Honest. Perhaps the word might have fitted me before, but not now. Now I am anything but honest. I am as much made of secrets as I am scars. I very nearly tell Ashava so when she speaks again.

‘You need to have faith in yourself. Adelynn did. I do.’

‘Not Qi-Oh,’ I say, before I can think better of it. ‘I think she finds me a disappointment.’

Ashava shrugs. ‘Save for the God-Emperor Himself, Qi-Oh finds everything a disappointment,’ she says. ‘She is prideful, and closed-minded.’

‘If her mind is so closed, how do I change it?’

‘Challenge her. Fight her. Or be so kind to her that she has no choice but to listen,’ Ashava says. ‘Just do not accommodate her, Eva. Do not allow dis­respect. Adelynn never would have.’

I shake my head. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘She wouldn’t.’

Ashava glances down at my hands, where I am still turning the wax figure.

‘Where did the little eagle come from?’ she asks.

‘Eugenia,’ I say.

‘Ah. Of course.’

‘I thought it would be the others who I struggled with,’ I say. ‘Qi-Oh, certainly. Perhaps Haskia who has lost so much, or Veridia who has forgotten herself. But it is Eugenia that I cannot take. She is so young. So earnest. Hungry to prove herself.’

‘Hmm,’ Ashava says. ‘That sounds like somebody else I know.’

I shoot a look at her. ‘That is poor humour.’

‘It was not intended to be a joke,’ Ashava says. ‘Merely an observation that perhaps you struggle with Eugenia because she is so much like you. Because you are to her what Adelynn was to you.’

I shake my head. ‘Adelynn was a hero.’

‘And you are not?’ Ashava asks. ‘You survived Ophelia VII.’

‘So did you,’ I reply. ‘So did plenty of others.’

‘Not like you did,’ Ashava says simply. ‘You are a symbol, Eva.’

I feel my face flush, and it makes the edges of the mark on my face prickle as though they are alight. ‘How is it that we are talking about me again?’

‘Because that is what I need from you, Eva,’ Ashava says, looking down at herself. ‘I cannot be swift for you now. I cannot use the sword how I once could.’

‘Ashava–’ I begin.

She shakes her head. ‘I look not for pity. It is merely fact. I will find another way to fight, but I do not need my swiftness or my blade to listen to you. It is something I can do just as well as I could before.’

‘All right,’ I say. ‘If that is what you need.’

‘I think it is what we both need,’ she says. ‘Burdens shared are more easily borne. That is why we are a Sisterhood. We are stronger together.’

‘You are right,’ I say, thinking of what I told Eugenia earlier, about my Sisters being my family.

‘So tell me what is troubling you,’ Ashava replies.

I exhale a slow breath. It clouds the air, just as it did in my dream.