“There isn’t much time,” the healer whispered. She dug her arms beneath Safi’s shoulders and helped her rise. “The Emperor has been taken to another wing, where your screams would not reach, but eventually, he will return to check on your progress.”

Safi blinked and tried to rub at the sickness, sticky and damp, upon her face. “Wait,” the healer said, turning toward a washbasin nearby. While she dunked a towel within, Safi examined her leg.

A thick scar puckered on top of her thigh, faded and smooth. If not for the bloodstains on Safi’s cut pants, she would have thought the injury years old.

The healer shoved a damp towel into her hand, when Zander slipped inside the room.

Safi paused her rough cleaning to smile weakly at him. She hadn’t seen the massive Hell-Bard since before her noosing, and her friend looked as he always had—though bags now darkened his eyes. And like the healer, he also wore no armor, but rather a simple scarlet-and-gold uniform.

He hurried toward her. “You’ll have to clean as we go.” He spoke low. “And you’ll also have to…” He trailed off. Then tapped meaningfully at his noose.

Safi recoiled. “I’ll have to what?”

“Remove it,” the healer hissed, impatient. “Did they not tell you?”

Safi shook her head. She thought she might be sick again. Removing the noose was certain death. The Hell-Bard’s doom, they called it, and she had seen it consume Caden before. He had cleaved before her very eyes—slower than a true Cleaved, but still fast enough to incapacitate and kill.

“With the Loom nearby,” Zander explained, pulling the towel from Safi’s hands, “we can exist without our nooses. It hurts, but the shadows are slow. They will not kill you before we get to the Loom and return.”

“Take it off.” Safi tasted those words, coated in stomach acid. She had just experienced the worst pain of her life. How could she possibly endure more? “Can’t I just go with you before Henrick returns?”

Zander and the healer shook their heads. “He might sense your movement,” Zander explained, and the healer added, “As long as the noose stays here, though, he will have no reason to be concerned.”

Safi exhaled slowly. She had wanted to see the Loom. She had needed to see it because as Leopold had said: she still had a piece of her magic. Maybe coming face-to-face with the device that imprisoned her would offer some clues as to how she might break free.

“All right.” She swung her legs to the floor, and with Zander’s help, she stood. Her leg gave her no trouble. She felt strong and whole and new. Then, before she could change her mind or even consider what she was doing, Safi reached up to her noose … and paused.