“Come,” Iseult said, wrapping her hand around Owl’s good one. “It’s time for us to run again.”
* * *
The Bloodwitch named Aeduan fought against the water.
Fathoms below the surface with no air to fill his lungs, no light to fill his eyes, he kicked and reached and strained against the weight that held him down.
He was not drowning, but he also did not breathe.
He had breathed, though. Briefly, when he had seen the face made of moonlight and shadows only a foot away from his. Iseult’s hair had flown on the breeze, her knees had trembled against his ribs, and he’d thought he had somehow returned to the past. To that day beside the lighthouse, when she had broken his spine and stabbed him in the heart.
But this was not that day, and the waves that washed against him were not from the warm Jadansi. These were dark waves with talons that held fast to his ankles, his hips, his lungs. And he knew they would never let him free. Not until they found a different body to hold on to. Not until they claimed hers.
He was glad she hadn’t found the silver taler still tied around his neck.
TWENTY-SIX
Safi did as Henrick had ordered and returned to her quarters, where she allowed Svenja and Nika to clean her. It required some fancy handwork to sneak the Truth-lens from her shredded training gear, but she managed to tuck it into her court gown before either attendant had noticed.
Then she went to dinner as if nothing had happened that day. As if she hadn’t trained with Hell-Bards, as if she hadn’t been stabbed, and as if she hadn’t gone to the Keep and studied the Loom.
Safi’s mind was alight, though. Throughout the tedious conversations about court gossip and sycophantic compliments flung Henrick’s way, she considered all she’d learned. All she still needed to find. She had a lead on where Uncle Eron was being held, and she knew that Henrick wanted her for more than just her magic. In fact, he didn’t simply want her. Safi seemed to be a requirement if Leopold’s rule were to ever one day proceed.
Safi kept her face alert, her eyes wide throughout the tedious courses. She had told Henrick she wanted power, and she would do all she could to prove that to him. If only so he would open up again. If only so he would believe her earlier lies.
It was as an older domna chatted several seats away that Safi noticed the woman’s necklace. A hideous thing, the chain dangling loosely around her neck while large butterfly bangles hung down. Glittery and golden, gemstones winked upon the butterflies’ wings, reminding Safi of the colors in the Truth-lens.
She sat taller in her seat, an idea unfurling. Slowly, slowly, she teased it apart. If she could do what she was imagining—if she could create something not so different from what the domna wore—then it would make her search for answers so much easier.
When at last Henrick finished his dessert and Safi was sent away to change for the night’s dancing, she had to fight the urge to sprint through the imperial halls. Her fingers itched to work.
“I want alone time,” she told Svenja and Nika the instant she entered her room. “I have a letter to write.” Safi offered a shy smile, and as she’d hoped, Nika giggled. Svenja sighed. Neither woman argued.
As soon as Safi was coiffed and dressed in evening finery, they left her at her desk with the privacy screen high. And as soon as Safi heard her door shut, she pulled out her Truth-lens and hastily got to work.
She had no tools beyond a goose-quill pen, which she quickly realized was useless. Fortunately, the outer casing of the device was easily separated. The inner workings—the quartz stones, the threads—were more delicate, but she was patient and did not rush.
Magic tickled her fingers as she worked. Her magic.
The twenty-second chimes rang, a tolling of bells throughout the city along with smaller, clockwork chimes in the palace. Then, somehow, the twenty-third chimes were ringing, and Safi could no longer delay her arrival at the dancing.
But that was all right because she was almost done.
Then she was done, and she sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile. She grabbed the blotting salts and pretended to sprinkle them over her desk, beneath the privacy shade. A dramatic whoof of exhaled air, and her work was complete.
A knock at her door. “A moment,” she trilled before tucking her new, rearranged Truth-lens into the folds of her dancing gown. By the time her door opened and Lev poked in her head, ready to escort Safi to dancing, there was nothing in sight except a piece of paper she was carefully folding.
“Seal this,” she ordered Lev as she glided toward the door, “and deliver it to His Imperial Highness.”
“Of course,” Lev said with a bow. Then she, Safi, and the rest of her assigned Hell-Bards fell into their usual stride across the palace.
* * *
Safi would not say she enjoyed her evening, but it was the closest she’d come to pleasure in a long time. She was the empress Henrick wished her to be, and soon, Safi would know what she wanted to know and have what she needed to have. Her new Truth-lens necklace had worked better than she’d dared hope. Whenever a lie had been uttered near her, magic had hummed against her chest.
And gods, so many lies during the dancing. So many flatterers, so many fools.
It was several hours past midnight by the time Safi reached Leopold’s ancient tower. Like before, attendants guided her in with wilting bows. Unlike before, though, Leopold still wore his evening clothes: evergreen and silver that made him glow like some forgotten forest prince from one of the old stories Mathew used to tell.
Safi also wore her same gown, a rich mustard and maroon.
After a heated embrace that—despite herself—made Safi’s head spin and heart pound, Leopold closed the curtains, dimmed the lights, and locked his bedroom door. Three taps upon the wall, the stones opened wide, and he and Safi once more descended.
They did not speak until the darkness was past and the stairs had ended. Even then, all Leopold said was “Does your thigh hurt?”
“No.”
Then he chuckled—though not at her. He was clearly amused by the circumstances, and no doubt guessed that her emergency trip to Hell-Bard Keep had been carefully arranged. Several more minutes passed in silence, with only the growing fog and their soft, slippered steps to fill Safi’s ears.
“No one seems to have heard of your escapade,” Leopold offered eventually, lifting his voice over the building churn of the baths. “I do not know how my uncle kept it secret, but he did.” Leopold glanced back, his eyes merry. “What, pray tell, happened, Safiya?”
Her lips twitched, and in broad strokes, she painted the picture of her day for him, beginning with the training session and Caden’s knife and ending with the carriage ride back to the palace. At some point in her story, Leopold stopped walking. He stared at her with hard intensity through the fog, and when she had finished, he said—so quietly she almost missed it—“You saw where Eron was, then.”
“I did.”
“A place like this?” He opened his arms.
“But with yellow shores and waters that boil.”
“The Solfatarra.” He ran a thoughtful thumb over his lower lip and resumed his march. “Henrick has a hunting lodge there, where Hell-Bards are stationed throughout the year because, unknown to anyone but a select few, there are dungeons beneath it. It is where the worst criminals are sent. The acid in the air slowly—painfully—kills them.”