Of course they wouldn’t. It was so like Serafin to hide himself behind the Sentries of Noden. To lock himself within the city while the rest of the world burned. Share the glory, share the blame.

“Then we must help them,” Vivia said. She scrubbed at her eyes—so salty—and searched for the right words, the right plan to help a village faced with hundreds of Dalmotti sailors.

Before she could conjure anything or sort through all this spinning and tightening in her gut, Shanna said: “Where Noden’s Gift has failed, though, we have succeeded. My Voicewitch is in contact with Lovats right now.” She snapped her fingers toward the door, and a lithe man walked into the cabin. His eyes glowed rose, his attention fixed on the middle distance. At his side, a ship’s boy cradled his arm and guided him toward the table.

“He’s connected right now?” Vivia asked, finally shoving off the cot and crossing to him. Her legs, though weak from lying down, were strong from the boat’s tender rocking. “To whom?”

The Voicewitch found Vivia’s face. “Daughter.”

And Vivia’s stomach bottomed out. She hadn’t heard her father’s voice in over a month—and though this was not truly his voice, it was close enough. The sharpened consonants, the subtle condescension. It was a perfect mimicry. Bile swam upward in Vivia’s belly. Her fingers curled into her thighs.

“Your Maj—” She broke off. No. “Father,” she offered instead. “Nihar burns. You must send in the Royal Navy.”

“I must do nothing,” he replied, and she could just imagine him seated at his desk, cold eyes locked upon his Voicewitch. Gray light filtering through threadbare blue curtains. “You must turn yourself in. You and that Marstoki smut must give yourselves up to Dalmotti immediately.”

“Our people are dying—”

“Exactly,” he barked. “And the longer you wait, the more lives will be lost.”

“Ah.” The word escaped on a sigh, and for some inexplicable reason, Vivia wanted to laugh. She shouldn’t be surprised by his words. She’d told Vaness what he was made of. Yet knowing and knowing were not the same thing.

What a silly little fox. What a sad little fox.

“What happened to ‘bringing the empires to their knees’?” she asked, head shaking. “What happened to the man who would never surrender, never give in—”

“Says the girl who consorts with the Iron Bitch.”

Girl. Vivia had not been a girl in so long. Not since Jana had died. Not since she’d been left with a parent who bragged and boasted and convinced the world with his charm that he was one way … while none of his actions spoke the same. He’d fooled all the admirals of the Royal Navy, all the generals of the Royal Soil-Bound. He’d fooled Lovats. He’d fooled Vivia.