Safi snapped back her head, blinking. She shook the lens; quartz rattled. Then, after a quick scrub at her eye, she peered through the device again, this time fixing it on Leopold’s letter. You know how much I burn for you. Safi dragged her gaze across the colorfully contorted sentence, mouthing each word to herself.

The lens went white again.

And Safi snapped back her head again. Surely the magic wasn’t working. Surely the change in color was not a sign that something was false. Instinct sent her fingers rubbing at her eyes, though she knew perfectly well her vision was keen.

Ducking under the screen once more, she peered through the lens and whispered, “I am in love with Leopold fon Cartorra.”

Oh, how the Truth-lens turned white at those words, and oh, how Safi smiled. The magic was working, even if she had no idea why. Perhaps it was simply because the lens was her own creation, hewn from her own witchery.

Either way, it changed everything.

Yes, she might be bound to Emperor Henrick. Yes, her magic might have been sliced away from her, lost for good. But she was no longer powerless, and with the Truth-lens, she had an advantage no one could ever suspect. Least of all Henrick.

Smiling—her first true, happy smile in two weeks—Safi finally grabbed for the inkpot and quill. Now that she had her Truth-lens, there was no reason not to meet him. No reason, in fact, not to trust him, since she could catch him in his lies.

My dear Polly,

It brings me such joy to remember our summer together, and yes, dancing with you tonight brought it all crashing back. I have resisted being near you, but can no longer ignore how much my heart calls. Or how much my body. Seeing you dance each night was torture.

I will see you tomorrow in the Winter Garden at the tenth chimes. The wait until that moment will be agony.

Yours always,

Safiya

When Iseult awoke, she was shaking from cold. Somehow she had fallen to the shepherd’s hut’s floor, and now she stared up at a plank ceiling flickering with shadows. Everything hurt. Her head, her eyes, her lungs. Distantly, she felt the weasel scramble on her lap. She heard the creature squeaking with alarm. “Hush,” she tried to say, but her throat was burned raw.

No, not burned raw. Frozen. She’d screamed so much when the souls had pulled her down. Before he had shoved her back into life. Surely that had not been him though. Not in the Dreaming, not in the Hell-Bard Loom. But there was no other explanation. Corlant det Midenzi had found her once more.