But even as I disentangled the last threads between our consciences, I waited for a sign, some acknowledgment that he was aware of what I was doing. But there was no angry tirade, no desperate plea for me to stop—nothing.

And so, not wanting to erupt into another fresh wave of tears after having already spent myself earlier that day, I fortified the wall between us and opened my eyes.

“Lead the way, Your Excellency.”

Everyone whose feet so much as touched Valerian territory was thoroughly questioned about the missing pages from Lady Tea’s writing. Councilor Ludvig had seen no one suspicious, nor had Lord Fox, Princess Inessa, and Lady Altaecia. Zoya disavowed any knowledge of the missing pages, though she and Lady Shadi were the last people in their vicinity before the theft was discovered. None of the elder asha were sighted near the asha-ka. The lone remaining maid, the young girl the Dark asha fondly called Farhi, took offense when I asked her.

“Are you suggesting that I am disloyal to my mistresses?” she demanded.

“No. I didn’t mean—”

“I am not! Once, in the past, I had been accused, and my innocence was proven. The Lady Tea—I do not always agree with her ideas, but she has always been good to me. She gave me sweets and food when it could have caused her trouble, and she took on chores without telling Mistress Parmina when I was sick. Even now I keep her room neat and tidy, so that when she returns, she cannot say I have been negligent in my duties.” She glared fiercely at me; even this far from her motherland, she polished her Drychta pride until it shone. “I stole nothing, and you will tell the Lady Tea when you see her that I repay my debts always, that my loyalty cannot be bought for a thousand shekels or even more.”

I started to doubt myself. Perhaps the bone witch had never intended to give me her full story. Perhaps the Dark asha herself had suppressed those final lines, denying everyone an ending until she could tell it on her own terms. Maybe—

No. I remembered the precise way she had summoned me, the painstaking measures she adopted, the cunning way she constructed contingencies atop contingencies. Her desire to see her story through to the end. She would not leave it half-finished.

My options depleted, I fell back to blaming myself. I could do little in battle. I was not a vaunted strategist like Lady Altaecia or the Isteran adviser. I had no resources I could offer, had nothing to my name but my prose. I was the protector of her words, and even there, in that simplest of tasks, I had failed.