She seemed taken aback by the question, her slate eyes meeting mine again. “Yes,” she said. After another pause: “And no. I miss what we used to be. Did she ever tell you how I used to push her around? I never gave her an apology, and she never asked for one. We just kept on until the moment for it had passed. I wish all were as it used to be.”

Her fingers fluttered, and the ship picked up speed. “But those days are over. She harmed my friends, Bard. I lost so many good people these last few months.”

“So did she.”

Lady Zoya smiled with lips a shade of cruel. “It’s not considered ‘losing them’ if you’re responsible for their deaths, Bard. She torched my city. What kind of hatred runs that deep? That’s the quandary, isn’t it? Besides, if she goes down, we lose Fox. Why take you into her confidence? What does she have left to say?”

She stopped speaking as more heavy gusts of wind roared by.

“What does she have left to say?” she asked quietly. Her gaze turned to the letters I held, and I realized it was not a rhetorical question. “Tell me.”

4

None of Istera’s historians knew much of runic magic, despite the wealth of research on hand. Having red heartsglass prevented them from seeing its effects. Sakmeet’s silver made her the foremost expert, but her notes were all we had left to go by.

Lord Garindor was the next best thing, but even he admitted his limitations. “Those of us with purple heartsglass see magic on a very different spectrum than those with silver,” he explained. “We simply cannot observe some weaves that are obvious to all asha.”

We had returned to the library while the king and his councilors debated the fate of the historian’s assistant-turned-creature. That this daeva-like being had started as a human, not an unnatural aberration, had shaken the Isterans. If there was a rune capable of turning people into monsters, King Rendorvik argued, then perhaps there was a way to change them back.

But the librarians—bless their staunchly patient hearts, as they worked to supply us with information—spent their lives dedicated to these books and still had little idea of the runes we sought. It was not likely that we would succeed, our experiences as asha notwithstanding.

Still, Althy threw herself into the ongoing inquiry. Likh appeared distracted. He kept abandoning the volume he was perusing to prowl the room, lost in thought. Kalen and Khalad were helping guard the strange creature that had once been Yarrod. Lord Garindor, though rattled, had insisted on accompanying us, determined to help.

“I can do little for my assistant’s condition,” he pointed out, “but what expertise I can offer lies here, among these old books. Permit me to assist you in any way I can.”