Still, Leopold said nothing. As the heartbeats passed, a coldness settled over him. His jaw hardened, his eyes turned flinty.
“Make me trust you, Polly. Please. Or I swear I will leave without you.”
His nostrils flared. He spoke at last: “I will not and cannot deny anything you’ve said, Safiya, but may I remind you of a few pertinent details?” He dipped his head closer. His voice dropped low. “I am the reason the Bloodwitch monk did not catch up to you in Nubrevna. I am the reason Iseult escaped Tirla alive. I am the reason she escaped the Monastery and reached Cartorra—reached you. And I, Safiya, am the reason you have that Truth-lens draped across your neck.
“Did all events unfold according to my plans? No. I did not foresee the internal war at the Carawen Monastery. I did not anticipate Henrick’s decision to imprison your uncle, I did not expect Henrick to noose you, and I certainly did not think you would be so foolish as to attempt noosing him. But when I say that everything I do is for you and Iseult, I am not lying. You know that I am not.”
With stiff, angry movements, he hooked a finger beneath Safi’s collar and withdrew her Truth-lens. The brass casing scraped across her chest.
“This tells you I speak the truth, does it not?”
“It tells me you do not lie.” Safi’s words were as quiet as his had been—and just as razor-sharp. Fourteen years she had known Leopold, yet this was the first time she’d ever truly seen him. He was lethal, he was cold, and he was accustomed to having his way.
“I do not lie.” He released the necklace, though his hand continued to hover near her throat. “And I do not lie when I say that I will transport you to the Solfatarra. Safely, even if it means I must give up my own life along the way.”
Safi held his eyes for several long moments. She did not breathe; nor did he. The quartz and threads across her collarbone still did not hiss lie to her—and she was, as he must know, out of options. She needed to leave the palace, she needed to reach the Solfatarra, and it would be infinitely safer, infinitely easier if she had Leopold at her side.
“I have trusted you this far,” she said at last. “And I will continue trusting you to the end.”
He finally lowered his hand. “Good.” His lips bounced with a barely perceptible smile. “We will leave tomorrow night, then. Be ready and say nothing to the Hell-Bards.” He didn’t wait for Safi to acknowledge this command before he turned away from her and resumed his forward stride.
It wasn’t until hours later, however, when Safi was in her own room once more and nestling into bed, that she realized Leopold had never actually answered her question. He had given her a list of reasons to trust him, but he’d never actually said why he had let Iseult go.
Oh, he was clever.
He had tricked her magic very handily indeed, and she had swallowed every word like a good child taking her medicine.
She would have to be careful once they were on the road. Very safe, very alone.
* * *
Iseult and Owl traveled for hours, following the weasel wherever she led. A steady pace, occasionally slowed so Owl could catch her breath or Iseult could check the Hell-Bard map. But they always quickly resumed as silver Threads came near.
Though never so near that Iseult or Owl had to sprint. Never so near that Iseult could sense what the creature actually was. It always remained just on the edge of her sensory awareness and moved only when she and Owl did. For some reason, that made it far more terrifying. Clearly it was sentient, clearly it was calculating.
While Iseult and Owl half walked, half jogged, Iseult told more stories. Long ago, when the gods walked among us, she always began breathlessly, before moving on to whatever tale she could remember best. Sometimes they were Nomatsi, sometimes Cartorran adventures that Safi had shared, about ghosts and ancestors and secret royalty stolen by kings. Iseult liked those stories best. She could almost pretend it was Safi sharing them. Safi hurrying by her side.
And those stories became Iseult’s grounding stone as much as they were Owl’s.
But as midmorning light began to suffuse the towering forest, the second sunny day in weeks, Iseult could no longer ignore two important truths. First, the unknown monster still trailed. And second, she and Owl could not continue this journey forever. Owl grew clumsier by the minute, the pain in her Threads seeping brighter, brighter, until all that remained was a thunderous, pulsing gray.
“We are almost to safety,” Iseult told her after checking her Hell-Bard map for the thousandth time. The crescent lake was only a mile away, and surely, surely they could find some way across. Some way that the silver-Threaded creature could not follow. “It’s like when Moon Mother and Little Sister got trapped in the storm. Do you remember that story, Owl?”
A muffled yes. A flare of interest in the child’s Threads.
“Can you tell it to me?” Iseult folded the map back into her cloak’s pocket.
“Long ago,” Owl said quietly, “when the gods walked among us, Moon Mother and her little sister got trapped in one of Swallow’s storms.”
“Oh no,” Iseult murmured, glancing behind them and reaching, reaching for the weave of the world. For the silver Threads they could never outrun. There. Several hundred paces away and to the right. “And how did the goddesses get free, Owl?”
“Little Sister turned into a bird that could fight against the raging winds, and she went to find Trickster.”
“Why Trickster?” Iseult pulled Owl faster.
“Because Trickster could travel without a body, and Little Sister Owl thought that he could enter the storm and save Moon Mother that way.”
“And did he?”
Owl hesitated. Umber confusion twined through her Threads. “I … don’t remember.”
“Ah.” Iseult pulled the girl toward a clearing framed by alders. So far, her game was working; Owl had forgotten her pain. “Trickster did go into the storm, remember? He turned into his soul form and found Moon Mother, clinging to a stone altar on the Windswept Plains.”
“He promised to take her with him,” Owl picked up, a flash of excitement in her Threads—and on her face as she, unbidden, walked faster. “But only if she agreed to marry him.”
“Exactly.” Iseult forced a tight smile. The silver Threads had picked up speed too. “Trickster said, I will save you from this storm if you agree to marry me. I love you, you see. But Moon Mother only shook her head sadly, even as winds and rains raged around her. You love no one but yourself, she told him. And you will always be alone.”
Owl frowned as Iseult said those words, and for a brief moment, it was as if the collar were not there. Her Threads burned bright as a bonfire laced with silver. They pulsed, outward and upward. A firepot ripping loose.
Then the moment passed. The Threads shrank; the color dulled to its usual dampened shades.
Iseult said nothing. She simply held her breath and listened to the forest’s wintry silence. Felt for the silvery Threads, which were definitely coming faster now, and gaining ground too. But the lake was so near. That had to be Iseult’s and Owl’s salvation.
They had just moved past the alders when the landscape abruptly changed. Like reaching the edge of a farm during fallow season, one moment there was growth, the next there was nothing but fog.