She tailed off, scrabbling for a prayer long unvoiced. There had been something about a land of Dark. A poet’s entreaty, learned by rote as a child and long forgotten. But perhaps it didn’t matter. If there was any truth to Lumestra’s love, it wasn’t words that sang to her, but one’s heart.

“I want to be free of all this,” Calenne breathed. “Show me a path. Send me a sign that this is not all my life will ever be.”

As if in answer, shafts of sunlight spilled across the valley. Calenne threw back her head and basked in the warmth, her sorrows forgotten in one glorious moment of hope.

“You’d better hope she doesn’t send a gust of wind.”

Anastacia’s caustic remark set Calenne off-balance. Out-flung arms sought equilibrium in dizzying sky. In that moment of mad panic, all she could think of were the many times she’d spoken of flinging herself from the observatory.

Balance returned with shortened breath and racing pulse. With exquisite care, she turned about on the beam, and fixed Anastacia with an unfriendly stare.

“How long have you been there?”

“Does it matter?”

The demon shrugged, her azure gown glittering like sapphire. The newfound sun had coaxed forth a smile so beatific and content that it struck Calenne breathless. It hardly seemed fair that the demon found so much pleasure in something so commonplace, while she had to fight for reprieve in a life that hated her.

“I don’t like being spied on.”

“A peculiar sentiment from someone pleading after a goddess’s aid.”

Calenne scowled to cover embarrassment. It shouldn’t have mattered that Anastacia had witnessed her lapse, but it did. No one liked to be caught out for a hypocrite, especially by someone they disliked. She edged back along the beam and reached the crumbled stones of the tower. That meant being a good deal closer to the demon than she liked, but it was a day for disappointments.

“Did Josiri send you to apologise for him?”

Anastacia gathered her skirts and sat among the stones. “We haven’t spoken since the letter arrived. But I heard the argument. Everyone in Eskavord heard the argument.”

Calenne winced. “He called me selfish . . .” And many other things besides. “Perhaps I am.”

And that was why she avoided Anastacia’s company. Her tongue was always so unguarded around the demon. She wanted to believe it an enchantment, a glamour. But it was nothing more remarkable than loneliness. In a house staffed by the transient and the elderly, she’d no one else in whom to confide. Let alone someone approaching her own age. Or who at least had the appearance of such.

Anastacia shrugged. “I understand your frustration.”

“I killed him. As surely as I stuck a knife in his heart.” Calenne blinked at her own sudden confession.

“Please. You’re being ridiculous.”