair, damp against her skin, swished with sea-spray curls. “We could have died.”
“But we didn’t.” Vivia shut the door behind her. “Would you like to eat?” She motioned to cheese and old bread that Cam had laid upon the table. A solid snack for a ravenous Tidewitch.
Vaness shook her head—and Vivia desperately wished she hadn’t. She was half starved, but the thought of eating alone while Vaness watched on … It felt awkward. Filthy. Brutish next to Vaness’s tiny, ever-graceful frame.
Noden curse her. She’d come in here expecting a fight. Not whatever this was with Vaness leaning against a window, her forehead pressed against the glass.
Vivia’s stomach growled. She swiped up a chunk of hard goat’s cheese. No regrets, keep moving. Yet before she could stuff it back like the beast she was, Vaness asked: “Why are there so many dead birds?”
Vivia froze. This was most certainly not what she’d expected. “The dead birds,” she answered carefully, “are because the water is poison.”
An audible swallow. “That was twenty years ago.”
“And the imperial witches were thorough.”
“You mean my witches were thorough.”
Vivia didn’t argue with this. Instead, she moved to another window on Vaness’s other side. “The empires have always crushed what they could not control. We were the last nation to resist, so they … you allied together to ruin us.”