Then Safi was there. Before Iseult with Threads so familiar that dream-tears ached in Iseult’s throat. So much depth, so much dimension. Even the Hell-Bard Loom could not replace all those folds and filaments, all those colors and smiles. Shadows might course in her severed soul, but it was still her. Right here, close enough to touch.

“Safi,” Iseult said to the Threads, and she reached out to stroke them. They were frozen to the touch.

“Good,” Corlant crooned, words oozing into Iseult’s ears.

She jerked. Her hand fell, and Corlant laughed. He was right beside her, face creased with pleasure and Threads skittering with want. “You are a natural, it would seem.”

Iseult stepped in front of Safi’s Threads. Futile but instinctive. “I found Safi, not the Threadstones.” Her voice slithered out, strong. Plumed by fog. She no longer drowned in the Dreaming, she controlled it.

At least so long as her Threadsister was beside her.

“Oh, but the light-bringer has the Threadstones, Iseult. She stole them, you see.” He flicked a hand toward Safi, and her Threads briefly parted like tassels on a gown, revealing two bright pinpricks of red. They glimmered and flared, embers of power Iseult instantly recognized.

But how had Corlant known they would be there? How could he have possibly known Safi had stolen them? Before Iseult could ask, Corlant’s hand dropped. The Threadstones disappeared, and the false priest fastened his attention on Iseult once more.

“We must figure out where she is, Iseult. You must learn by connecting with her. By seeing through her eyes.”

Iseult swallowed, dream-lips so cold, so dry. Part of her desperately wanted to connect to Safi, to see where she was to promise that everything would be better because she, Iseult, was going to fix it. But another part of her—the smarter, logical part of her—prickled with warning. Corlant did not want to know Safi’s whereabouts to help her, and Iseult was in no position to fight him again.

She was also in no position to resist him. He manipulated this space, he manipulated the ghosts and the Dreaming that contained them. If he wanted Iseult to see through Safi’s eyes, then he would make it happen.

She might as well do it on her own terms.

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “I will try to see through her eyes.” Without another word or even a glance for Corlant, Iseult grabbed Safi’s Threads again. She had no idea what she was doing, but she’d found her Threadsister without assistance. Surely she could figure this out too.

Cold speared up Iseult’s dream-hands. She flinched, squeezing instinctively.

And Safi screamed. A real scream from a real throat in the real world. And just like that, Iseult became one with Safi’s mind.