There are more of the spiky witch-lawguards here than anywhere else—whole platoons doing drills on the grass, throwing fireballs at distant stone targets.

“Eclipseguards,” Nightsinger offers. “They are lawguards and soldiers all in one, and watch over Windonhigh with their life.”

“Are they—” I pause.

“Some of them are witches,” she says quickly, anticipating me. “But the majority are Heartless.”

I watch them drill with intent eyes. All adults—or so it seems. But age is deceptive for a Heartless. Most of the eclipseguards look to be in their prime—middle twentyish—but Kavar knows how old they really are. Maybe the witches un-Heartless them, just so they can age to their primes. Who knows? It comforts me only a little to know very few of them have probably lived longer than the natural human lifespan—the Sunless War wiped out most of the Heartless and witches thirty years ago. These Heartless are fifty years old, at most. Maybe sixty. And here I was, thinking my nineteen years were ancient.

with any other witch, you’d be one of them.

At my side, Lucien starts glancing his thumb idly over mine. Reassuringly. Slowly. A satin metronome that ticks out I’m here.

“If you would, Black Rose.” Nightsinger motions up the massive staircase that leads into the stalwart building. “The High Witches await.”

Certainly, they wait. They wait for us to ask them for help, for a spell that could somehow weaken the Bone Tree’s hold on the valkerax. They know best about thralldom, and about how it might be broken.

We have no leads but them.

Malachite sets his jaw, and Fione grips her cane harder. Lucien flashes me a smile—taut and nervous deep in its roots—and lets go of my hand, starting up the stairs lined with eclipseguards.

We follow our prince.

9

9

MADE WHOLE

The inside of the High Witch’s building is unnaturally cool and dim compared to the bucolic magical springtime outside. Unlike the oil braziers and white mercury lights of Vetris, the witches use living flame—a massive hiss reverberates in the echoing hall, and Malachite unsheathes his sword and I drop my center, ready to fight. Fione’s more willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, watching the streak of black witchfire arc over our heads as it moves between the mouths of two stone wolves.

“Ingenious,” she murmurs, periwinkle eyes drinking in the long rows of stone wolves on either side of us and the streaks of witchfire that rhythmically jump between them, illuminating the hall in bursts. “They’ve staggered the release of the fire to ensure there’s at least one light source at all times.” She turns and looks at us. “You two are a bit jumpy, aren’t you?”

I smother a laugh, and Malachite rolls his eyes.

“Excuse me for being ‘a bit jumpy’ around witches who may or may not wanna gut us,” he says.