“What war?” Lilia said. The Dhai had no armies. She shook her head. “You’re trying to confuse me.”

“Maybe,” Gian said. Lilia wasn’t sure she liked the way Gian looked at her. “How far away is this place you think you lived?”

“It’s on the coast. The other side of the woodland. In the northeast. There’s a peninsula that juts into the sea.”

“Fasia’s Point. Yes, I know it.”

“It has a name?”

“Most things do.”

“We can lose the sanisi in the woodland,” Lilia said, trying quickly to come up with a rational reason to plunge ahead. “He’ll know every road. Take me to Fasia’s Point. By the time we come back, he’ll have lost us.”

“What happens after Fasia’s Point?”

“Then, I’ll… I’ll go wherever you want.” She held out her scarred wrists, an old habit. “I swear it.”

Gian stared at her outstretched arms. “Your mother was a blood witch, wasn’t she?”

Lilia dropped her arms. “Where did you hear that? No one says that.”

“In the valley, they don’t,” Gian said. “In the woodlands, they do. And… other places.” For the first time, Gian pulled her hand away from her bonsa sword. The branch loosened its hold on her wrist, retracted. “I’ll take you to Fasia’s Point so you can see what’s there. But you won’t find your mother.”

“I promised I’d go back.”

“So after I take you there, and we lose the sanisi, and you see what you can see, you go where I want. No fuss. No arguing. No running off into the night alone.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because I made a promise, too, to Kalinda. I promised no harm would come to you, and I’d deliver you to her people. I make good on my promises. In that, we’re alike.”

“I’ll go,” Lilia said. Roh’s life for hers, fulfilling her promise for Gian’s… she was trading a good many things these days, all of which involved her freedom. She was done bargaining, but Gian didn’t need to know that yet.