At first Phosyne takes that to mean Jacynde said that, but of course not, of course it is Her. The Lady. “Faithless?”

“Last night,” Voyne says. “Prioress Jacynde came to make us see sense. To make us understand that the food could not be explained. But the Lady cowed her. Pulled apart her armor by articulating all of the prioress’s doubts. She couldn’t withstand it. She let them give her honeyed wine. And then she stopped fighting.”

“But the Lady holds grudges.”

“It didn’t feel like that,” Voyne whispers. “It didn’t feel like retribution, or even lesson-giving. It felt like . . .” She frowns. Closes her eyes. “Harvest.”

Phosyne pulls the softened biscuit from her robe and stares at it, stomach curdling, before she sets it gently upon her workbench for later. “Somewhere, on those tables down there . . .” She goes back over the evening. Sees the Absolving Saint presenting the roasted arm so proudly. The Lady chewing bits of flesh.

She says nothing. She can’t make herself say it. Ser Voyne either understands or she doesn’t. Either way, the other woman gets up and begins to pace.

Phosyne works on mastering her stomach, putting the realization aside for later. Exhaustion wins out over both, but it dampens down the horror enough that Phosyne can make herself grab the biscuit, scrape another layer off with her teeth. It goes down thick and gluey in her throat.

At length, Ser Voyne stops pacing. Her shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath, and when she exhales, she looks a little more like Phosyne remembers. Flinty-eyed. Strong. The transformation is impressive; Phosyne can almost forget how small and broken she’d looked in the cistern, and their clothes aren’t even half-dry yet.

“So,” Ser Voyne says, turning to Phosyne and, after assessing her appearance, approaching as if afraid one or both of them might spook. “What next?”

Phosyne bites at her lip, then looks at the door. Still no sign of Treila. “There’s a way out. Maybe. We’re waiting for the girl who knows the way.”

Ser Voyne does not look as relieved as Phosyne had expected. In fact, she looks angry.

“No,” Voyne says, voice firm. Unyielding.

Phosyne blinks up at her. “No?”

“No. We aren’t leaving. We stay here. We fix this. We save them.”

“Save them?” Phosyne asks, disbelieving.

“If what happened to me is happening to everybody in this keep,” Ser Voyne says, slowly, as if trying to explain something to a very distractible child, “then we cannot leave them to suffer. Even if we delude ourselves into thinking the Lady has kind intentions.”

They both know She does not.

“We don’t know what they are,” Phosyne says. “What they want. What the limits of their powers might be.”

“Then we study them.” Voyne’s stern expression is turning into a scowl. “We have a duty, Phosyne.”