Malachite groans. “Being eaten slowly is my least least favorite thing, I just decided.”

“They feed the Glass Tree seven powerful witches to keep it working,” Lucien muses. “To keep the Heartless production line working. Without that Tree—”

“There are no Heartless,” I finish for him. Our glances at each other are nothing if not grim.

“Is this Glass Tree thing here?” Malachite stresses. “Like, in Windonhigh? Or is it like the Bone Tree, and it moves around a lot?”

“Without access to the witch library, I have no clue,” Fione says. She slowly looks to Lucien. “Is that—”

We all look to the prince, but he ignores us still, wrapping the flatbreads and putting them into his pouch with great care and a few clipped words.

“Refill your damned waterskins, for gods’ sakes. It’s going to be a walk.”

We do as we’re told, and we walk as we’re told, down the spiral ramps of the living towers, then to the dewy grass and prettily kept road. Windonhigh at night is nothing compared to Vetris at night, with its many thousands of gemlike lights all stacked on one another. But it has its charms. The glass beasts in Crow quarter gleam even brighter against the darkness, traipsing through the grass like illuminated dreams. The glass birds flicker through the trees, flirting with shadow—there one moment and gone the next and back again—all pink and yellow and orange light bouncing off one another. Like captured stars, like captured magic. The wind rustles leaf against leaf, the whisper following us as we skirt the art installments, the massive sapphire mushroom radiating light doing us no concealing favors.

“Never there when I want to find you,” Malachite mumbles at it. “And here when I absolutely don’t want you.”

“Are you looking to get married soon, then?” I breezily ask as we follow Lucien’s strides into a small copse of ash trees, his hand lit with witchfire.

Malachite rolls his eyes. “To my work.”

“Or a nice beneather lady.”

“Or man,” he counters.

“Or man,” I agree. “Anyone particular you have in mind?”

“Someone who doesn’t ask annoying questions all the time.”

“Ah.” I nod knowingly, ducking around a tree branch. “The strong silent type. I understand.”

He leaps over a root nimbly. “You wouldn’t know silence if it dueled you in the streets.”

I look at him with mock offense. “Who gave you permission to be so right and so rude at the same time?”

“Who do you think?” He jerks his white-haired head at Lucien’s back, and I snicker. It’s short-lived, though. Malachite pulls ahead and astride with the prince, and Fione and I shore up the rear. She’s bundled in so many furs I can barely see her little pink nose sticking out, her blue eyes darting this way and that for threats.