It was to this door they now marched, and excitement wound hotter in Safi’s belly. Her hands were sweating too. Stasis, she told herself, just as Iseult always did. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes.

Rokesh moved to the lead, and after he pushed open the simple door and slunk through, Safi was able to follow inside.

It was not what she expected. Where the rest of the Floating Palace was marble or sandstone tile with wide windows to stream in light, this room was paneled with oak stained almost black—and with no windows at all. Candle chandeliers hung from an arched ceiling, their waxes and wicks all perfectly sized and burning with smokeless Firewitched flame.

Then Safi glimpsed Habim across the room, straight-backed and staring at her from familiar line-seamed eyes. He stood opposite a long table, its surface covered by an intricate relief of the Witchlands.

Habim did not meet Safi’s gaze. Instead he strode around the table and declared, “This is not the Empress.”

Safi’s eyes prickled at the sound of his gravelly voice. Gods below, it was good to hear it. Stasis. Do what Iz would do.

“The Empress is detained.” Rokesh bowed low. Then he sidestepped and motioned to Safi.

Habim gave her an appraising glance. “You must be the Truthwitch, then.”

“Yes,” Safi said, though her voice almost cracked. His scrutiny, his eyes raking up, raking down. It was so customary, so Habim. The grim slant to his lips, the slight pucker between his brows. Her whole life, he had looked at her to assess her weaknesses. Right now, though, she felt he was assessing her strengths. Her health, her safety.

No doubt he wondered why she had a new scar above her eyebrow and on her thumb. Or why her hair only reached her shoulders—or why she clearly favored standing on one leg instead of the stable, even stance he’d raised her with. And there was no missing how his eyes caught on the iron belt at her waist and steel chain around her neck.

Habim had come to Azmir for Safi. That truth swelled inside her chest, and suddenly, Safi’s eyes burned even more. She forced herself to pull back her shoulders and puff out her chest.

“I am the Truthwitch,” she said, louder. Full of the domna training he had instilled in her. “May I ask who you are?”

Habim sniffed, angling back to Rokesh. “This child’s presence means you do not trust me. I expected a better welcome, Adder.”

Rokesh opened his gloved hands. Part apology, part shrug. “Nineteen years in retirement is a long time, General.”

“And it would have been longer if the Twenty Year Truce had not ended so suddenly.” He snapped a hand toward miniature troops, ships, and supply chains placed across the table. “I had thought Her Imperial Majesty possessed a steadier head than her parents, yet breaking the Truce to claim a young woman who is rumored to be a Truthwitch…” His chest expanded with a deep inhale, as if he were tamping down the urge to shout.

A lie, though. It was all a lie, and inwardly, Safi beamed.

Then his breath hissed out from clenched teeth, and he added: “Let us hope you were worth it, child.”

Child. Safi didn’t have to fake her eye roll at that.

Rokesh, however, only laughed. His eyes crinkled in his shroud. “Ask him your questions, Truthwitch, and let the general see your full worth.”

Just like that, Safi’s breath snagged in her throat, for asking those questions was the last thing she wanted to do. Suddenly her hands shook. Suddenly she saw blood and bile and stains along a floor.

She wiped her palms against her thighs, and beside her, Rokesh’s shoulders sank ever so slightly. He eased nearer, until his veiled face was mere inches from hers. “I can ask the questions,” he murmured. “If that would make it easier.”

Safi bit her lip. It would make it easier, but there would also be no point. If she couldn’t do this with Habim—with one of the only men in all the Witchlands she truly trusted—then she would never be able to do it again. And she had to do it again. It was why she was here; it was the only way she could leave.

Unless I can make a Truthstone.

She slipped a shivering hand into her pocket and pinched the quartz between thumb and forefinger. She could embed her magic into this rock. And she could ask Habim her three questions.

Gradually, her lungs relaxed. “Thank you, Nursemaid,” she said at last, “but I can manage.”

There it was again, that smile to crease in Rokesh’s eyes. Then he nodded and backed away.

