If Kinok found Yora’s heart, which was made of Tourmaline, which carried the secret to its power . . . if he destroyed the source of heartstone so the Automae had no choice but to beg him for Tourmaline . . .

“The moment the Scyre finds what he’s looking for, it’s over for your Kind and mine,” said Faye. “Absolute power. Absolute cruelty. If I’m your only hope, my lady, then you are mine.”

Anti-Reliance, Crier thought, numb.

So this was what it meant.

Faye brandished a letter. For a second Crier thought it was the letter for Ayla, but the paper was worn and yellowed with age, like it could crumble into dust at the slightest touch. “Lady, there’s more.”

“What is this?” Crier asked. Her own voice was dead and hollow to her ears. She unfolded the letter with shaking hands, trying to focus on anything other than the word reliance, reliance, reliance.

“From the Scyre’s study. But not—not from the Scyre. It’s very old. It’s . . . It looked important. So I took it. I thought you’d want to see. I thought you’d want to know.”

Crier stared at the letter, willing herself to focus. It was addressed to “T” from “H.” But she didn’t have time to comprehend what she was reading. There was a knock on the door to her bedchamber and Malwin’s voice came, tentative: “My lady?”

Hastily, Crier shoved the letter beneath one of the pillows on her bed. It would have to wait. For now, Crier had bigger things to worry about. She had to talk to her father.

T,

I beg you do not do this.

Do you remember the day we met? Beneath the god’s golden eye. You at the window, a dark shape against the coming dawn. Winter dawn. Sky the color of snow blossoms. I knew your face. Your name. You didn’t know mine.

I gave you everything. My life’s work, knowledge, mad dreams, bed. And you can’t even give me time?

You know I can perfect it. This blue heart.

Do you know I always thought of my own heart as blue? Not like the sky. Like the bottom of the ocean. Blue like that, but not empty. Not cold. Blue like the heart of a candle flame. When you touched me I burned red. Back then, I thought it was a good thing. Burning.

How to create a life?

Is that it? Fire? Blood? A giant’s womb?

We shared a dream once. A bed, once; no longer; not after this; I will keep my heart blue. This “shortcut,” you know it’s wrong; that’s why you kept it from me. Do you think I don’t know you? I loved you, didn’t I? I bled for you, didn’t I? And now this.

Name one goddamn thing more precious than a life.

—LETTER FROM “H——” TO MAKER THOMAS WREN, E. 900 Y. 10

3

The first morning in Queen Junn’s palace was, in a word, overwhelming. It didn’t help that she’d barely slept at all—the bed she’d been given was so soft it seemed to swallow her body, and she kept waking from nightmares about quicksand and drowning. Each time she woke up, she had to remember all over again where she was and why she was alone, neither surrounded by other sleeping servants nor curled up next to Benjy in the hold of a cargo ship. Her only solace was that Benjy was probably safer than she was, out in the streets of Thalen.