No. She exhaled sharply. This was just the Well’s magic. This was just the exhilaration of life when death had been so near. She turned away from Vaness, water splashing, and paddled for shore. A strong stroke while the gently roiling waters of the Well rumbled against her.

Vaness followed—of course she did—but Vivia dared not look back as she hauled herself onto the ramp out of the water. As she shook her arms and legs, and sprayed water in all directions.

And she didn’t look back when she walked to the nearest cypress, its trunk hidden within a latticework of green. She braced a hand on the feathered leaves. They scraped her palm as she lifted her leg to wring out her pants. Ineffective. Pointless even, but she needed something to do.

Water dripped and splattered behind Vivia. She could feel the Empress exiting the Well, even if she could not see her. A lantern emanating light. A flame hawk billowing heat.

She kept her attention locked on her pants, on the squeezing and wringing. “How do you feel?” Vivia’s voice came out rough and strained. “Did the Well help your … illness?”

“I feel good.” Vaness’s voice held its usual clarity, but there was something else there. Something that made the imaginary light, the heat off of her seem ten times stronger.

Vivia squeezed even harder at her shirt, stained in blood.

“This Well is different from the Fire Well.” Vaness’s bare feet padded over the flagstones. “A different … energy. But it heals, and that is what I needed. That is what you needed.” She came to a stop several paces away, and Vivia tried to hide behind her arm braced against the tree.

But it was no use. She could still see the Empress in her periphery. Sodden and gorgeous and all wrong, wrong, wrong. Vivia dropped her hand, and with stout avoidance of Vaness’s dark eyes and thick, wet lashes, she aimed for the horizon. For the ocean and an empty expanse where maybe she could breathe.

Vaness only followed, though, oblivious to Vivia’s building panic.

Or perhaps wishing to push it, wishing to enhance it, for Vivia had scarcely made it five steps before the Empress caught up to her, and her delicate hand had grabbed hold of Vivia’s wrist.

It was a fire so different from the fire of the knife. Before the Empress could speak, though, eyes caught on the sea. She was close enough to the plateau’s edge to see more than moonlight sparkling on the horizon. Now she saw near shore, where reefs and rocks kept most ships at bay.

They had not stopped the Dalmottis. Their warships floated close enough for Vivia to see sailors. Close enough for her to see individual flags slapping across the masts.

Twelve of them, and each manned with cannons aimed toward the shore.