“No.” The word burst out, overloud and erratic. Iseult might trust the monk completely and might owe her several lives, too, but right now, she did not want sleep. She wanted answers. “Don’t summon her. I feel fine. Just tell me: where is Owl?”

A swallow. A wincing spiral of grief. “I do not know,” Leopold admitted, reaching the bed. “Everything happened so quickly.”

“Ah.” Iseult rubbed at her face—only to instantly stop when her fingers met bandages. Odd, since she felt no pain there.

“Here.” Leopold poured her a glass of water from a pitcher on a table beside the bed. Though only one-handed, he remained as nimble as ever.

But Iseult waved off the drink. She did not know how much time she had before Evrane would return and make her sleep again. “I thought I saw Blueberry. When the fire hit, I saw his Threads. Could he have rescued Owl?”

“You would know better than I would, Iseult. I saw nothing beyond the flames. May I?” Leopold waved to the bed, and at Iseult’s nod, he helped her rise.

This time, she welcomed the aid. No pain coiled through her, but her limbs felt made of marble. Too heavy to move on their own.

“We need to search for her,” she said as Leopold’s good hand slid behind her.

He huffed a laugh. Not a cruel sound, but a startled one that matched his Threads. “I will do that right after I finish lifting you … Wait, are you serious?” He reared back. “Iseult, there are monks trying to kill us over there”—he swung his head toward the door—“and a Raider King’s vast army over there.” He swung his head toward the window. “If the child lives—and I hope she does—there is nothing we can do to help her right now.”

“There is always something we can do. Always.”

At her words, slivers of rich burgundy hit Leopold’s Threads. Shades of peach too. On anyone else, she would have interpreted it as tenderness, perhaps even desire. But on him … On him, she couldn’t understand it at all.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I said nothing.”

“No, but you felt something. Tell me what.”

Now wheat-colored embarrassment channeled across his Threads. Then he smiled, a rueful smile that was so perfectly in sync with his feelings, Iseult found herself blinking. There was even a faint blush to warm his cheeks. “I truly can hide nothing from you, can I?”

“That does not answer the question.”

“No.” He ran a thumb over his lower lip, before he finally murmured, “Please, Iseult. Let a man have his secrets.” Then he crooked down to grab something behind the table. “Here, I have something for you.”

A clever deflection, but Iseult would allow it. There was still so much she needed to know, yet her eyes were burning more and more by the second.

“I know this is not your book precisely, but it is the same text. Actually, this is the original. I took it from the Monastery Archives.” He slid a black leather tome onto the bed. “I thought it might prove I was telling the truth. About Eron fon Hasstrel, I mean.”

Iseult glanced down at the book … And ice thumped into her stomach. She swallowed, feeling her face settle into a puzzled frown—and also feeling too stunned to prevent it.

An Illustrated Guide to the Carawen Monastery.

This was the same book on Carawen monks she had left behind in Ve?aza City. The only way Leopold could know that would be if he was truly working with Safi’s uncle.

“Likely you do not wish to read it, but I thought—”

“Thank you,” she interrupted. And she meant it. Everything had been so unstable since Aeduan had left, since the crash and the dreams and the darkness. This book felt like an anchor. And knowing Leopold had gotten it for her … That she could in fact trust him …

Iseult’s breath slid out. The room was melting together; her chest felt a jumble of feelings—hot and cold alike in a hundred ways she didn’t recognize.

She pulled the book closer, ready to peel it open, when she noticed a stamp on the cover. A bird with three legs and a crown atop its head.

“What is this?” Her fast-tiring gaze lifted to Leopold’s. “My version did not have it.”

“That is the sigil of the Rook King. You can find it all over the Monastery.” He tapped it with his uninjured hand. “This whole place used to be his fortress a thousand years ago. Have you never wondered why the Carawen sigil is a bird?”

She had, but nowhere in her book—in this book—had there been an answer.

The Rook King, she thought. The man from her dream. It had to be, even if she couldn’t explain how.

