I was confined to a true cell this time, with cobwebs and rats and no asha-ka comforts. I gave up all introspection, content to count down the days until I was tried in court, until a verdict was passed and I was sentenced for my execution. There was nothing else to do but wait to die.

Not even Kalen could reach me. He visited every day, always under the watchful supervision of soldiers and brother Deathseekers. I would close my eyes and turn away, so he wouldn’t bear the shame of facing a murderess, a kinslayer.

“I still love you,” I heard him say once, and my instinct was to reject those words, to relegate them to some reality where I never had to hear him say them. He couldn’t. I had done far too much to justify understanding, much less forgiveness. I had lost his friendship once after meddling in his head. Surely murder was worse.

The words gave me more hope than I wanted to deserve. But I didn’t want him to love me, not like this. Not in a dank prison surrounded by strangers. It was better for Kalen to distance himself from me. I didn’t want him to take away my isolation. It was all I had left.

Others had tried. Likh pleaded and cried, asking for answers I couldn’t give. Zoya was belligerent and demanding, yelling through the bars at me for giving up so easily. Mykaela came by every day, to talk to me in soothing tones like I had stolen another asha’s hua and only needed to apologize to make things right. Althy said nothing when she visited but forced fresh clothing on me and better food than the standard fare provided by the prison wardens. Of all who came to visit, she understood best.

Even Rahim took part, staring at me with his puppy-dog eyes. “Whatever else you might say, little uchenik, I refuse to think you are what you claim.”

It was hard to agree when Fox believed otherwise. While I paid little attention to anything during those terrible days, I couldn’t shut out Fox’s voice. Fox, telling the association how he had witnessed me murder my own sister. Fox, telling Mykaela and Mistress Parmina of my frequent blackouts and visions. Fox, telling Empress Alyx of my black heartsglass that I had kept hidden for three months.

It was ironic that the brother I had raised from the dead was providing the evidence necessary for my forthcoming execution, knowing it would kill him as well.

Would Inessa protest? Perhaps as a concession I would live, stripped of all companionship and warded for the rest of my life. I had killed Daisy. I deserved everything they did to me. I only hoped they decided Fox did not deserve it too.

Daisy.