We weave past deserted tables and take our seats. I’m hit by a flash of vertigo as I peer over the filigreed cliffside railing, the drop shockingly precipitous, stray clouds floating over the city’s descending tiers.

“The restaurant across the street has one of those signs,” I grimly note, concerned to have someone hostile to foreigners in close proximity. “And the owner keeps glaring at Mora’lee.”

“Noticed old Zosh Lyyo, did you?” Bleddyn says. “So welcoming, that one.”

I scrutinize Zosh Lyyo, my eyes catching on the tall teenage boy standing beside him, washrag in hand. The teen has short black hair, chiseled features, and wears a purple tunic and pants. And he’s staring toward Mora’s rune ship, as if searching for something.

Zosh Lyyo smacks the back of the teen’s head, and the boy flinches. He nods at the man, seeming chastened, then walks, shoulders hunched, toward their kitchen.

I turn to find Bleddyn studying me, rocked back in her chair to the point that it’s pressed against the curved terrace railing, at ease lounging against what seems like a thousand-league drop. “So, let me get this straight,” she says, a rakish light in her large green eyes. “You’re illegally here in Noi lands needing me, of all people, to get you work in a kitchen.”

I frown at her. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“But right now, I think that’s about it.” She gives me a sardonic look, and I’m struck by how our situations have undergone a complete sea change, one realm to another.

“Relax, Ny’laea,” she whispers, leaning in. “I won’t treat you the way you treated me back in Verpacia.”

Her words sting. “I’m sorry for that,” I say with no small amount of remorse as I remember how I acted toward her in Verpax University’s kitchen. How Lukas threatened her and everyone else in the room and I stood by and said nothing.

Her look of humor hardens. “Your head was in a vile place when I first met you.”

“That’s...accurate.”

Her green brow lifts, her expression turning contemplative. “It is ironic, though. This twist of fate. You, the refugee needing my help.”

I bristle, remembering how hostile she and Iris were. “Shall I push you into some manure?”

Bleddyn laughs. “I was a bit harsh with you back in Verpacia.”

“A bit.”

She lets out a long sigh. “Well, perhaps we should leave off the contest of who was the bigger ass...which would be you...and move on.” She looks me over, her whisper almost inaudible as she leans closer, serious now. “Are you really as powerful as the Vu Trin fear?”

I set my Black Witch figurine emphatically down on the table next to hers. “Worse.”

Bleddyn lets out a long, low whistle.

“Relax,” I whisper bitterly. “The Forest has completely bound up my magic.”