Again, she rubbed at her bandages. This time, though, she let her fingers scrape the cloth. No pain, but Leopold still grimaced and whispered, “Leave them.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, ignoring him. “Nomatsis do not, but Safi always swore they were real.”

“Oh?” He blinked, pallid confusion in his Threads. “Yes, well, she would believe in them. The Hasstrel castle is full of ghosts. But … why do you ask?”

Iseult wet her lips. “So you do believe?”

“Most Cartorrans do. We are not a worshipping people, but we take our ancestors very seriously.” He planted his good hand on the bed and leaned toward her, a frown knitting across his face. “Again, Iseult, why do you ask?”

She scratched her nose. More gauze scraped. It was one thing to ask for his insight, and quite another to tell him she had ghosts haunting her dreams. “No reason,” she said at last.

His expression and Threads wore open disbelief, but he did not press her further—for which Iseult was grateful. She grew more tired by the second. Heavier, too, like a cave had collapsed atop her.

“Owl,” she said, but the name came out as a long, slurring moan.

Shock brightened Leopold’s Threads. In an instant, he was on his feet. “You are ill again. I will get Monk Evrane.” He moved away, so fast. Too fast. Streaks trailed behind him. A hundred Leopolds, a hundred versions racing across time.

“No,” Iseult called out, but like before, that was not what left her tongue.

By the time Evrane rushed in, shadows veiled Iseult’s vision. Evrane looked made of darkness, black waves coiling off her.

Wings, Iseult thought before the healing magic dragged her under. It looks like she has wings.

* * *

When Iseult next awoke, it was to someone barking, “Get her up,” in Cartorran. A man’s voice attached to vague, hazy Threads.

She stretched her eyelids high. The world wheeled into weak focus. Threads, Threads, Threads—the man who had spoken, as well as two more people now striding toward the bed. Monks she did not know.

For a brief, disoriented moment, their white cloaks looked fused together, a single entity crossing the room with Threads of hostile gray and green focus. Then the white smear reached Iseult, split once more into two, and faces materialized above her.

A woman, a man. The woman seized Iseult’s left arm, the man seized her right. Then, with grips that dug beneath her bandages and into her flesh, they wrenched Iseult into a sitting position and heaved her backward until her spine hit the headboard.

The world reeled around Iseult. No pain, only vertigo and confusion. Sleep still clung to her. The Firewitch still laughed in her ears.

Then the monks strode away, no longer melded into one, even as their Threads aligned in a single color: silvery revulsion. They were disgusted by Iseult’s weakness. Or perhaps disgusted by the touch of her. But Iseult was accustomed to disgust and hate, and if those feelings could kill, they would have slain her a long time ago.

She drew in a long breath, relieved when she felt her lungs press against her ribs. When her vision grew clearer and clearer by the second. White moonlight slashed through open curtains. She neither saw nor sensed Evrane or Leopold nearby.

She had little time to puzzle over their absence before the third monk—the man who’d first spoken—stalked into view.

At first, as Iseult watched his Threads approach, she thought the colors blended because of her own exhaustion. Because of the shadowy sleep that refused to fully release its hold. Except everything else in the room had crystallized. She felt alert, awake. Even her muscles felt light enough to move of their own accord.

Then she realized: He’s a Bleeder. Someone who bled from one emotion to the next, feeling each with frenetic intensity, yet never staying in one place for long. It gave their Threads a muddy weave. They are unstable, Gretchya had warned Iseult years ago. Each emotion is frayed and somehow simultaneous. There is no predicting what a Bleeder will do next.

Instantly, Iseult’s body tensed. Cold shoveled through her—hard ice after so much sleep saturated by flame.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked. He was young. Perhaps only a few years older than she. With his sallow skin and fair hair, his features bled together like his Threads, and the illusion was only compounded by the softness of his jaw and figure.

If Iseult didn’t know of the rigorous monastery training, she would have thought he’d never worked a day in his life.

He also stank of incense.