“Yeah.” He frowns. “But in a legitimate fight. Beneathers train to be warriors, not butchers. We’re not meant to kill ’em brainlessly like that.”

“The polymaths didn’t seem to mind how they died,” Lucien mutters. “As long as the books were kept safe.”

“They want the parts,” Fione agrees, smoothing down a strand of my stray hair.

“Your Yorl friend wouldn’t shut up about all the parts,” Malachite insists. “Kept blathering on about how they’d be great for ‘making a cure’ for you, or some crap like that.”

I watch the polymaths, picking out a single one in the crowd with ochre ears and a swishing tail. Yorl’s so kind. Kind in that thorny way of his, but kind nonetheless. He wants to make a cure for my valkerax blood promise. A cure that will come too late, when I do what I have to. He’ll be fine, too, won’t he? The Archives are smoldering, the fortress of black volcanic rock crumbling and smoking in some places, but still mostly intact. He’ll have his books, and he knows my friends, now.

All my friends, united. They’ll be able to help one another when I’m gone.

“Fantastic.” I flash a winning smile at Lucien. “At this point, I’ll take anything that’ll make me more human and less warbeast.”

Everyone falls silent, the sound of the waves filling in. Fione’s periwinkle gaze is somber, lit by the moons and sadness as she looks at the valkerax body parts strewn and bleeding.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she whispers.

“Wishing and doing are two different things.” Malachite’s words are hard, but the way he puts his pale hand on her shoulder is gentle.

“What do we do, then?” Lucien asks. “You haven’t told us what the book’s translation said.”

Fione looks to me. “I wanted to wait until you were awake. It’s important.”

“I am now.” I smile at her, but it feels strained. She stands, her skirts skimming the sand and her shadow thrown long by the bonfire. She folds her hands, working her fingers in and out of one another nervously, and then all at once she drops them, going still.

“We can’t destroy the Trees,” she says.

“Can’t. Like…definitely can’t?” Malachite repeats.

“It’s impossible to destroy the Trees,” she insists. “There’s nothing that can destroy them. No fire, no weapon, no magic.”

“Then how do we stop Varia?” Lucien asks.

Fione inhales and steadies herself. “The Tree of Souls is the origin of all magic on Arathess. And the First Root is one of its roots—the only one that we’ve ever seen. It may have other roots; research suggests it must have other roots. But even the Old Vetrisians couldn’t find them.”

“So there’s only the First Root,” Lucien murmurs.