They reached the exit. They hurried through.

And that was when Iseult sensed the Threads. That was when she saw the people fifty paces away. Twenty figures in heavy furs crouching amidst the frozen reeds, all bound by faint blue Threads. People with the same magic, working together. They gaped at Iseult and Leopold, their Threads shifting to a uniform glaring surprise.

Except for one man. The only man standing separate from the group, he had not noticed Iseult or Leopold skittering to a halt upon the shore. He held a large curved horn to his lips, and a fraction of a heartbeat later, the horn sounded. A clear, startling call. Three short blasts.

At the fourth long drawl, the twenty others shot to their feet, axes and blades thrust high. Then they roared, Threads blaring to violent steel, and charged right for Leopold and Iseult.

FORTY-EIGHT

The Northman’s blade punched through Esme’s chest. Blood sprayed. He yanked back. She fell, gasping. Shocked. Silent.

Merik lunged forward, unsure why he felt the need to catch the Puppeteer before she hit the ground. His body acted without thought. He pulled her into his arms; her blood gushed across him.

“The Loom,” she choked out. “Bring me closer to the Loom.”

Merik did not bring her closer to the Loom. “You must stay still,” he said, but she fought him then, clawing and coughing: Loom, Loom, Loom.

The Northman lunged, his arm reared back to stab her again.

“No!” Merik dropped Esme roughly to the ground. He snapped tall and raised his hands. “No hurt!”

The Northman frowned. Blood dripped from his knife, brighter than the tassels. “Help,” he said, clearly confused. “Help. Go.” He waved to the trees. “Help.”

On the grass, Esme began to weep. Blood—there was so much blood. “Loom,” she whispered again, clutching at Merik’s leg. “Bring me to my Loom.”

Still, Merik did not bring her to the Loom. He knew, viscerally and logically, that this was his chance to flee. That this was a gift from Noden not to be tossed away. Yet for some reason, his feet felt rooted to the spot. His eyes rooted on a dying girl beside him.

Blood, blood. There was so much blood, and Merik felt no triumph at the sight of it. No relief at Esme’s face, taut with pain, or at her chest shaking while she tried to breathe.

He felt only pity. There might still be a person inside all that hate. After all, she did not bleed so differently than he did.

Nubrevna. His homeland flickered through the back of his mind, and with it came the memory of crowded streets and soaring bridges where ships sailed home. It was the one place he had always believed in, the one thing that had always made sense.

Letting the Puppeteer destroy it, letting the Raider King or the Fury destroy it—that did not make sense.

Esme might bleed as he did, but so did everyone else around them. All these Cleaved, all these people who had once had lives and families and loved ones of their own. She had destroyed them, just as she would destroy Nubrevna too.

Unless Merik did something to stop it. He would not kill her. Esme had cleaved Kullen; she might end up being the only way to un-cleave him too. Merik also had no idea what might happen to her Loom or to her Cleaved if she died. What if they died with her?

That was a risk he couldn’t take. And with that thought, he finally moved. With gentle hands, he carried Esme to the Well, to her Loom. She gasped, she convulsed, and her blood sank deeper into the grass. He could do nothing to heal her, but maybe her Cleaved could.

Merik turned to the Northman. “Go,” he said. “Now we go.” For of course, if Esme’s Cleaved could save her, they could also hunt down Merik.

The Northman did not argue. He let Merik wrench him around and haul him toward the main path, and when Merik pushed into a run, he also kicked up his knees. Their feet thundered down the hill, over variegated shadows cast by a bright, oblivious moon in a bright, oblivious sky. Trunks streaked in the corners of Merik’s vision. Cleaved, too, immobile without their Puppeteer to guide them.

Merik didn’t know where he was going—away, away. That was the extent of his plan. Away from the Well and Esme, and once his magic felt strong enough, away from Poznin entirely.

They reached the bottom of the hill. Moonlight beamed over them and streets snaked off in different directions. Merik slowed to a stop, already panting. He leaned on his knees while the Northman did the same, and swung his gaze in each direction.

