Safi pushed all the harder. Whatever waited ahead, she wouldn’t leave Iseult to face it alone. Yet as soon as she pushed back into trees, a fir briefly blocking her from hail as large as her fists, the world went silent and still.

No lightning, no winds, and no hail—only the holes they had pocked into the snowfall. And her Truth-lens practically screaming against her skin.

She scanned the forest, holding Henrick’s sword with the gentle grip Habim had taught her. Not too tight, not too loose. Simply ready. The storm continued unabated in the trees beyond. She saw it, a wall of gray and white. She heard it, a thousand angry sighs.

A laugh trilled behind her. She tore around. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But there was no one within the trees.

“Come out!” she shouted. “And maybe I’ll go easy on you.”

Another laugh, so close she felt it on her skin like a winter draft leaking through a window. She spun again, now facing the clearing she’d just abandoned. But still, no one. And still, her Truth-lens screamed of wrong.

Then something fell into the snow, straight out of the sky. So fast, she almost missed it—and so hard, the earth trembled beneath her feet. A body, human and limp.

“Caden.” Safi rushed for him, all thoughts of the laughter gone. All thoughts of the storm or danger gone. She only made it three steps, though, before wind surged against her.

A man descended into the clearing. Snow billowed away from him as he landed beside Caden. Safi’s vision crossed. Dizziness wheeled over her, and for half a frozen breath, she saw only the man’s face—except that there were so many. Face after face smeared and melted and formed, as if he were the pages of a book being rapidly flipped.

And her Truth-lens shrieked so intensely, it practically bounced against her skin.

Then the book settled, a single page unfurling. A single face for her to blink at, blood oozing from an eye that would never see again.

“What a clever light-bringer,” he said in Cartorran. “Using your device like that to negate the Loom. Useless, but clever all the same.” He advanced a step. No eyes, yet he could clearly see.

And Safi lifted her sword. “Who are you?”

“Your Threadsister did not tell you?” He fanned his fingers at his face. “You do not see the family resemblance?”

Safi didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care. There was only one person he could possibly be. “The Cursewitch,” she said, and his cheeks bunched with a smile. It squeezed blood from the eye that still remained.

“Do not touch them,” Iseult shouted, fierce and right and good. Then a breath later, she stalked into the clearing, her cheeks bright, hair wild, and body covered in snow. Marching on either side were Hell-Bards, moving wherever she bade.