I wipe my split lip, swallow more blood, and rise.

“You realize the valkerax have fire, right?” I limp back over to the monoliths, Lucien’s magic healing me rapidly. “No matter how many eclipseguard Heartless you have, the valkerax will burn through them like kindling, and you’ll be left defenseless for the hours it takes for them to heal.”

“There will be no more discussion, Starving Wolf,” one of the monoliths echoes. “You have conspired with the valkerax. You have done nothing but risk everything. And for that you are held in contempt.”

I can’t stop my scoff. “Bit used to that.”

There’s a swell of black midnight on one of the monolith’s facets, and I brace myself for retaliation. For pain. But it never comes. Instead, something small and brass appears in midair before Lucien—a medallion, embossed with a wolf and covered in tiny jet gems.

“You will take this sigil. It will allow you free passage within the city. On the morn of Watersday, you will be gone.”

Lucien’s disdain is clear on his face as he takes the thing, gripping it tight in long fingers and a longer frown.

“As you will, High Ones.”

His bow, and our bows, feel forced. Fione picks up her cane with trembling hands. The magic holding Malachite’s sword finally gives, and he manages to pull it out of the stone and sheathe it again.

As we walk away, I’m the only one who looks back. I’m the only one who sees the slivered hole the blade left in the slate closing up—filling with raw, cloudy, rapidly solidifying glass, like a wound does with blood.

Strangely, the labyrinth we traversed to get to the High Witch’s door is gone. When we walk out of the monolith room, there’s only one hall, and it stretches long into darkness, the exit a glaring white light. We walk in silence, all of us mulling over what just happened. Some of us more politely than others.

“Sarvetts,” Malachite snarls finally. “All of ’em.”

“Conniving cave scorpion,” I chime. “Right?”

He looks at me with the barest rub of irritation. “Is that all that sticks in your head? My beneather swears?”

“And, occasionally, hopes and dreams.”

Nightsinger’s waiting for us when we walk into the sunlight, her smile rose-tinted and sweet as ever.

“I can tell from your faces it didn’t go very well,” she says. Her eyes fall on my chin, to the bloodstain I know has to be there.

“Not well at all,” I agree. Her smile curls apologetically at the corners.

“Come. Let’s get you to the guest quarters, where you can clean up and rest.”