There are six throughout the lower yard, all rising three feet or so above the ground. They are covered now with tarps, to stop the hot air from stealing more water than it returns, but the one Phosyne hides behind has its cover rolled back. Water for the feast. Water from the rains that stopped months ago, topped up with as much as could be drawn up from the fouled well, cleansed with her invention.

Water that was not provided by the Lady.

I have tasted this water, and it is sweet, but it wasn’t always so.

Now it tastes of you.

“Oh,” Phosyne says. She remembers both times Voyne drank from the cup the Lady had given her. Both times, she had faltered. Grown confused. Looked at Phosyne, and Phosyne had felt she was so close to understanding again . . .

And then another bite of food, and it was gone.

Ser Voyne is close now; Phosyne can hear her panting breath. There’s nowhere to run where Voyne will not find her. Maybe, if she had gone down to Treila’s tunnel instead of out into the yard, she could have hidden. But there is water in the cistern below her, and there’s a way in.

Phosyne hopes she is seeing reason, not madness.

She hauls herself over the edge of the cistern.

She lets herself fall.

The cistern is not deep, but the water level is low, not enough to form a cushion. Phosyne lands hard. There is water enough to cover Phosyne’s nose and mouth, but she’s too stunned to move, even as she feels herself choking. She has to sit up. She has to move out of the way. She has to—

Ser Voyne stares down at her.

Phosyne flinches, and is finally able to roll over, push herself up, cough out the water in her throat. She forces herself to look up. “Well?” she rasps. “Are you coming, Ser Voyne?” It’s a challenge she’s almost too afraid to make, but she needs to test this. Needs to get her down here.

She watches Ser Voyne pace around the rim like a dog in a cage. And then, just as Phosyne begins to worry, the knight leaps into the cistern.

Voyne is stronger, better fed, and she lands on her feet, unsteady but upright. She is trembling with barely constrained—what? Rage? Or more confusion? She prowls closer, and Phosyne flattens herself against the wall of the cistern.

It’s hewn from stone. She can disappear again, if she needs to.

She thinks she can, anyway. She just doesn’t know how far she can go. A wall is one thing; the bedrock of an entire castle another. There isn’t a walkway on the other side. Oh, but this was a bad idea, and Ser Voyne is close now, getting closer, stinking of spices and meat and sugar, and there is murder in her eyes.