Thankfully, the tedium of dinner and cleaning dishes and waxing the seals in the hull takes over. But it’s still not enough exertion to exhaust my brain—not in the slightest. When curfew falls I stay awake, staring up at the ceiling-floor of the ship, all our hammocks swayed gently by the ocean’s lull. Most of the sailors snore, a few of them draped over their hammocks in impossible positions. I jolt out of my skin when one of them sits bolt upright and starts punching the air, except the air happens to be the sagging weight of the sailor’s arse above him. The above neighbor is too drunk to wake. I suppress a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, grateful for the reprieve.

Lucien’s hammock is next to mine, Fione’s above me, and Malachite’s above his. I can see his dark silhouette breathing gently into the stale, sweaty air. I know he’s not asleep. How can he be? This changes everything. Even if Fione warned us not to jump to conclusions, the questions still ring clear as bells in our heads.

If stopping Varia means destroying all magic, is that a worthy cost?

She’ll be consumed by the Bone Tree in a few months. She acknowledged that herself. She’ll die. We could let her rampage until she perished, but she wouldn’t be the only one. People would die by her hand, her power. Untold numbers of people.

But how many people would die without magic?

The witches of Cavanos would be defenseless, truly and totally. Witches all over the world would have to learn how to piece reality together again after a total destruction of their way of life. And that’s not even taking into consideration “far down the road.” Anything could happen down the road. Future generations would have to grapple with the decisions we made here and now. And their battles might be far worse than ours. A chain never-ending.

It’s too big to dwell on. It feels like if I give it more thought than the bare minimum, it’ll bend my mind into itself until there’s nothing left but fear.

great fear, and great hate, the hunger whispers.

I’m scared of falling asleep. Of seeing Varia in my dream again, connecting to her. I’m scared of the dream I had in Vetris—those two naked tree rosaries I felt I had to bring together. I know now what the thing that felt lonely is called. That feeling of wrongness that’s plagued me ever since then. The Tree of Souls.