Caden nodded. “And as the Empress, you’ll get a private room. You’ll need to wait until Henrick arrives before you make any sort of move, though. He will need to see you in the room being treated. Then you can ask him to leave for privacy’s sake. Hopefully, he agrees.”

“Shoulda stabbed her near her lady parts,” Lev muttered. “That would have kept him from coming in.”

Safi turned her next glare on Lev. “What do I do once he leaves the room?”

“I presume you want to see the Loom?” Caden asked. “It’s what all Hell-Bards want … no, need to see. The device we’re all bound to. The reason we can never escape.”

“Yes,” Safi snapped. “Obviously I want to see this Loom.” For some reason, that word Loom sounded familiar. Iseult had told her of looms—that much she remembered. But what they did or why Iseult had studied them … Nothing came to mind.

Perhaps because her entire existence was consumed by the hell-flaming agony of her thigh.

“Zander,” Lev inserted. “He’s at the Keep, and he’ll help us.”

“But you’ll need healing first.” Caden’s eyes flicked to Safi’s wound. His face scrunched up apologetically. “I might have, uh, stabbed a bit too deeply.”

“Might have?”

“Yeah, but if you’d gone any easier,” Lev countered, “then Henrick could’ve argued that a regular healer would’ve done the trick. Sorry, Safi.” Lev winced at her. “But to get into the Keep, an injury’s gotta be bad.”

Safi’s eyelids briefly shut. You agreed to this, you fool. You agreed to this. Actually, she’d specifically asked for it. “How much longer?”

Lev peeked behind a curtain. Then quite noticeably did not answer the question. “While Zander gets her to the Loom, what are me and you gonna do?” The question was addressed to Caden. “Pull another Kristazhoffen?”

He shook his head. “A big distraction won’t work here. As soon as Henrick knows what’s happened, he will use his power over Hell-Bards to track her.”

Lev blanched. “You don’t mean … You can’t mean…”

“What choice does she have?” Caden glanced at Safi. “While she and Zander are sneaking off to the Loom, you and I will pull an Isnie.”

“What’s an Isnie?” Safi asked—or rather, moaned—at the same moment Lev said, “Oh, that’s risky, Captain.” But she had a smile on her face as she spoke. Then she turned her attention to Safi and said, “Let me tell you about the time that me, Zander, and Caden here got stuck on an island called Isnie in the middle of the North Sea.”