She dropped to the stones, her gown pooling around her. It shimmered in the candles’ glow. Then she placed the book on the floor and flipped back pages, no gentleness in the movement, even when the pages protested and the binding squeaked.

“Imagine the implications,” she gushed, once she’d found the page she desired, covered in hand-drawn diagrams. “Imagine the applications! It is very similar in premise to the first Loom Eridysi made a thousand years ago.” She pointed to a sketch on the page that Merik supposed looked vaguely like a loom. “If we did not need the Fury alive, I would try other deaths. Drowning. Burning. Eventually decapitation. But I fear that sort of death might be too much for you in the end.”

She smiled.

Merik shuddered.

“I have more work for you today, Prince.” She searched her book impatiently. Merik thought he heard a page rip. Then she found what she wanted, and let the book fall open. “I need more stones like these.”

He glanced at them. “Like what I found before?”

“No.” She traced her finger over a stone with lines coiling around it. Beneath it, in a script that looked like old Arithuanian, were the words Arlenni Loop. “These will have thread wrapped around them, or perhaps yarn.”

“Why do you need them?”

Her eyes thinned, and for half a breath, Merik feared he had gone too far. His muscles tensed for pain. The chain scratched against the stones.

But then a smile rippled over Esme’s cheeks, and she sighed—a contented sound. “You are fun, Prince. No one has ever asked about my magic before. Only Iseult, but she so rarely visits anymore.”

Iseult? Surely Esme could not mean the same girl Merik knew. There was no time to ask, though, nor time to wonder, for Esme had launched into a detailed explanation of Threads. She poked at pictures on the page, clearly expecting Merik to listen and observe.

“Threads,” she declared, “are everywhere. They hum in the stone.” She patted the floor. “In the clouds.” She waved to the window. “In the trees, in the birds, in your heart.” A sly smile and she mimicked stabbing him in the chest again. “All magic is nothing more than manipulation of Threads, Prince, and once upon a time, it was only the Paladins who could do so.

“Except in the Fareast, where my people first lived.”

Merik frowned. “The ’Matsis?”

Her lips curled back. Her chin thrust forward. “That is a hurtful word, Prince.”

Merik recoiled, bracing for the fire. For the pain.

“It is offensive. Dismissive of who we are. Is it really so hard for you to say the whole word? No-matsi. Or, as we were long ago, No’A-matsi.”

“I am sorry,” he tried to say. “I did not know—”

“You mean you did not care.”

“No!” His hands rose in apology. Flames, flames, at any moment the cleaving fire would consume him. “I’ve never heard that before—I’m sorry.”

“You have heard it, but you chose not to listen. All men in the Witchlands are the same.” Her nostrils flared. “Say it.”

For a moment, he did not know what she meant. Then he realized. “Nomatsi.”

“The right way.”

Noden hang him, what had she just told him? Shit, shit. He had not listened, and she was right. In his holiest of conceit, he had chosen not to hear—

“No’Amatsi!” The word burst from his throat, surprising him and Esme too. She flinched. Then straightened, her fingers tightening to fists upon her knees. He was certain she would attack. With magic, with claws, with blades to slice open his heart.

Except she did not. The seconds trickled past with the rain, and a slow smile spread across her mouth. Then, almost lazily, she tipped her head sideways. “Good boy, little Prince. Perhaps if you can learn your lessons, then some hope yet remains for the Witchlands. Now where was I?” She cleared her throat expectantly.

And Merik’s mind raced back. “You … you said that in the Fareast, magic is different.”

“Onga. Yes. In the Fareast, anyone with training can touch the Threads of power, and long ago, the No’Amatsi people spent their lives devoted to such training.”

“Why,” Merik asked warily, hoping she wanted questions, “is magic different there?”

She did want questions. Her smile widened, and this time it reached her eyes. “It is a different goddess who sleeps inside their land, and Her will is different than our Sleeper’s. Oh, I see from your Threads that you are confused. In your mind, there is no goddess—only a god, because of course Nubrevnans would turn a woman into a man. The very concept of a woman with power is too much for your feeble minds to comprehend.”