Safi turned to Habim. She turned to her mentor.

“Are you aware of the peace treaty with the Baedyeds?” The words lobbed out, controlled, and a thousand miles away. Mathew had trained her for this. She wouldn’t let him or Habim down.

“Yes,” Habim answered simply. “I heard rumors from officers with whom I still correspond, and then I heard confirmation of this treaty when I reached the capital.”

To Safi’s surprise, all of these statements rang with honesty. Habim had heard, and he had been in contact with other officers.

Habim wasn’t finished yet, though. “The entire thing was poorly handled.” He directed this to Rokesh. “It was badly negotiated, with no bounds for enforcement. We destroyed the Baedyed way of life. When they would not live in our settlements, we killed their horses. When they would not abide by our rules, we stole their children. They have no reason to work with us, and every reason to hate us. The Empress was a fool to believe otherwise, and the Baedyeds were right to abandon the agreement in favor of a better one.”

No reaction from Rokesh beyond a smooth “You may tell the Empress that yourself.”

“I intend to.” Habim cut his hawkish attention back to Safi. “Next question, Truthwitch?”

Safi notched her chin higher. “Have you heard of a plot to overthrow the Empress and claim her throne?”

Habim sighed, an annoyed sound Safi knew so well—except this time, it was a lie. The falseness fretted down her skin and gathered at the base of her spine.

“No,” Habim snipped. “Next question.”

And the lie strummed harder.

Safi tensed. For half a moment, she thought her magic responded incorrectly. That it reacted to his fake posture and fake expressions … Except there was no truth to buzz with the lies. There were only lies. Which meant he did indeed know of a plot to overthrow the empire.

Bayrum of the Shards had known too, though. Such rumors always abound, he’d said before Vaness’s iron disc severed through him. Wherever there is power, flies will clot.

Safi gulped. Whatever Habim had heard, he was not the source of the plots. He had come to Azmir for Safi; not for Empress Vaness.

So she pressed on. “And, General Fashayit,” she finished, “did you know of the explosion on the Empress’s ship before the attack occurred?”

“No. Next question.”

True. Safi’s shoulders relaxed. Fingers she hadn’t realized were fisted now uncurled. “That was the last question.”

“And?” Rokesh asked. “Did the general pass?”

Even if Habim had not passed, there was only one thing Safi would say. But he had passed, so it was easy to speak with conviction. “Yes, the general spoke the truth.”

“Good,” Habim replied before Rokesh could open his mouth. Already Habim twisted toward the table, dismissing Safi and the Adders. Like a chime-piece wound too tightly, he moved to the next second, to the next order of business, and didn’t wait for the world to catch up.

“I will see the Empress now, thank you.” He waved to a contingent of troops along the Marstoki borders. “Tell her there is much to be discussed, and if this is her imperial strategy, then it will be a very short war, indeed.”

* * *

Vivia’s pulse hammered in her ears. Her magic surged in her veins, and beside her, two streams of water hung ready.

“You may lower your water,” Vaness said with a graceful wave.

“Oh may I? I’m so glad to have your permission.”

Vaness huffed a weary, if overdone sigh and swept to a seat. “If I had wanted to kill you, then you would already be dead. Besides, you do not truly feel threatened, or you would have called your officers.”

Ah, the Empress was too sharp. So, with a brazen smile to spread across her mask—what else could Vivia use to keep control?—she eased the water back into its carafe. A slow, slinking coil of power with nary a drip to splatter free.

“If you are needed elsewhere,” Vivia drawled, “then I presume our meeting has come to a close.”

“I apologize.” A bob of Vaness’s dark head. “This was unexpected, and,” she admitted, “unwanted. Here. Before you go.” She slid a rolled paper across the table.

Vivia took it, careful to keep her expression bored while she untied the golden ribbon that bound the thick vellum page.

“There’s nothing here.” The paper was completely blank.

“Not yet.” Vaness pulled a second rolled paper from her gown, and in seconds she had it stretched over the table—although a pencil toppled out and clattered to the floor.