Iseult loved Mathew and Habim. Fiercely. They were her Thread-family, and nothing in this world mattered more than Thread-family. But she was tired of being treated like some Fool card in the taro deck, to be tossed into the game whenever it was needed. Safi too had been played against her will, and now she was trapped in Marstok while Iseult was an impossible distance away.

With a long inhale, Iseult screwed her Threadwitch calm back into place. At least on the surface—at least for this young lady to see. “I am staying at the White Alder,” she said, words smooth as a sandy shore at low tide. “Room thirteen. If someone needs to find me, they can look there. However,” she added, arching an eyebrow in her best imitation of Safi, “they had better hurry. I leave Tirla soon, and I have no plans to ‘stay put’ longer than that.”

* * *

The first hints of sunset greeted Iseult by the time she left Mathew’s shop. Dusk came early in the mountains, and ringing chimes heralded the seventeenth hour as she returned to the White Alder.

Twelve beats in, Iseult realized she was being followed.

The first thing Habim had drilled into Iseult when she’d begun training six and a half years ago was to constantly—constantly—make note of who was around her. Every few heartbeats, she would sink into her magic and sense the weave of the city. The placement of its Threads.

Clang, clang. No one was following her. Clang, clang. Someone was. They were clever about it, though. Subtle and sly, staying just far enough back that if Iseult were to turn her head, she would see nothing out of the ordinary. But there was no hiding Threads, and this person’s were unmistakable.

They gleamed more brightly than anyone else’s on the street, like a flame burning in a field of wheat. Except this flame was dark green. This person was focused, and this person was hunting.

Learn your opponents. Learn your terrain. Choose your battlefields when you can. Habim’s second lesson tickled in Iseult’s ear as if her mentor stood right beside her. Iseult didn’t know this city, though, so learning her terrain and choosing a battlefield was impossible. For now, simple escape would have to be her aim.

Rather than calm her, though, having a plan seemed to stir her blood faster. There was only one person who had any desire to hunt her—and he had already hired men to do so. Likely, he was near Tirla too, since his arrows had cursed Aeduan only yesterday.

Corlant. This person following Iseult might not be that Purist priest, but she had no doubt her pursuer worked for him.

No, no, no. He had not gotten her at the Midenzi tribe. He had not gotten her in the Contested Lands. He would not get her now.

With a sudden twist, Iseult ducked down a side street. Wind-flags whipped overhead. As she’d expected, the man’s Threads gave pursuit. Three steps, and her pursuer turned too—but Iseult did not run. She did not shove at the crowds. Soldiers lurked on every corner in Tirla, and their uniforms mottled the evening traffic to green.

Her skin, her hair … she couldn’t risk drawing attention.

She reached another street and spun around a wagon of cabbages, then hurried—faster, faster—across a blacksmith’s front stoop. Heat billowed out from the open double doors. A woman shouted at her to come see her wares.

That shout—it reminded Iseult of a different chase in a different city. She had leaped from boat to boat to escape Aeduan that day. Perhaps she could do something similar now. No canals here, but there were carriages. And though she could not hop across them, she could use them for escape.

Red-topped carriage to the left. Too fine. Chicken cart to the right. Too foul. Refugee caravan coming behind. Perfect. It had three covered wagons, drawn by mules. Only the second and third wagons, though, had people crowded inside. Their Threads were almost colorless. A sign that loss and grief had numbed them to feeling.

Iseult slowed her pace, veering right so she could fall into step beside the caravan. Seconds plodded past; her pulse boomed inside her skull. Threads still following. Almost here, almost here—

The mules reached her, ambling and tired, and Iseult made her move. She circled behind the first wagon. A lift of a canvas flap, and she scrambled inside. Everything these people could carry had been stuffed inside the wagon, leaving Iseult’s body to bulge against the canvas. But the driver of the caravan could not see her, and her hunter did not either.

The person’s Threads had stopped at the edge of the intersection, and tawny confusion was rapidly taking hold. Red frustration too. Then they moved. Then stopped. Then moved. Then spun.

