Her laughter rings out, cold and without comfort. “Though the witches are few in number now, they were once mighty. ’Twas not always so that humans chased witches like this—a hundred years ago, humans were very much on the losing side. The witches have built lives out of war, too, just in different ways. They’ve planted spies. They’ve thought up new, horrible magics made to kill and wound and poison. They’ve found ways to build their cities so high and hidden that humans will never find them. They’re like two snakes eating each other’s tails. I know that now, after having lived with both of them.”

My knees start to ache with how many stairs we’ve taken, but still my legs pump on, the command caring not for how much pain I’m in. Finally, after what feels like a thousand more steps, we even out onto a stone floor. I can barely see the princess anymore—even with my adjusted eyes. I can hear her boots pause, though.

“Before Old Vetris was formed,” she says, “Cavanos’s annals were riddled with stories of wars between humans and witches. So one has to wonder: What could’ve possibly forced these mortal enemies to come together and make the walled cities? What could have forced them to work together to build an empire, instead of tearing each other apart?”

I know the answer. Everyone who’s picked up a book in the last thousand years would know the answer.

The darkness around us is so deep now that I can close my eyes and open them and not be able to tell the difference. All I have to go by are the sounds of dripping water and a new sound: a deep, sonorous rhythm echoing off the walls that’s gotten louder the lower we’ve gone. Is it the hum of a polymath contraption, maybe? But that wouldn’t explain why there are no lights down here.

We walk for a few more seconds, silently, and gradually the sounds of shuffling and the clank of armor and faint, rough voices start to filter in. Celeon voices—unmistakable in their half-purring, half-hissing tone. Five, ten—there has to be at least a dozen of them all around us. Royal guards, maybe?

There are some celeon lawguards, but most of them directly serve the crown. It makes sense—they have no problem seeing in this dark. Bound with muscle and able to see and hear keenly even with a complete absence of light, celeon are a race of catlike, lizard-like people who were once creatures without sentience. But after a stray magic spell went awry, they were given thought. Since then they’ve developed a profound hatred for witches, allying themselves instead with the humans. The ones down here might not know Varia’s a witch. They likely see her only as a member of the royal d’Malvane family to be obeyed.