“What … is there?” He stared at Owl, whose little fingers clutched at his clothes. His knife still hovered, though it had dropped several inches.

Iseult reached into her cloak, ready to remove the diary and explain that she needed to reach Praga, that she could help him become what he wanted to be, but at that moment, a screech filled the afternoon. It scraped down Iseult’s spine. It slashed into her eardrums.

Aeduan’s head snapped toward the sound. It had come from the Nomatsi camp, and though Iseult couldn’t actually sense the Threads at this distance, she had no doubt what they would be: silver Threads.

“Mother.” It was the first word to hit Iseult’s mind and cross her lips.

The monster from the forest had finally caught up. Which made Gretchya right: she had saved the Nomatsis while Iseult had condemned them.

Iseult rounded on Owl. “You must hide.” She hefted the girl into her arms. Owl didn’t resist, although it wasn’t fear that made her malleable so much as the Painstone, still thrumming and bright.

A blessing, that thing. With it, Owl was unbothered by the distant shrieking. With it, she was content to be shoved onto the lowest branches of the spruce, where Esme hid in silence. Even when Iseult stuffed the diary into their new sack and shoved the sack into her tiny arms, her Threads showed only calm.

To her surprise, Aeduan didn’t interfere.

“You must stay here,” Iseult told the child. “No matter what you hear, you must stay until I come back for you. Do you understand?”

“What if you don’t come back?” Owl’s face winked down from above, eyes huge as her namesake’s. So much trust in that stare. So much trust in those Threads.

Iseult wondered if she’d ever looked at Gretchya that way.

“I will come back,” Iseult promised, a fierceness in her voice that sent cyan surprise showering up Owl’s Threads. It surprised Iseult too. But she meant what she’d said: “I’ll come back for you. But you must stay safe, all right? And hidden. The weasel will watch out for you.”

Owl tucked back against the trunk, nodding, Still, no fear tainted her Threads and even her usual distaste for Esme, now curling onto her tiny lap, was nowhere to be seen. It was only a matter of time, though, before fear and hate took hold. The Painstone wouldn’t last forever.

Iseult would simply have to return before that happened.

She gave Owl’s hand a single squeeze before releasing her. “I’ll be back soon.” Then she latched on to Aeduan’s sleeve and pulled him into a sprint out of the spruce’s branches. Her last glimpse of Owl was of hazel eyes unfaltering and of a child’s Threads, reaching and green.