Iseult couldn’t help but grin, her fingers moving to her Threadstone. Safi would have been proud of her. Habim too, although he might have scolded her for not getting a better look at her opponent. Never rely on magic or weapons, he used to say. They can always be taken away.

Fine, fine, she thought, and ever so carefully, she peeled back the canvas and found Threads bright as sunshine.

Their owner was as bright as sunshine too, his skin and curling hair a gleaming gold that Safi would have fallen boots over brains for.

Trickster. The name flitted across Iseult’s mind—the Moon Mother’s youngest, most devious brother, with the coloring of the sun but lucent shimmer of the moon. Like this young man, Trickster always wore pale gray. The color of dawn, of dusk, of the dappled forests in which he hid.

In the stories, Trickster was the most dangerous of the family, his loyalties as fickle as the breezes he loved to ride. Luckily, those were just stories, though—while this man was very real.

Iseult let the flap fall back into place. She would remember that man’s face. She would remember his Threads too.

If they ever met again, she would be ready.

THIRTEEN

Habim Fashayit.

General Habim Fashayit.

Uncle Eron’s man-at-arms, the mentor who had trained Safi to fight and raised her like a father. Who had taught her to be a wolf in a world of rabbits. He was here in Azmir. Here in the imperial palace. And he was a general.

Safi had always known Habim must have been an officer of some kind for the Marstoki armed forces. When, after years of badgering, neither Habim nor Eron nor even Mathew had ever opened up about Habim’s specific past, though—or about how he’d ended up in the employ of a Cartorran dom—Safi had eventually stopped wondering and simply accepted Habim as he was: stern, implacable, a skilled fighter, an even more skilled tactician, and prone to assigning far too many essays on the history of warfare.

Between one heartbeat and the next, all of Safi’s childhood questions blazed back to life, a thousand times hotter than they’d ever been ten years ago. Her whole chest felt aflame. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to skip, she wanted to grab her Threadstone and scream at Iseult, wherever she might be, that Habim Fashayit was here! General Habim Fashayit was here in Azmir! In the imperial palace!

Never had Safi been so glad for shadows and solitude. For a moment to react in private before anyone saw her face.

The tiny trapdoor that led into the wall clicked behind Safi. Afternoon air twined against her. She gulped it in, smoothing her face into the same expression she always wore around Rokesh and the Empress: dutiful focus, blank disinterest. After a quick check that her attempted Truthstone was tucked into a pocket, she swiveled toward the Adder.

He said nothing, so she said nothing, and once she was out of the wall, the remainder of her Adder guards stepped into tight formation around her. They crossed into the main garden. Sunshine poured over Safi’s face, and the midday breeze carried the scent of roses, lilac, and honeysuckle. Insects whirred while birds chirruped from the bushes and the trees.

Situated upon three terraced levels, the imperial gardens overlooked Lake Scarza’s glittering blue waters, offering a full view of crowded Azmir on the sunlit shore. Usually, Safi savored these walks—a chance to be outside in the open. Right now, though, she only had space for Habim.

Goat tits, she wished the Adders would walk faster. Habim was so near. Move, Nursemaid, move.

Finally, after crossing the top level, they reached a familiar marble terrace where a fountain bubbled and wind chimes rang. Then they were to the sloping entrance into Vaness’s private library, where Safi had come only a few hours before.

No pause, no break in stride while the Adders—and Safi—coasted inside. Shelves lined the walls, every spine bound in matching garnet leather. Books lay stacked upon desks and honey satin chairs. And of course, iron adorned every spare inch: in the sconces, on the table legs, and around the shelf frames. It was a library fit for an Empress, for an Ironwitch.

Two doors led out of the library. One made of oak carved with sunbursts that fed into Safi’s and Vaness’s quarters. Safi knew this door; she had used it. The other, a simple door barely large enough to duck through, led to the Empress’s personal office. It was a space Safi had been expressly forbidden to enter. Guest status, it would seem, only carried one so far.