Every step away from her faith and toward an understanding of the unseen world has done a little more damage. First, she was no longer so fascinated by the exactitude of the bee space’s measurements that she couldn’t see the alchemy in how honey was formed, or in the transformation from egg to larva to winged beauty. From there she pursued her heretical texts, ignored all guidance, all advice, broke with the Priory and abandoned her nun’s name and chose to call herself Phosyne. To that point, it was all theoretical, but then she cleaned the water, and that . . . that began to break the order of things. Her pursuits are anathema to the divine structure of the world, even if Phosyne believes them to be more true. Her sisters might even now be waiting for her in her tower room, and she has only escaped them and the flame by the barest margin.

And yet there is nowhere else for her to return to. It is the little world she has made herself, a refuge from all the rest.

Feeling like she is walking toward death, she makes herself stand up. Her knees wobble. She pitches forward, and uses the momentum to keep on toward her tower.

Each step is harder than the last, though. The weakness she felt earlier in the day is back a hundred-fold, fed on her guilt and shame. She reaches the upper bailey without falling, but it is a near thing. She weaves in the darkness, closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, she is at the base of one of the towers. Not hers, but close.

She stares at the spiraling steps.

Up seems impossible, but down is easier. She stumbles down the steps, into a pocket of darkness. Her head is spinning. Her knees are weak. If she just sits a little, rests, she can put herself back together again. She needs to construct an argument that will sway Ser Voyne and all the rest, and she doesn’t think I may have summoned them from someplace dangerous will get her the results she wants.

She sinks to her knees, then keeps going, helpless to stop herself. One breath she is upright, and the next she is laid out, aching, skin tight over her bones. The stone below her is cool, at least, and drains some of the heat away, but she cannot move, and she cannot think, and oh, this is bad.

Walking this much was a bad decision. She didn’t have the strength for it. She hasn’t walked so far since chasing after Pneio, and she has only eaten less and less.