She rolled her head back, giving me an amused look. “Oh, so I’d be contributing goodwill and camaraderie? And here I thought I was on the wrong side.”

“Wyrga could end up in a lot of trouble?”

Her gaze sharpened. “Hmm. That’s more tempting. Relos Var hates Wyrga.” She pulled the Name of All Things out from her bodice. “There’s very few people he hates, you know. She’s on an exclusive, short list.” She concentrated on the stone, licked her finger, traced a word on the wooden tabletop.

No ink this time. No paper. Those things were performative. She was using the waxed surface of the table to read the result.

“Yes,” Senera said. “She did.” Then she concentrated again and wrote out another word.

Also yes.

“What did you just ask?”

“If Wyrga ordered Veixizhau to dedicate you to Suless.”

I frowned. “Xivan said in the old days women would sacrifice their daughters to gain favors from the witch-queen.”

“What she was doing isn’t technically sacrifice,” Senera amended. “Dedication, not sacrifice. The women never saw their daughters again, but Suless didn’t kill them.”

“That’s what Xivan suspected. That Suless trained them as her priestesses, as witch-mothers.” I leaned over the table. “Senera … is it possible that Wyrga is a priestess of Suless? A witch-mother?”

“The Quuros killed all—”

“Is it possible?”

Senera bit her lip. “Let’s ask.” She concentrated again, wrote out another one-word response. I didn’t have to be close to see that it was no.

Senera shook her head. “Well, it was an interesting hypothesis. But no, it’s more likely that Wyrga’s just a nasty old woman who knows enough old stories to lure a bunch of gullible young wives into trouble. She probably did it for a lark so she can crawl back into whatever hole she sleeps in at night and cackle about it to that stupid bear cub of hers.”

I startled. Of course. “The bear cub. Ask about the bear cub.”

Senera raised an eyebrow. “What about the bear cub?”

“It’s just—” I waved a hand. “Someone told me the bear cub doesn’t age.”

“What?” Senera laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sure she keeps a cub until she’s killed it and then switches it out for another cub.”

“Check for me?”

She scoffed. “Okay, now we’re getting into silly territory. I don’t answer silly questions.”

“Just ask the age of Wyrga’s bear cub. That’s a simple question, right? Harmless? It’s not a yes or no, but the answer is precise.” I was grasping at straws, but damn it, I knew something about Wyrga was wrong, from her knowledge of prophecies to her insistence that she’d known my mother, Irisia.

And the fact that my mother is named Irisia. Wyrga had known that information before I had. How many people knew the Goddess of Magic’s birth name wasn’t Tya?