I could lie. I could. It would spare Varia—unless she could command me to tell her. It could spare Varia’s death, and Lucien and Fione’s future pain. It could spare the drastic political upheaval the world is about to experience at the hands of Varia and her valkerax army.

But lying wouldn’t stop the war. Keeping the Bone Tree in my head wouldn’t keep Crav and Peligli and Nightsinger safe; it wouldn’t put Y’shennria or the millions of Cavanos’s people—human and witch—out of harm’s way.

And it wouldn’t get me my heart back.

Lying wouldn’t get me Mother and Father, or my humanity, back.

“There’s a dense jungle, hot and humid,” I finally say. “Ten spans east of a long river’s biggest bend. It’s sitting on a rock. Waiting. Waiting until noon.”

Yorl leans back against the wall, his feline face lit up by the mosslight from the outside and with ease from within. I see him smile. Smile, really and truly, for the first time.

He puts his paw up to his eyes and massages them tiredly. “It’s done,” he whispers, sounding exhausted. “Grandfather…I did it. It’s done.”

“Why—” I reach over to Yorl and grab his shoulder. “What is this? What did Ev do to me?”

Yorl doesn’t say anything, his body limp and soft. I shake him.

“Yorl! Yorl, tell me, godsdamn you!”

He looks up at me slowly, his green eyes fluttering open. I’ve never seen him so relaxed, so soft. He always had some metal stick up his bum, but now…

“The valkerax know where the Bone Tree is at all times,” Yorl says.

“I know that!” I snap. “Varia was supposed to—she was supposed to ask the sane valkerax—the Weeping valkerax, so how do I—”

“The valkerax, before they were chained by the Old Vetrisians, communicated not with words as we do,” Yorl says smoothly, “but with blood. The concoction I gave you, that was derived from valkerax blood. You drank it; it let you understand Evlorasin. And then it killed you.”

“I know that,” I start. “Malachite told me—”

The celeon cuts me off, not sharply like usual but patiently. “That’s what ingesting blood that has been taken unwillingly from a valkerax will do to a mortal.”

I swallow what feels like needles. “Unwillingly?”