The calla lilies are in bloom again.

The world is being devoured by nothingness and we have to find a way to stop it. More tea?

But that was always the way. The world might crumble, but Nikolai Lantsov would be holding up the ceiling with one hand and plucking a speck of dirt from his lapel with the other when it all went to ruin.

He and Zoya had built this prison carefully, leaving only the skeleton of the aviary. Its walls were now made entirely of glass, letting light in throughout the day. At night, Sun Soldiers, heirs to Alina Starkov’s power, many of whom had fought against the Darkling on the Fold, kept the light alive. They had all been sworn to secrecy, and Zoya hoped that vow would hold. The Darkling had emerged into this new life without his powers—or so it seemed. They were taking no chances.

When the door opened, their prisoner rose from where he’d been sitting on the floor, moving with a kind of grace Yuri Vedenen had never possessed. Yuri, a young monk who had preached the gospel of the Starless Saint, had led the cult dedicated to worship of the Darkling. They believed the Starless One had been martyred on the Fold and that he would return. And to Zoya’s great surprise, Yuri and the rest of the addlepated zealots clad in black and chanting for a dead dictator had been right: The Darkling had been resurrected. His power had poured into Yuri’s own body and now … now Zoya wasn’t sure who or what this man was. His face was narrow, his pale skin smooth, his eyes gray beneath dark brows. His long black hair almost brushed his collarbones. He wore dark trousers and nothing else, his chest and feet bare. Vain as always.

“A royal visit.” The Darkling sketched a short bow. “I’m honored.”

“Put on a shirt,” said Zoya.

“My apologies. It gets quite warm in here with the relentless sunlight.” He shrugged into the rough-spun shirt Yuri had worn beneath his monk’s robes. “I’d invite you to sit, but…” He gestured to the empty room.

There was no furniture. He had no books to occupy him. He was let into the neighboring cell only to wash and relieve himself. Another two heavily padlocked doors stood between that cell and the stairs.

The Darkling’s new residence was empty, but there was quite a view. Through the glass walls, Zoya could see the palace grounds, the rooftops and gardens of the upper town, lights from the boats drifting on the river that ringed it, and the lower town below. Os Alta. This had been her home since she was only nine years old, but she’d rarely had the chance to see it from this angle. She felt a rush of dizziness, and then she was remembering. Of course. She knew this city, the countryside that surrounded it. She had flown over it before.

No. Not her. The dragon. It had a name, one known only to itself and long ago to the others of its kind, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. It was right on the tip of her tongue. Infuriating.

“I am eager for company,” said the Darkling.

Zoya felt a sudden rush of his resentment, his rage at this captivity—the Darkling’s anger. The dragon’s presence in her head had left her vulnerable. She drew in a breath, grounding herself, here, in this strange glass cell, the stone floor beneath her boots. What might you learn—Juris’ voice, or was it her own?—what might you know, if only you would open the door?

Another breath. I am Zoya Nazyalensky and I am getting truly sick of the cocktail party in my head, you old lizard. She could have sworn she heard Juris chuckle in reply.

Nikolai leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry we don’t visit more often. There’s a war on and, well, no one likes you.”

The Darkling touched a hand to his chest. “You wound me.”

“All in due time,” said Zoya.

The Darkling raised a brow. A faint smile touched his lips—there in that expression, there was the man she remembered. “She’s afraid of me, you know.”

“I’m not.”

“She doesn’t know what I may do. Or what I can do.”

Nikolai gestured to one of the Sun Soldiers for chairs to be brought in. “Maybe she’s afraid of being spoken of as if she’s not standing right in front of you.”

They all sat. The Darkling somehow managed to make his rickety old chair look like a throne. “I knew that you would come.”

“I hate to be predictable.” Nikolai turned to Zoya. “Maybe we should go? Keep him on his toes?”

“He knows we won’t. He knows we need something.”

“I’ve felt it,” said the Darkling. “The blight coming on. The Fold is expanding. And you feel it too, don’t you, Lantsov? It’s the power that resides in my bones, the power still seeping black in your blood.”

A shadow passed over Nikolai’s face. “The power that created the Fold in the first place.”

“I’m told some people consider it a miracle.”

Zoya pursed her lips. “Don’t let it go to your head. There are miracles everywhere these days.”

The Darkling tilted his head to the side, watching them both. The weight of his gaze made Zoya want to leap through one of the glass walls, but she refused to show it. “I’ve had a lot of time to think in this place, to look back on a long life. I made countless mistakes, but always I found a new path, a new chance to work toward my goal.”

Nikolai nodded. “Until that little bump in the road when you died.”

Now the Darkling’s expression soured. “When I look back on where things went wrong, where my plans all unraveled, I can trace the moment of disaster to the trust I placed in a pirate named Sturmhond.”

“Privateer,” said Nikolai. “And I wouldn’t know, but if the privateer you’ve hired is entirely trustworthy, he’s probably not much of a privateer.”

Zoya couldn’t just brush past with a joke. “That’s the moment? Not in manipulating a young girl and trying to steal her power, or destroying half a city of innocent people, or decimating the Grisha, or blinding your own mother? None of those moments feel like an opportunity for self-examination?”

The Darkling merely shrugged, his hands spread as if indicating he had no more tricks to play. “You list off atrocities as though I’m meant to feel shame for them. And perhaps I would, were there not a hundred that preceded those crimes, and another hundred before those. Human life is worth preserving. But human lives? They come and go like so much chaff, never tipping the scales.”