As Lev settled into the story, Safi knew she was being handled. Distracted from whatever horrible future had made all the blood drain from Lev’s face and made Caden ask, What choice does she have? But her leg hurt too much to interrupt the tale, and her whole body hurt too much to demand answers. Caden’s roughshod bindings were already soaked through, and there was a very real chance she would pass out at any moment.

Not a chance, she realized as shadows swept in, but the reality.

Fourteen Days After the Earth Well Healed

“Have I ever told you the story of how the hedgehog came back to life?” Iseult gazes down at Owl, who shakes her head with such energy, her heretic’s collar clanks.

Five days she has been wearing it, and today is the first day she seems accustomed. They have made it to midmorning without a tantrum, without tears—not that Iseult would blame Owl if she started sobbing. The collar was the only way the child could enter Praga without her life consigned to the Hell-Bards. A magic like hers is “too dangerous to be kept free.”

Of course, Iseult wasn’t surprised when Owl refused and fought and tried to flee. Yet somehow Leopold coaxed her into compliance in the end, though he spoke no Nomatsi.

“Well,” Iseult says, slipping down to the woolen rug beside the child, “it happened long ago, when the gods still walked among us.” As she settles into the tale—a silly tale that ends in a song—Owl listens with rapt eyes and rapt Threads.

Her Hell-Bard protector, Zander, stands with his spine erect beside the bedroom door. He cannot speak Nomatsi; Owl cannot speak Cartorran; yet the two of them have a connection that transcends words. It is fascinating to watch, how their Threads have entangled. How thickly the sunset bond of family has already grown.

He is the one who put the collar on Owl five days ago. He cried afterward, when he thought no one was watching.

Iseult keeps her tale short this morning. Not merely because she is crushing her gown by sitting cross-legged, but also because she has somewhere to be. Somewhere that makes her stomach freeze and heart ice over.

She has said stasis a thousand times today, but to no avail.

“Save the bones,” she sings, reciting the words Trickster had once sung, “save the bones!”

“Lost without them,” Owl joins, “have no home! Wrapped in twine to keep them grounded. Trapped in time and moonlight crown’d them.”

“And with those words,” Iseult finishes, “the soil twitched and the hedgehog’s little nose poked up from the dirt.”

“Alive!” Owl claps, her Threads flush with pleasure. She has regressed again—as she is prone to do. Her size suggests she must be six years old, but frequently she behaves like a child half that … or like a woman five times grown.