“Daughter,” said Hesod, and Crier realized she’d been staring, frozen just inside the door. “Come. Sit.”

She started forward automatically—then stopped. “No,” she said. “I will stand.”

“Such a contrarian you’ve become.” He sounded amused. “You used to be so obedient. Well, do as you wish. What is it you have come for? Am I correct in assuming you’ve joined forces with the girl queen?”

“No, I haven’t,” Crier said. “At least not entirely.”

“Not entirely? This isn’t a philosophical debate, child. You cannot argue one side and then the other for your own entertainment.” The lantern was reflected in his eyes, twin flares of white-gold. When he tilted his head and the light caught his eyes at an angle, his irises flared gold to match. “At least come into the light, will you? I haven’t seen your face for weeks.”

Crier hesitated, but . . . it was only a couple steps. She took them, moving into the circle of lanternlight. “I am not on Queen Junn’s side,” she told him. “And I am not on your side. I am on my own side. I want to end this war before it begins. I want Kinok put on trial for his crimes. I want . . .” She steeled herself. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

“That’s very broad,” he chided her. “Tell you the truth about what? My favorite human food? Sun apple tart.”

“Tell me the truth about heartstone,” she said, meeting his eyes. Her hands were shaking. They still shook every time she thought about what she’d seen in the bowels of the Iron Heart. “Tell me—tell me it really is just a red gemstone. Tell me the Watchers extract heartstone ore from deep within the earth. Tell me the Iron Heart is really a mine.”

“That would not be the truth,” said Hesod.

“Gods,” Crier choked out, one hand flying to cover her mouth. Horror flooded through her, cold and immediate, like she’d just leaped into the icy waters of the Steorran Sea. “Gods, you can’t be— Father. Please. Please. Tell me heartstone isn’t made from human blood.”

“Not the truth,” he said.

Her back hit the stone wall. She’d stumbled away from him. “How—how many deaths is that?” Fifty years since the War of Kinds, fifty years since the creation of the Iron Heart. Fifty years of death. “How many have died so we could live?” Not just died. She could imagine few fates worse than what she had seen in that room. Shackled to a cot, weak and delirious from a combination of blood loss and some sort of sleeping draft, knowing nothing but the darkness and the other bodies around you and the steady drip of blood into black vessels. “How many?”

“One drop of human blood can produce ten barrels of heartstone dust,” Hesod said, dismissive. “The process is very refined. In the beginning, our Kind consumed fresh blood, and the longer we lived, the more blood we required. It was impractical. Unsustainable. The Makers found a way to transmute blood into stone, to imbibe plain ore with blood magick. They saved innumerable human lives. You’re being melodramatic, Crier.”