So far, all I’d been able to gather was that islands had sunk before, a long time ago. Knowing that more than one had sunk back then, and so far we’d only seen Deerhead Island fall, made sweat gather on my palms. I still didn’t know what had caused Deerhead to sink, or when or how I might expect another island to drown. And the Alanga – another thing my father would have told his heir. Who were they, and if they returned, what could I do to fight them off?

My gaze strayed to the memory machine.

There had still been liquid in the tubes when I’d disconnected it from Thrana. Some held her blood and some held a milky fluid. I’d gathered her remaining blood into a flask I’d taken from the kitchens, and the fluid into another. In his notes, my father had mentioned feeding the memories to his constructs and to me. He’d seemed dissatisfied with his first attempts, reluctant to disassemble the constructs that might be carrying his dead wife’s memories but unhappy with how little they seemed to understand of Nisong.

I wasn’t sure what he’d done with those constructs, but the more pressing matter was where the memories were stored.

I’d corked both flasks, placing them on the table with the books. I’d gotten as far as uncorking the one with the milky fluid and sniffing the contents. But always I stoppered it again, searching Shiyen’s notes for more concrete evidence that the memories were in that fluid. Was I getting that desperate, to consider drinking it without knowing for sure? For all I knew, it could be some sort of lubrication for the machine, poisonous and not meant to be consumed.

But some of that had come from Thrana. I wasn’t sure of the connection – where he’d found her, what sort of creature she was. She was like Mephi, and Jovis had found him swimming in the ocean after Deerhead’s fall.

There was nothing toxic about Thrana.

Ah, I was making excuses because part of me just wanted to drink it. I wanted to know. I couldn’t be sure whose memories might be in that fluid, but I had an idea. Shiyen had been old and ill. He would have been trying to gather his memories, to place them within his replica before he died.

I was looking for answers, and some of those answers might be in the flask. The Phoenix Empire stood on a knife’s edge. What was I willing to do to save my people? Numeen had told me they needed an Emperor who cared. And I cared. I cared so much.

I seized the flask, uncorked it and lifted it to my lips before I could change my mind again.