Her pack fell. She and Zander both grabbed for it. “Slow down!” she shrieked, but either Leopold didn’t hear or Leopold didn’t care. She had no choice but to cling to the balustrade with one arm while her other arm clung tightly to her pack.

Leopold’s pack, she realized, had been tied down. How very convenient that he had forgotten to mention such precautions to her.

And hell-pits, if she’d thought it was cold being in the snow below, it was nothing to the cold of the storm. Wind and ice clawed into everything. Up her nose, down her throat, into her clothes and through her skin. For a time, she forgot the doom. For a time, her muscles were wholly consumed with the strength needed to stay on board. Shadowed lines of cleaving seemed a thousand miles away.

The Hell-Bards fared no better. Only Leopold seemed at ease with a preternatural grace to stay on his feet.

Eventually, the Eridysi leveled out. Safi didn’t release the balustrade. The Hell-Bards, she noticed, did not either. Leopold, however, bared a smile and abandoned the tiller to stroll toward them. “How is everyone?” he asked in a way that suggested he hoped they were terrible.

“Shouldn’t you be steering?” Safi asked through chattering teeth.

“No.” He bobbed a bored shoulder. “The Eridysi can fly herself now. We are headed in one direction for quite a while.”

“Still.” She glared at him. “I’d feel much better if you kept your hand on the tiller.”

He snorted and crooked forward to pat her head. “Don’t you worry your pretty little—”

Safi grabbed his hand, flipped it up, and twisted his wrist toward his rib cage. “Hold,” she snarled at him, “the tiller.”

Leopold grunted, but if it was in pain or surprise, Safi couldn’t say. He kept his fake smile glued to his face the entire time. “Of course, my Empress,” he murmured. “Anything you wish, my Empress.”

The Truth-lens scratched against her chest. She released him. Let him be a petty child. Let him be a foppish prince. She was in charge here, whether he liked it or not.

He gave her a mocking bow when he reached the tiller, and in that moment, Safi decided she hated him. She was tired of masks. She was tired of games.

So she moved toward the Hell-Bards. Zander had pried himself free of the railing and turned his attention to Caden and Lev. Though none of them stood, they were at least upright and slightly more relaxed. After finding an empty patch of balustrade and grabbing hold with a white-knuckled grip, she gazed down, into the gray, storm-swept expanse.

She had never flown this high before. In fact, the one time she had been in the air had been with Merik Nihar. They’d coasted over a lucent sea, so close to the water she had seen individual waves and the moon’s glow upon each.