The first few pages covered things she knew. Boosts, simple tithes. From there it delved into the Vulgar Arts. Some she’d experienced herself—curses to project images into a relative’s mind, curses to spy on a relative’s thoughts temporarily. Zofi couldn’t help thinking the latter might explain how the heir uncovered her, Ren’s, and Akeylah’s most closely guarded secrets. It made her wonder, too, how often the heir had done that. Had they watched Zofi rock back and forth in her mother’s tent, shaking with memories of Prince Nicolen’s blood on her hands?

Sands, had they been watching the night she did it? Did the heir know what Zofi was right from the moment she drove the blade through Nicolen’s heart?

She turned the page. Read on.

She found curses to sicken a relative, curses to age or kill a relative, in all manner of ways. It turned her stomach to imagine working any of these.

But there were other things, too. Curses to heal a relative’s illness. Curses to lend your tithing ability to a relative, something Zofi had never even dreamed of. She wasn’t sure what to call these things, these in-between Arts. Vulgar Arts were curses, Blood Arts were tithes, everyone knew that.

Yet, could you really call it a curse if you used the Vulgar Arts to help a family member?

Her head swam.

Then again… she remembered the story she’d told Vidal about Traveler Queen Claera. About how the Arts were different back then. When the Arts first came to the Reaches, there was no distinction between the Vulgar and the Blood Arts. Is this why? she wondered. Was it because some tithes blurred the lines?

But then she came to a page that made her stop and draw the book closer.

Written across the top, in her mother’s cramped handwriting, were the words Tithe for a Mental Bond.

Just like the one Yasmin and Andros had performed, so many years ago.

The most vulgar of Vulgar Arts, Mother wrote. Anyone who performs it must either be blind to the true consequences or utterly careless of who they wound in pursuit of their goals. For the sake of keeping a complete record, I include it here, but with this warning.

As Zofi continued to read, her lips parted in shock. The book trembled in her hands, until she was forced to set it on the ground, rereading the final paragraph over and over to be sure she’d understood correctly.

The first half explained what she already knew. The tithe bound two people’s minds forever. Whatever Andros had thought, Yasmin had heard, and vice versa. It allowed them to communicate instantly, across any distance. It also meant that when Yasmin was pushed from the sky gardens, Andros had felt her death as though it were his own.