For the briefest flicker of a moment, Henrick’s face tightened. His brows pinched, as if Safi had hit some buried nerve, some forgotten shame. And as if, for a mere instant, he was indeed the fragile toad he pretended to be.

But the emotion vanished in a heartbeat, replaced only by thunder and rage. “No, Safiya.” He leaned close; spittle flecked her cheek. “I am the Emperor of all Cartorra, and this is what my power looks like.”

Four Days After the Earth Well Healed

The world at night is more forgiving. Just darkness and hazy shapes. No scars, no stares, no vibrant, waking Threads. Iseult’s mind at night is not so kind. She has scarcely slept in over a month. First because she was tracking Safi across the dangerous Contested Lands. Then because a Firewitch she’d cleaved had somehow haunted her mind.

But she has found Safi again, and the Firewitch’s ghost is gone. Presumably released into the Aether Well. Yet still, Iseult sits every night on this windowsill, awake while the world sleeps. Alone while the world dreams.

Four days she has been at the fon Hasstrel estate, surrounded by fon Grieg’s soldiers and servants. Grieg has taken over Safi’s family’s lands now that her uncle is imprisoned for treason, and his people bow low to Iseult. Treat her with the same respect they give Safi, the same respect they give Leopold.

Iseult knows the truth, though, for she can read what lies in men’s hearts. And they know she can—it’s why they fear her. Why they shiver whenever they think she cannot see.

Movement rustles on the bed. Safi’s sleeping Threads brighten toward wakefulness. Then a groggy voice splits the cold, shadowy room: “When was the last time you slept, Iz?”

Iseult doesn’t answer. She had hoped Safi would not awaken, would not catch her sitting on this stone lip, staring at a cloudy sky and vague mountains upon the horizon.

“I’m the only one,” she says eventually, “who can sense if someone comes.” This isn’t a total lie, and with Safi’s magic half gone thanks to her creation of a Truth-lens in Marstok, Safi does not sense any omission.

“But Lev put up wards.”

Yes, the Hell-Bard has. Iseult can see them now, strands of golden warmth that curl across the bedroom’s crooked door and across the window too. Threads of protection that somehow coil out of the Hell-Bard’s noose on her command.

But Threads mean nothing to a Weaverwitch, and it takes Iseult no effort at all to bypass them. Like sweeping aside a curtain, she walked right through two nights ago without Lev ever noticing.

Iseult says none of this to Safi. Instead she murmurs, “Go back to sleep, Saf. Tomorrow will be a long day.” The Emperor will arrive from Praga, a hundred soldiers in tow and countless servants too.