And who would know in an instant if Leopold was lying.

“How long,” Iseult said, her voice almost lost to the stream, “will it take to reach the Monastery?”

Relief rushed across Leopold’s Threads. He smiled, a winning, devastating smile. “If we meet no interruptions, then we could arrive by midday tomorrow.”

Iseult’s fingers moved to her Threadstone. She stared absently at the prince’s face, purple and puffy thanks to her pummeling. She stared at his Threads too, so desperate. So hopeful.

“If I … If Owl and I go with you to the Monastery, do not think that it means I trust you.”

A pause. Wariness in his Threads, and he ran a thumb over his lower lip. Then: “What would it take to convince you, Iseult? What must I do to prove that I am here to serve you, wholly and completely? Getting you to the Monastery is my only purpose.”

Iseult almost scoffed at those words. A prince offering to serve her. What if, what if, what if. Yet, perhaps against her better judgment, she found herself believing him. The fervent urgency in his Threads was real. He might change his face to suit his needs, but he could not change his Threads.

“Do that more often,” she said after a while, her hand falling from her Threadstone. “Match your expressions to your feelings, and then I might start believing you. After all, trustworthy people do not wear masks.”

As Iseult uttered this last point, the prince’s Threads brightened with unease. Two heartbeats passed. Then all at once, a surging, delighted warmth bolted through them—and he tipped his head back and laughed. A full, unabashed sound that sent brilliant, fiery shades of pink coursing upward.

“What is it?” she asked, her cutlass dropping an inch. “What’s so funny?”

“This.” He motioned between them. “It is fascinating. Although, I will admit that I am surprised by how easily you see through my … Well, my performance.” He sketched an almost mocking bow. “I suppose I shall have to either account for your magic when you’re around, or else hope that you do not tell the world what I’m truly feeling. After all, charm is the only real weapon in a prince’s arsenal.

“But if honesty here,” he swept a hand toward his face, “is all it will take to prove my loyalty, then you have disarmed me, Iseult det Midenzi.” Again, he bowed, but this time with respect—and this time, his Threads hummed with raw intensity.

Oh, it was very strange indeed to have a prince say—and do—such things for Iseult. “Help me tend the horses,” she muttered eventually. She did not trust him fully, but she trusted him enough to follow him to the Monastery. It was where Aeduan had urged them to go anyway; she could let a prince lead the way.

With quick efficiency, she sheathed her cutlass with a clink of steel. They had wasted enough time here. Owl was waiting. “We will have to find a way to coax back the horses without getting rid of Blueberry.”

“Coja’kess?” he repeated.

Ah, Iseult supposed they had named the bat in Nomatsi. “It means ‘blueberry’ in Nomatsi.”

“The bat’s name is Blueberry?”

“They are his favorite food.”

Another lovely laugh split the prince’s lips, turning his Threads to a perfect shade of sunrise. “Did you hear that, Rolf?” He patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s a fruit bat. I told you there was nothing to be afraid of, old man. Nothing to be afraid of at all.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aeduan had been here before. Right here in this dark valley, hunting down a different man who owed money to a different shopkeep. It was all he had been good for back then; it was all he was good for now.

It was as if the past month, since he’d left Yotiluzzi in Ve?aza City, had never happened. The past two years, even. For here he was again, mindlessly hunting. Mindlessly gathering coin. One contract, then the next. One foot, then the next. Every mark the same, every client the same, and every day that spanned before him the thrice-damned same.

He hated it. He hated how easily he slipped back into it. How the numbness seeped into his bones as he trudged onward. How already he had abandoned planning ahead. There was no ahead—only finishing this assignment, then claiming the next. On and on until the day he died.

Aeduan knew he could not avoid his father forever. The Fury would come for him. He would have to return to Ragnor’s side. Really, Aeduan should just go north before that happened. Save everyone the trouble.

He did not go north.

Nor did he search for Prince Leopold, though that was something else that needed doing. He had questions that needed answering, ones Aeduan had believed important only two weeks ago.

He did not search for Prince Leopold.

Now, he didn’t care who the prince was working with, he didn’t care whose blood sang with frozen winters and crystal lakes. And Aeduan no longer cared who’d helped Leopold escape in the Nubrevnan jungles, stolen Aeduan’s lockbox of silver talers, and then led him on a fruitless chase across the Witchlands.

If that person had not done so, Aeduan would never have joined with Iseult. He would never have found Owl, and the wish that he had made upon the fireflies would never have come true.

He was a Bloodwitch, he was a monster, and this hunger in his gut that had tried to trick him into believing he was something else—he was a fool for ever listening to it. He was good for only one thing.

Best he never forget that again.

* * *

When dawn began to stain the sky, Aeduan found the man who owed money, a shepherd with two small children and a wife sick with fever. He had bought a blade to defend his family against the raiders everyone said were coming. A blade he could not pay for.

It was so easy to frighten the man. So easy for Aeduan to send blood swirling around his eyes. To shut off all thought, all expression, all inflection. It was another man drawing his sword. Another man watching as the shepherd sank to his knees, trembling and begging for more time.

Aeduan felt nothing. He cared none. He took the only coins the man had, and he left.

* * *

On his second contract, the tier four, Aeduan felt the Painstone begin to fail.

He was supposed to report to a small iron mine in Marstok, east of Tirla. They would soon transport a shipment west; they needed protection. Likely it was not a legal delivery, or they would have hired true soldiers.

Legality mattered none to Aeduan. Coin was coin, contracts were contracts. He simply walked east, the sun rising overhead. Then burning down. It was not a hot day, but he grew hot. Miserably so. Unbearably so. Until it was too much. He had to stop beside a creek. Barely a trickle over the mountain rocks.

He removed his cloak. He drank his fill, the water gritty, and he splashed the sweat from his face. Then he sat on a rock and waited for the last of the Painstone’s power to creep away.

It was worse than he expected. If he had thought that the sudden absence of pain yesterday was a clear indicator of how much he’d felt before, it was nothing compared to the sudden return of it. He had anticipated a slow cascade, like standing in a river as it slowly rose around you.

The pain was a tidal wave instead. It plowed into him, flame and violence to boil his blood. To cook off all thought, until he was nothing but shadows closing in and a body shutting down.

He collapsed into the stream.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Vivia stared into her lukewarm porridge, knowing she ought to eat. Instead, her gaze shot to the empty seat beside her and its untouched porridge growing colder by the second.

It would seem Serafin was not coming to breakfast. Which could mean only one thing: he had heard about Vivia’s trip to Marstok, and he disapproved.

A sigh slid between her teeth, like steam released from a bubbling pot, except that her exhale did nothing to ease the boil in her belly. She would have to deal with her father—have to apologize, perhaps even grovel. Though for what, precisely, she did not know. Sometimes, she never learned what she had done to awaken his Nihar rage.

Vivia hugged her arms to her chest. She should apologize now. Any delay and the storm would only stew and strengthen. Until eventually he would explode. Then no amount of apologies would calm him.

But what of Stix? The question tickled across her mind, and with it, Vivia found herself rising. Turning toward the door. Stix ought to be in the Battle Room by now, waiting to give Vivia her morning briefing. Surely taking a few minutes to speak to her best friend—and to bolster her resolve before facing Serafin—would be all right. Besides, she desperately wanted to tell Stix about Marstok, about the Empress, about the Wordwitched paper now tucked into her frock coat. Stix would know what to make of it all. Stix would know how Vivia should proceed.