Their faith in her is ironclad. Or maybe they just want it to be. Belief is sometimes the only thing you can hold on to. But I’ve felt it. By some arsed-up twist of dream-magic, some echo of Varia being my witch once, I’ve felt what she’s feeling. What she’s going through. And no mortal would be able to keep strong against something like that for long. Worry runs taut threads through the room, between Malachite and Fione, between Fione and Lucien most of all.

Windonhigh. If the sage is right, the High Witches have to know something. Some spell, some information to help us separate the valkerax from the Bone Tree. But no human’s ever found Windonhigh—not even Nightsinger ever mentioned it to me.

And then it hits me: the letter. The one Y’shennria sent me while I was still Varia’s Heartless. I scramble in my pockets, pulling it out from the little bag I keep the fragments of Father’s sword in—blade and hilt, disassembled. The bag made for me by Lucien.

“Here,” I chirp, flattening the letter on the table as everyone bends over it. “Y’shennria sent me this when I was in Vetris. She said to come to Ravenshaunt when I got my heart back.”

“And?” The old sage wrinkles his nose. “How does this help you young ones find Windonhigh?”

“Y’shennria is an Old God family,” Fione interjects. “She conspired with the witches to steal Prince Lucien’s heart, but when she failed, she fled.”

“She was confident she’d be safe,” I say. “On the night of the Hunt, when she sent me off to take Lucien’s heart, she assured me she’d be fine, that the witches would give her asylum.”

“And the only place left that’s safe for witches is…” Lucien murmurs, eyes sparking as he looks up at me.

“So.” I clap my hands together, standing and dusting my garish skirt off. “How long should I book our vacation to Windonhigh for?”

5

5

TO VETRIS

When Varia first dragged me up here in a fit of excitement, she failed to mention the only way down off the Tollmount-Kilstead mountains involves very large and very unstable-looking hot air balloons. Or rather, hot air balloons attached to ships by copper lashing cable.

Which isn’t a recipe for disaster at all.

“For the last time, Zera, it’s not air. It’s aergasel. It’s lighter than air, and it provides support to the thrusters by lessening the velocity of the load required for takeoff—”

“Fione, you’re beautiful,” I start, wrapping the fur covering around me tighter as the crate-lugging, passenger-swarmed bustle of the chilly Breych airdocks hums around us. “And extremely smart, and incredibly good at explaining things, but alas, I have no heart and very little brain.”