“Wouldn’t you worry that, by joining those hags, you’d become a hag yourself?” Zoya asked.

“Zoya!” Shadi scolded.

“Well, shouldn’t the rules be changed, rather than the enforcer of those rules?”

“What do we do next?” I asked Mykaela, as Zoya and Mistress Parmina fell into a spirited argument.

“I don’t know yet. The Willows are waiting for something.” Mykaela frowned. “And that’s what’s been nagging at me—I don’t know what they’re waiting for. But whatever they have in mind, we’ll fight them. What do you wish to do now?”

“I think,” I said, “that I’d like to take Empress Alyx up on her offer and pay the oracle a visit tomorrow.”

“Good.” Mykkie sighed. “I miss Polaire. She always had a plan.”

“I wish she were here too,” I whispered. Polaire and Mykaela had performed the Heartshare as well, and Mykkie had been with her in her final moments. I couldn’t even begin to know what that loss must have felt like.

“I swear I can still feel her sometimes, at the oddest moments. Heartshare is both a blessing and a curse. I haven’t had my heart back long, but I struggle to know whether this is my heart, whole and true, or if there remains in it parts of her that she left behind.” Mykkie smiled sadly. “Somehow, that brings me much comfort.”

The conversation turned to other matters, and soon it was time for the others to leave, Fox opting to remain behind. “Is Kalen staying with you tonight?”

I nodded. “I told him it wasn’t necessary.”

“Of course it is. I doubt he’d choose a warm bed in the barracks while you’re here.” He paused. “But I can tell you’re worried, and it’s not about that.”

“There is something you need to know about me,” I whispered, dreading my confession.

Fox’s puzzled expression cleared, giving way to worry as I told him about the black specks on my heartsglass, the spells and zivars I’d used to hide my desperation.

“Darkrot?” he asked, giving voice to my own fears.

“I…I don’t know. I mean to tell Mykkie soon, once this is over.”

“Letting her know now would only give credence to the elder ashas’ accusations, will it?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“But you can’t keep this secret. Surely Mykkie would keep quiet, as would Althy.”

I thought about Illara, the girl before me consumed by darkrot, the Dark asha Mykkie had slain. “She would give me over to the association without a thought, Fox, if she didn’t kill me first. She loves me, I know that—but her views on darkrot are uncompromising.” Mykkie killed her charge long before the black showed in her heartsglass, Althy told me. It was the only way.