Her sword is beyond that sun. But its light has driven back the biting shadows; nothing grabs at her as she steps into the throne room. No more scratches, no more testing bites. Blessed relief.

“Hello, pet,” says the False Lady. “You’ve gone journeying.” Her eyes drop to Voyne’s hands a moment, then trail over her body. Voyne longs for armor, feels exposed, too naked, in her gambeson and leggings. “Journeying, and brought me nothing home. How thoughtless.”

Voyne refuses to answer. There is blood on the air, fresh, stinking. Not hers, too strong to be hers. The hungry things in the shadows only tasted small droplets. She cannot see her sword, or anything she can turn into a weapon.

Turn back. It sounds like Phosyne’s voice in her head, or maybe even Leodegardis’s, advising some final measure of caution. But there is no way back, and only one way forward.

She lunges.

And then the air shimmers, and she is on the ground. The monster’s foot is on her shoulder, pressing lightly. Her skirts are soft, whispering over Voyne’s ruddy, sweat-slick cheek. “No, I don’t think so,” the creature says. “You do keep a civil tongue in that head somewhere. Use it.”

Voyne’s heart beats double time, and her mind is swamped beneath a tidal surge, up and over. She can barely breathe.

“I will kill you,” she makes herself say. “I will kill you for what you’ve done to this place.”

The world is hazy. Her muscles burn with frustrated impetus, a hunting dog kept penned in.

“But I have made it beautiful,” the False Lady says. Her foot moves. For a moment, Voyne is free, but she can’t make sense of direction enough to fight. Instead, she is lifted into Her lap. A coddled creature. Mind its little fangs, its shrill bark; it thinks it is so much larger than reality.

She can hear the faint buzzing of bees. It grows and grows. A hive is gathering. She forces herself to look around. She cannot allow herself to slip away, not again.

The Absolving Saint enters, the shadows parting to admit him. From this angle, she can see their teeth, like slashes of white paint or bird shit on stone. The saint bears a platter. He brings it to his Mistress, kneeling to lay it by Her side.

The False Lady reaches out and plucks a dainty from the dish. It looks for all the world like a bloom nestled between two lips. But when she blinks again, the lips are the convolutions of a mushroom, and it is the bloom that is made of peels of flesh.

Another blink, and it is pastry and fruit.

“Will you not eat something?” She says, and holds it to Voyne’s mouth.