“My grandfather knew that. He told the king and queen that, but they didn’t believe him. They didn’t want to believe him—that their daughter would hurt herself in her sleep every night until she was dead, or until some Old Vetrisian relic consumed her magic.”

A coldness seeps into my veins. Yorl pulls his claw back from my chest.

“The truth is just the truth, Zera. It affects nothing. What matters most is what Varia wants. If she gets it, then we get what we want, too. Focus on that. Center your mind on that.”

My unheart sinks. “If she gets the Tree, is she going to die?”

Yorl starts walking up the steps, his footpads soft, and I walk with him, feeling for the cold stone walls.

“I don’t know,” Yorl admits. “There isn’t much documentation on how the Tree feeds, only that it requires a strong source of magic every so often. But I’d hazard a guess that it doesn’t take all the magic at once from a witch—Old Vetrisian inventions are complex and often don’t work instantaneously. It most likely would siphon her magic from her slowly.”

“And kill her?” I ask.

Yorl is quiet, and then, “Yes. Eventually. By my grandfather’s calculations, a witch cannot survive having all their magic taken from them.”

I can’t bring myself to walk forward anymore. Varia will die. Lucien and Fione will lose their loved one all over again. Their pain will come back tenfold. And I’m helping that happen.

Lucien’s suspicions were right. And something else gnaws at me.

“If she dies, what happens to the valkerax? Are they just free to roam?” I ask.

“No,” Yorl says. “The Bone Tree will always default to forcing the valkerax into the Dark Below. If…when—” His voice catches. “When she dies, in theory all the valkerax will return beneath.”

I’m silent. So Varia’s doing all this just for temporary power. The conversation between Yorl and me dies and doesn’t resurrect until we reach the surface-level door.

“None of this concerns us, Zera,” he says, his pupils slits in the light. “Keep your mind on your own goal. Not hers. Not mine. Your own.”

I breathe in. Every fiber of my being knows his logic is sound. But I can’t help but think about Lucien’s face, how broken it will look when Varia dies again. And I will have helped her to her grave with my own two hands.

Nothing distracts me from my own thoughts better than a book. And I need distraction now more than ever. I need to read someone else’s words to clear my head of all the ones buzzing around in my skull.