The mystic didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a close thing.

“It’s gone,” he said. “Come on. I’ll take you to your husband.”

“Are you sure …?”

“Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “Follow me.”

Much to Mehr’s relief, Amun was in their chambers rather than their practice hall. The mystic left her, and Mehr sat by Amun’s side.

“I saw the map,” she said.

“Describe it to me,” he said. He listened to her as she spoke, as she closed her eyes and envisaged the map, the trade routes, the villages. When she opened her eyes Amun was drawing on the ground with kohl.

“At least this way we can wash away the evidence if we need to,” he told her, when he saw the look on her face.

Mehr kneeled down beside him and looked at his drawing. It was close, very close, to what she’d described. She rubbed some of the kohl away with her thumb, altering the edges of one route.

“Did you find out what happened with the daiva?” Mehr asked.

“Of course,” Amun said. “They needed me to will it away.”

“Did they take your blood?”

Amun nodded. “It was good that you left,” he said.

“Show me.”

He gave her his arm. She rolled up his sleeve. There was a small nick on his forearm, but the cut was clean and no longer bleeding, which was a comfort.

“There were three couriers,” he said. “The boy, you saw. A daiva followed them for a full day. It shouldn’t have harmed them. They had old blood of mine, and the Empire’s good fortune to protect them. But the daiva attacked them suddenly. They’re badly wounded. It will take time for them to heal.” He looked at her. “Mystics aren’t usually easily hurt.”

Mehr knew the fresher the blood, the stronger its ability to defend its carrier from the daiva. She’d been taught by Lalita to mark the windows of her home once every turn of the moon. But for a long time the daiva had been weak, only strong enough to cause harm in the hallowed time surrounding the storms. No doubt the couriers had rarely required the protection of new blood.

“I know,” Mehr murmured. She could remember the way the ancient daiva they’d met in the desert had flinched away from the mystics. “Something must have changed.”

Amun looked at her. They both knew exactly what had changed.

“The daiva are stronger now,” he said.

Amun’s expression was as opaque as ever, but Mehr knew how to interpret his face. She took his hands in her own. Mehr had given the dreams of the Gods an outlet to dream without compulsion, natural dreams full of both good and ill fortune; daiva had injured mystics; and now Mehr and Amun were learning the sigils that would set them free.