They were afraid of Crier.

They were terrified.

Crier lunged. The Watcher scrambled backward and escaped through the broken window, and then it was just Crier, Ayla, and Jezen again, the room silent save for Ayla’s harsh, racking breaths.

“Ayla,” said Crier, and flew across the room, falling to her knees beside Ayla. Her hands fluttered uselessly over Ayla’s body, her leg. Ayla couldn’t see her own shin—she couldn’t move, could barely keep her eyes open—but whatever Crier saw made her features twist with horror. “Midwife Jezen,” she said, sharp and controlled. Oh, that was bad. The only other time Ayla had heard Crier’s voice like this was when Kinok had a sword at Ayla’s throat. “Midwife Jezen, she needs a physician. Now.”

Outside the window, outside the music room, the sound of war horns. Like braying animals. Time slipped and Crier was saying, “Ayla, wake up, Ayla, open your eyes, come on,” and there was a second figure hovering over Ayla, all white, ghost white, like Luna’s dress in the marketplace a thousand years ago, before everything. Jezen was speaking. Her voice was higher in pitch than Crier’s, high like bells. Ayla could only make out every third word. Shards of bone. Bloodstream. Kill her.

It will kill her.

“Fetch a physician,” Crier was saying. “Please, go fetch a physician, there’s no time, I’ll stay here with her—”

No.

No, that wasn’t the plan.

“Crier,” Ayla gasped, black spots popping up behind her eyes. “Crier, you—go, you have to go. I’ll be okay, I promise. Just go.”

“No,” Crier said. She sounded close to tears. “No, I’m not leaving you. We just need a physician. This is so bad, Ayla, this is so—”

“I can save her,” Midwife Jezen cut in. Crier’s head snapped up, those starry, glowing eyes darting in the direction of Jezen’s voice, but Ayla wasn’t about to take her own eyes off Crier. Her head was so heavy, vision turning dark and blurry at the edges, and she’d be damned if she looked at anything else.

“If I move quickly, I can save her life,” said Jezen. “But if Kinok’s assassins already found you here, we’re all in danger. You are the target. He wants you. The best thing you can do for Ayla right now is to get far away from her. Go, Lady Crier. Whatever it is you’re going to do, do it now. Go and stop him.”

“But—”

“Go!”

Pressure on Ayla’s forehead, hot against her icy skin. Then the shape of Crier, little more than a shadow now, was gone. With nothing left to look at, Ayla closed her eyes and let herself sink into the numbness, the dark water, feeling only relief when it closed over her head.

20

The heart inside her chest was not her own.

Crier could feel it beating. She could feel it throughout her entire body, stronger than a normal heartbeat; with each pulse, the Makers’ symbols on her skin glowed brighter, winking like stars. She held up one arm in front of her face, examining the previously invisible markings. The symbols etched into her skin. All her life, she had been carrying these threads of magick. Only now were they revealed to her, as Yora’s heart filled her with a new kind of power. Words floated through her mind, the opening lines of the first book she had ever read. The Maker’s Handbook.