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“I was… building resilience,” Baltisse explains.

“Ha!” Ryon says. “And now the all-powerful witch wants to fold all the way into the Glacian kingdom, with not one, but three others to carry?”

Baltisse smacks him over the head, but Ryon barely flinches. “Why would I carry you through the realm when you’ve got those horrendous bat wings. You’ll take Dawsyn, see if you can’t sweeten the sour look on her face.”

“I will do away with you both, and walk the rest of the way alone,” Dawsyn says easily, but the mention of being alone with Ryon has made her shoulders bunch.

“I will fly us all,” Ryon says. “I should be recovered enough for that. And you can think of more helpful ways to die, Baltisse, if you insist. Or else, build up your tolerance for folding smaller distances first. