“Safi,” she breathed, a whisper of sound. Then again, “Safi.”

And that was all it took. Her Threadsister’s hands fell. “Iseult?” She gaped. Then without waiting for a reply, she charged forward and tackled, arms grabbing and laugh burbling out. “It can’t be, it can’t be.”

Never had Iseult been squeezed so tightly, and never had she squeezed so tightly back. What if, what if, what if. None of those speculations and daydreams mattered now.

Because now Iseult was back where she belonged. Initiate and complete. Threadsisters to the end.

And together once more while a sky sang with stars and a child whispered, “Finished, finished, finished.”

* * *

Stix did not remember picking them up.

In fact, she remembered very clearly doing as Ryber had ordered and leaving the items behind.

Death, death, the final end.

Yet somehow, here they were, resting upon a broken slab of granite. Ice covered the soil, the remnants of a standing stone. Already, it melted, shrouding the dawn in thick, white fog.

Stix walked slowly, each step cautiously placed as she approached the granite. Each inch examined with squinting eyes. She and Ryber might have successfully destroyed most of the standing stones to which the mountain’s magic was bound, but there were still raiders inside that mountain, inside the Crypts leading to it, and inside these woods nearby.

Then Stix reached the two items she knew she had left behind.

A broken sword lay on the right, only its hilt and cross-guard fully intact, while a jagged slash of blade still razored out from above. A hole opened inside her belly at the sight of it.

Death, death, the final end.

Beside the hilt rested a square frame with a handle for grasping. It reminded her of a small mirror her older sister had loved, yet where that glass had been reflective, this glass was clear—and it was shattered, too. Only a few shards still clung to the frame.

Stix reached for the handle. Like the blade, this device sang to her. Though it hummed not with death, but with answers. This plain, broken glass was a way for her to see. The way, if she was willing to peer inside.

Carefully, she glanced back to see if Ryber watched. To see if Ryber would, once more, warn her to step away.

But the Sightwitch Sister was too absorbed by recording in her diary what they had just done to the stones, had just done to the mountain. She didn’t notice Stix creeping away.

Carefully, Stix picked up the broken glass. Carefully, she looked through.

The world fell away.

Stix was no longer beside the standing stones. She was now surrounded on all sides by thick forest and white-capped peaks. Snow fell, and nearby, a river churned. On a stone bridge spanning its dark waters, a man in black furs strode her way.

On his head shone a silver crown. In his hand gleamed a silver sword.

Then the Rook King fixed his gaze on Stix. “It will all be over soon,” he said before his blade arced out and crashed against her neck.

Only as the sword cracked against stone did she realize she was locked in place. Only when it cut through the rock—three swings it took him—did she realize she was encased in granite.

Then blade bit into flesh.

She died.

SIXTY-TWO

The blood looked fresh in the snow. It had wept, it had oozed, and now it was trapped in time by ice and cold. The frozen river would accept no offering of corpses; these dead would stay here for months, until next year’s summer thaw.

So many blood-scents to mingle against Aeduan’s magic, so many dead for his gaze to drag across. Aeduan had not killed these monks and raiders, though. While he had fought to protect the Cahr Awen, to give Iseult time to flee, he had taken no lives.

Death did not have to follow wherever he went. Not anymore.

He turned away from the battle. Some people still fought, far across the valley, while others simply moved through the corpses and gathered their dead. And in some spots, seafire still licked and reached for the sky.

Aeduan left it all behind. There was one blood-scent he had to follow, one promise he had to keep.

He tracked the scent through a tunnel in the mountain, where stone men waited. Grotesque creations Aeduan didn’t look at too closely or consider too deeply. At a fork in the path, the scent veered right—so to the right he veered as well. Up, up, until at last he reached a forest above the Monastery.

The full moon streamed down, a shimmery glare upon the snow. Footprints traced forward, the right size to have been hers.

Strong, the scent here was strong: Aeduan’s own blood, bright and fresh and laced with fireflies. She must be near, the one who wore his coin. The one who’d carried him, when no one else could. The one who’d shown him that only he could save himself.

The conifers parted. Here, more footprints stamped and splayed—and more blood-scents too, from two people Aeduan knew.

He rushed forward. The tracks and the bloods moved into a small ditch just ahead. He reached the edge and strode in.

And then he stopped. For the path went nowhere. Before him was nothing but a stone wall, and resting atop the snow was a gleaming silver coin.

Aeduan had not known he held his breath until it slithered out. He had not known his heart pounded so hard until it skipped a beat—and the world skipped a beat with it.

For Iseult had lost her silver taler. She had lost the only means Aeduan had of finding her. He had lost the only means he had of finding her.

With a stiff bend, he scooped the coin off the snow. Cold and wet, the double-headed eagle stained in blood grinned up at him. Laughing, he thought; and for half a stuttering breath, he wanted to fling it back to the ground.

But he didn’t. Instead, he furled his fingers inward and turned away from the strange, blank stone. Then he climbed back into the clearing, back into the moonlight.

For the first time in his life, Aeduan was free to move of his own accord. No cloak bound him, no contracts held him, and no leash locked him in place. Even vows he’d meant to keep were now lost to a wall of stone and snow.

He was a tool no longer. He was a blade no longer, to be wielded by others or brandished by Lady Fate. He was Aeduan. Just Aeduan, and he could choose whatever life he wanted. He could go wherever his will might lead.

He already knew exactly where that was. Not a place, but a person. Not a job, but a promise. And not an obligation, but a desire. He might not be able to follow her, but there were other ways than blood to find people in the Witchlands.

With that thought to guide him, he eased the coin into his pocket. Two rolls of his wrists, a crack of his neck, and the Bloodwitch named Aeduan set off into the night.

FIREFLIES

He does not hear her coming; he does not smell her. It is not until she is upon him, while he washes at the spring, that he realizes she is near.

He left her at the campsite with the child and the mountain bat. She stood watch while he scouted ahead, exactly as they have done each night for the past week while traveling together.

“You’re hurt,” she says, and he spins around to face her. Were he not injured, he would have attacked her—startled into action. But he is injured, and he is slow.

“Let me help,” she offers, striding toward him. The moon, a growing crescent, beams down from a sky dappled with stars. It turns the blood on his chest to black.

He does not know why she helps. He also does not pull away.

She reaches him, and though he wants to recoil, though his fingers tap against his thighs, he holds his ground. He lets her lean in. He lets her brace a hand on his shoulder and grip the first of six arrows poking from his belly.

A parting gift from a Nomatsi road just north of here.

“Why is it,” she asks softly, long fingers furling around the first shaft, “that I always seem to be pulling arrows from you?”

She yanks. He coughs. Blood pours.

Five more times, she repeats this, and he can practically see her calculating the life-debts between them. He would have healed from these wounds on his own, though, so as far as he is concerned, this counts for nothing.

“At least this time,” she says when she is done, a pile of red fletching at her feet, “you waited until you were here before removing them. The cuts will heal cleaner because you let me do it.”

This is not how his magic works. Not at all, but he also does not contradict her. Instead, he says, “You are an expert in Bloodwitches now?”

“No.” Her lips sketch a smile. “Just in stubbornness.”

“It takes it to know it.”

Now her smile widens, and for some reason, his heart hitches at the sight of that. And for some reason, he likes that he can see the tips of her white canines. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen them before.