It was at once so familiar and at once so strange. The round tents spaced evenly throughout the wide clearing were the inspiration behind the round structures in the Midenzi settlement, yet in place of roofs and walls, there were animal hides stretched over wooden scaffolding. Cooking fires were spaced throughout the camp, but they’d been recently doused, the embers covered with thick blankets. The only sound was the snuffling of horses hidden behind tents and ruin walls—which was where the people were too, their Threads animate. Alert. Ready.

They had been waiting for an attack, Iseult realized with a twitch of her nose. She must have triggered some warning system along the trail. But when, what, where? And for that matter, how was this tribe so well equipped? Alarm-spells were expensive, while the cost of a glamour-spell was unfathomable.

It was one more question to add to the thousands of others dragging Iseult down.

Soon Alma had reached a taller hut at the camp’s center with a woolen blanket over the entrance—black, the color of all Threads combined, and sewn into the edges were the marks of a Threadwitch. A straight magenta line for the Threads that bind. Swirling sage green for the Threads that build. And a dashed gray line for the Threads that break.

Iseult’s footsteps slowed. The heat in her chest had crawled down her legs, making them leaden and stiff. Stasis, Iseult. Stasis in your fingers and in your toes. She hated that she needed those words. Hated that they surfaced right now. But the truth was that she couldn’t face her mother without them. Gretchya would never accept who Iseult had become.

Alma swept aside the blanket and waited for Iseult to enter. Iseult wished the other girl would look away. For that matter, Iseult wished Alma were anywhere in the Witchlands but here. If only, if only, if only.

Iseult thrust into the darkness. She saw nothing but lanterns flickering at the edges of her vision. Firewitched. Recognizable by the absence of smoke. Then she heard a voice. The voice that sometimes whispered in her dreams or scolded in her nightmares.

“Iseult,” said Gretchya det Midenzi, no surprise in her tone. No surprise on the pallid face slowly emerging from the shadows. Beside her, at the heart of the tent, were the customary fire, a communal bowl of stew, and four low stools.

“Why have you come?” Gretchya asked. Her gaze traveled the length of Iseult, and it took all of Iseult’s self-control not to curl in on herself.

Stasis. She notched her chin higher.

“Why have you come?” Gretchya repeated. Not, Are you hurt, my only daughter? Or, How is this possible that you are here? or even, Who is this injured child with you?