Fie shook her head. “No. Wretch said Ma met my blood-pa when both their bands stayed in the same shrine. She fancied him, and then I happened nine moons later. Pa’s my real one. He took me for his own daughter when Ma died.”

“Do you still miss her?”

The slate slipped a little. Fie licked her lips and smudged her name off the surface. “I was four,” she said, frowning as she began writing anew. “I don’t remember much before … Oleanders got her.” She closed her eyes a moment, plucking the dim memories like crowsilk from branches almost too high to reach. “Ma kept her hair long for a Crow. She liked to pick dandelions and blow all the fluff off, and we’d see who could do it faster. Pa said she was so dead-set to give me my name herself that she sent off anyone who couldn’t keep their mouth shut while she birthed me.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Crows name their babes for the first cross word sent their way. It’s luck. That word can’t hurt you any if it’s already your name. She said I howled like a devil when I came out, like I was born vexed with the world. Ma couldn’t abide the noise. That’s how I came to be Fie.” She swallowed. “So aye. I suppose I still miss my ma, too.”

Jasimir stared through the decrepit roof, up to the stars. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Father didn’t stop the Oleanders sooner. I’m sorry I haven’t done anything about them, either.”

Fie turned the scrap of slate over. “They’re the same, in the end. Different heads on the same monster. The Oleanders. Rhusana.”

“My father.”

Fie threw a sharp glance at the prince. His eyes were fixed on the stars, his face hard as iron.

“You wanted to save him,” she said.

“I still do.” His mouth quirked, too alike Tavin. “If he’s someone I can save.”

Fie knew he didn’t mean to save the king from just Rhusana.

“People get drunk on crowns,” she warned. “Think they can do as they please because they know we’ll catch twelve hells if we hit back. But by every dead god, one day I will. And so will you.”

“Let’s make them pay,” Jasimir whispered.

“Let’s burn them down,” she answered.

A look shuttled between them like the weft of a loom. The threads of their terribly different worlds gathered, crossed, and pulled taut.

They didn’t speak the words aloud; they cut no oaths into their palms. But a promise took root in them all the same.

She didn’t want to burn Sabor down. Neither did the prince.

But, by every dead god, one day Sabor would know that they could.