Lariat claps a hand on Evie’s shoulder and shakes her hard enough to send lances of pain through every aching muscle in her body. However, the rest of the Savages have taken their lead from the elder statesman of their ranks and they join in on the sudden merriment, all of them ready to follow along wherever Evie’s plan of action leads.

In the wake of the laughter, Sirach delicately stands and brushes the ground from the crimson-dyed leather of her trousers and tunic.

“So pleased we’ve worked this all out,” she announces.

Lariat quiets, and the other Savages fall silent with him.

“Look ’ere, girlie,” he says, fisting a katar and pointing the tip of its triangle blade at Sirach. “This doesn’t mean I like you.”

“And I find you to be just a hair above a pig rolling in muck,” Sirach says. “It’s the perfect place for us to start.”

With that, Lariat begins laughing anew, deeply and genuinely.

“Pig rolling in muck!” he echoes her, giving rise to a new wave of guffaws from the Savages.

Evie watches them figuring one another out, hoping it’s enough. She looks from the strange scene to where Brio is leaning over his necrotic leg, summoning all his strength just to stay conscious.

“The easy part’s over, then,” she whispers quietly to herself.

PART THREE REVELATIONS OF THE THROAT

FORMLESS, SHAPELESS, IT CAN FLOW OR IT CAN CRASH

“WATER.”

Dyeawan lets that single word hang heavy in the air above them all, as if it might become a banner flown between two charging warhorses.

The planners are convened in another room she’s never seen before. Dyeawan is beginning to understand that in many ways, the façade of the Planning Cadre is only that, and there’s far more beneath the surface she’s yet to see or know. The chamber is a microcosm of the keep itself. There are twelve planners including Edger, six men and six women, all of them clad in the same simple gray tunic as him and wearing the same pendant of concentric circles. They’re seated within a table that’s actually a thin stone slab winding inward several times to a central point. The planners sit along its path like children hiding poorly inside a hedge maze.

Edger sits at the winding stone snake’s center point, an array of masks arranged facedown on the surface in front of him.

They are the only ones in the chamber save for Oisin, forever draped in his black cape. The Protectorate Ministry agent is lurking against the wall in the back of the room, surveying them with his usual obvious contempt.

Dyeawan’s spoken only one word, but she can clearly see it has affected all of them deeply. No one responds at first, but the subtle expressions and glances that pass between several of the planners speak volumes.