Right would lead to Esme’s tower. Left to the river. Straight to the Windswept Plains.

The plains, his magic murmured, and he felt himself grin. On the plains, there were other people. And on the plains, there was wind. No, he was not yet strong enough to fly, but soon. Beneath these gulps of air, the power sparked hotter.

He straightened, hand rising to point …

His eyes caught movement in the trees. Figures were shambling this way. The Cleaved were shambling this way.

Shit, shit, shit. Esme was working faster than Merik had anticipated. Too late now to stop her, though, and what was it Vivia always used to say? No regrets, keep moving.

Merik grabbed the Northman’s shoulder, and he got moving. “Run.” As one, they launched into a sprint.

The Cleaved didn’t like this, and their half-dead legs picked up speed. They tumbled from the forest, and then from buildings too. Body after body, filling the streets. Gathering into a stampede that swarmed at Merik and the Northman from all angles.

They pushed themselves faster.

Down streets and over walls, around fallen statues and through tree-choked squares, Merik and the Northman drove their legs. They leaped, they slid, they barreled around anything that blocked their way.

Until Merik and Northman reeled onto a wide avenue, free of trees. Swallowed by grass. The ground shook beneath them. The grass stalks rattled and swayed.

And now a hundred more Cleaved chased from ahead. There was no exit. They were cut off from all sides.

The Northman’s pace faltered, but Merik gripped his arm and pulled him on. They could not stop. They could not slow.

Merik had a hundred paces to find an escape—or else he had a hundred paces for his magic to return. It unfurled more with each razoring breath. Ninety paces. Eighty. Sixty paces, and Merik could see black eyes. Fifty, and the shadows that lined Cleaved skin came into focus—

There. A toppled building on the right. It hid an alleyway clotted by saplings. The trees would slow Merik and the Northman, but they would slow the Cleaved too.

He hauled the Northman into the slip of space between ruins. Leaves and branches slapped against them. They zigged and zagged and did not slow. Not when the earth shook so hard it knocked rubble loose from buildings. Nor when flesh slapped against flesh and saplings crunched behind.

They reached the alley’s end. A new road, a new expanse—and more Cleaved. But Merik knew this road. He had walked here only last night, and straight ahead would lead to a pool filled with corpses.

A pool that had sucked him in. A pool that might suck in others too.

If he and the Northman could get into that water and reach the stairwell at the back, then maybe the Cleaved would pour in behind them. Even if the water did not kill them, it would at least slow them. It would at least give Merik the time he needed to reclaim his breath.

And reclaim his magic.

Then he saw it. The cattails and the murky waters and the floating bodies, so calm beneath the night sky. He plowed directly for it, praying the Northman would not argue or slow.

More Cleaved streamed along the corners of his vision. He dared not turn his head to look at them. If this pool did not save him, then he was out of options.

“Swim!” Merik roared at the Northman, pointing ahead. Then he reached the cattails. His feet squelched in mud.

Instantly, the pool’s power rushed against him. Come, it sang. Come in and find release. This time, he was ready for it, though. This time, Merik knew to fight.

He splashed onward until the water reached his knees. His thighs. Then he launched into a dive, the Northman just behind.

His head crashed beneath the surface.

The power of the pool grew tenfold. A chorus that vibrated in his brain, crushing and creeping into every crevice, every memory.

Come, come, and find release. There were the water-bridges and the white-sailed ships. Come, my son, and sleep. There was Kullen chasing crabs beside the shore. Come, come, the ice will hold you. And there was Merik’s mother, tired and sad, while she read to him about Queen Crab and her treasures.

Merik swam deeper. His legs propelled him, his arms pulled.

Come, come, and face the end.

A faint blue light glowed from a stone wall at the bottom of the pool. Corpses, some pale and fresh and floating, others rotten and sinking, blocked it. They had tried to reach that light; they had failed.