For a moment I watched him work. He didn’t need to see to loop the black and red thread through the tiny welded cuts, the needle like an extension of his hand. He threaded it through, knotted it, threaded the next one. Like a weaver at a loom. I tried to count the loops through my slitted eyes. Fifteen? No. He worked too quickly, and I was already agitated.

I closed my eyes again, although with no intention of sleeping. Instead I spent a while thinking a prayer to drive away the images of Magnus that had lodged themselves to stay … images of what might happen if I couldn’t save him.

I convinced myself they weren’t realistic. The Evil Eye wouldn’t kill its own host. It would never—could never—be his fate.

… could it?

The wooden creak of the drawer opening made me spasm, but it was only after the crinkle of paper that I opened my eyes. I watched Jember open Saba’s letter, with her list on the back of it. Slowly. Too slowly. I held my breath.

He let out a breath of laughter and grinned, and my breath relaxed. But, without much pause in between, he leaned forward and covered his eyes with his hand, murmuring a swear. He stayed that way for a moment, and then sat up and fished a notepad from the drawer.

We’d never used much paper growing up, and so he wrote on the archbishop’s pack of stationery I’d stolen three years ago—off-white with an elegant, intricate gold-leaf cross. He wrote more slowly than he threaded amulets. Occasionally pausing. Frequently crossing out what he’d written. He didn’t waste the sheet, filling it with words and crossed-off words before flipping it over and doing the same. He paused to read it over.

“Go back to sleep, girl.”

“What did Saba say?” I asked, if only to shove away the image that wouldn’t let me go.

“None of your business.”

“How do you even know each other? You said you never went to the house—” I froze, then jolted up, my grin unbridled. “Saba’s older than she looks. If she were alive, I think she would be about your age.”

“I know—” Jember looked at me quickly, his slightly wide-eyed expression confirming he knew that I knew. “Shut up.”

“You two were a couple!”

“I’m putting you outside,” he threatened, though it was a little less effective with the blush rising over his face.

“You love her,” I sang, dodging off the bed when he reached for me. “Admit it.”

Jember’s eyes were burning, and if he had been wearing his leg he would’ve come after me. “Why don’t you do what you came here to do,” he growled, pulling out the chalkboard and holding it out to me, “and work on your amulet.”