“The Pillars are better defended than most Sisters are aware. Your presence triggered certain alarms.”

I should have anticipated that. “And yet you came alone.”

“Not all of my subordinates can be trusted. Until I knew who you were, it seemed better to be discreet.”

I did not release my binding. Cyde simply stood and watched me; her eyes glinted in the moonlight. She had been a friend to my mother, but still. I could not let my guard down.

“Do you know why I’m here?” I asked.

“I can guess.”

“But you aren’t … scared?”

She weighed the question. “Would it matter if I was?”

“I don’t know. I’m about to do something terrible. If you were scared, I think I might lose my nerve.”

“Would you? Haven’t you already come too far for that?”

My stomach twisted. I looked down; I did not want Cyde to read my face.

“Explain why you want to do this, then,” she said.

“So you can talk me out of it?”

“So I can understand.”

It was difficult to put my feelings into words, to express the bone-deep urgency that had taken root inside of me. I kept my eyes on the ground. The grass shone like razors.

“If Aytrium is to remain airborne, then the Sisterhood is indispensable,” I said.

“Yes,” Cyde agreed.

“And if that’s the case, then…” I wavered. Glanced up at her. “Nothing can ever really change, can it?”

Water dripped from the branches, trickling over the dark ground, down into the soil.

“It costs us too much,” I said. “What we do to men, what we do to each other, it’s … it’s too much.”

Cyde’s face was unreadable.

“And if the price of change proves to be our lives?” she asked.

I could not answer her. The names on the pillar grew brighter, casting their light over my skin.

“If you make this choice, you make it for us all,” she said.

“I know.”

“And here you are.”

I hesitated, torn between fear and lingering loyalty and the conviction that this was right. Right, just, and necessary.

“I know what I’m risking,” I said, placing both palms flat on the surface of the rock. “But I don’t think I can turn back now.”

I wrenched.

The power of thousands of long-dead Sisters rose up in defiance, layer upon layer of webs and nets and ropes pulling tight in resistance. A dull, ominous rumbling emanated from the Pillar. I stood firm and pulled, let the old magic stretch to breaking. Lace drained from my blood, the world turned red before my eyes, and the rumble transformed to a roar.

Something snapped.

I lost my balance as the ground rippled. Branches broke off the trees, and flocks of panicked birds took flight. With a crack, the Pillar split and fell apart, tearing the Anchor Tree’s roots from the ground.

Then everything fell quiet again. I held my breath. For a moment, nothing happened.