I do, but her expression doesn’t change in the slightest, her anger blazing out. Her mouth moves succinctly, her words clipped.

“You will tell me where the Bone Tree is, beast. And I will give you your unclouded mind. This is the blood promise. If you refuse it, you will die.”

My stomach curdles in on itself at the thought of killing Evlorasin after everything we’ve been through. Please accept, I silently beg. Please say yes.

Evlorasin’s face disappears from the mossglow in an instant, a curling mass of white all I can see as the valkerax winds around itself like a snake, over and over, the snowy coils tightening and loosening and tightening again. I grip the white mercury sword, waiting for it to strike out at Varia once more. The long, continuous noise of scales over dirt, and then suddenly Evlorasin’s maw returns to the light, returns to hover just in front of Varia, all five eyes blinking rapidly at her at different times.

“There will be a war.”

“There is always a war,” the crown princess asserts, her voice echoing into the darkness.

The air grows thicker than ever, dust and the smell of smoke wafting among us. No one dares to move; I barely dare to breathe.

“Life is a garden that must flourish,” Evlorasin hisses, then, “And we will water its soil.”

I barely get the translated words out before my ears start to ring, my fingers go cold, and the mosslight dims to blackness as my eyes—and every other part of me—dies.

Yorl won’t tell me what happened after I died, but I can guess from his expression when I rouse into the world of the living again: Varia isn’t pleased.

“It’s strange,” I muse. “She was so confident about this whole thing at the beginning. She never came down and demanded promises from the valkerax before. So why now? Was she really that scared by the quake?”

Yorl adjusts his glasses higher on his nose, scribbling on his parchment without saying a word.

“Yorl,” I press. “C’mon. I’ve saved your tail way too many times for you to ignore me like this. There’s gotta be a reason she’s suddenly all anxious.”

His massive green eyes narrow, ears flattening. He lowers his voice and finally leans in. “We’ve realized there might be a leak in our unit.”

I swallow. “Like, a spy?”

“Someone leaking information,” he corrects tactfully.

“Okay, yes, I’ll admit it; I had to tell Malachite there was a valkerax—”

“Not that sort of information,” Yorl interrupts. “More detailed than just the existence of a valkerax below South Gate.”

More detailed? I knit my lips before starting, “Who are they leaking information to?”