Esme leaned forward, bracing on her hands and drawing her face close to his. “You see a strong woman and deem her evil. You see a quiet woman … Oh wait; you do not see them at all. Tell me truly: what did you think of me when you first spied me?”

Merik’s lips pressed tight. He stared down at the stone, knowing he could not argue. The Merik of a month ago would have denied her words. Vehemently. Angrily, with his Nihar rage to spiral loose on winds he claimed he could not control.

Now, he had no winds. Now, he had no lies he could tell himself. Cam had said as much two weeks ago. You only see what you want to see.

Just thinking of the boy made Merik’s heart shrivel. His chest suctioned inward with shame. Cam had stayed beside him, even though Merik had done nothing to deserve such loyalty. He prayed to Noden … or … or to whatever power reigned over the Witchlands, that Cam and Ryber were all right.

Esme sighed, a bored sound. “We can continue our lesson later, Prince. For now, the rain has stopped.” She twirled a hand toward the window. “So it is time that you travel to the next shrine.”

She withdrew a key from her pocket and with deft fingers, released the chain from Merik’s collar. “My Cleaved will lead you most of the way, so follow the lines as you did last night. And Prince.” She smiled again, dimple winking. “Do not try to run. You know what will happen if you do.”

TWENTY-SIX

It all happened so fast once Habim and the soldiers arrived—too fast for Safi to fully comprehend, much less react. The Hell-Bards surrendered. The Hell-Bards were put in chains. And the Hell-Bards were led away.

Then Safi was led away too, by Adders she didn’t know and a blockade of soldiers so dense, she could see nothing beyond. For the rest of the night, she saw no one she knew. No Vaness, no Rokesh, no Habim …

And no Hell-Bards. She had no idea where they’d been taken; she had no idea what was going on.

Once back at the Floating Palace, healers briefly tended her ankle, then her Adder guard had her moving again. Every detail regarding the imperial birthday party the next day had to be reevaluated or rechecked. Apparently, the rebels had entered the Origin Well grounds by a glamoured gap in the northern wall, so Safi now examined every inch of stone in the palace for signs of similar trickery.

Nothing.

Then she was forced to meet every single soldier, servant, and Adder—women and men Safi had already evaluated. Women and men as frustrated by the whole situation as Safi was. And while she interviewed them, the Adders checked all weapons, all tools, to ensure no iron had been tampered with.

The Adders found nothing, though, and Safi found nothing either.

It was well past midnight by the time she finished and was led to her room. Despite exhaustion tugging at her muscles and eyelids, her thoughts crackled with flame. Everything from the day collided in her mind in one massive, writhing conflagration—the flame hawk, the false soldiers in the woods, the doorway lit by magic.

Habim’s secret message upon the map.

Gods below, Safi wished she could talk to Iz right now. Yet no amount of clutching her Threadstone or imagining her Threadsister’s calm face made her prayers come true. Iseult, wherever she was, could not—or did not want to—dream-walk with Safi again.

At the sound of the third chimes twinkling through her garden doorway, Safi finally gave up trying to reach Iseult. She had books from Vaness’s library; she had gemstones; and she still had a plan that needed finishing.

She cleared off a space on her desk and yanked off her Threadstone. Then after setting down the quartz she’d fiddled with all day, she opened a new book and set to work. Understanding Threads by Anett det Korelli, translated from Nomatsi into Marstoki, detailed the creation of Threadstones. How Threadwitches bound people’s Threads to stones, so that lovers or family or friends would always be able to find one another. So that they would never lose those they cared for most. And since Threadwitches were bound to the Aether like Safi’s magic, it seemed a logical next try.

Besides, reading about Threadwitches made Safi think of Iseult—and just thinking of her Threadsister made Safi feel a bit better and made the fires in her mind settle.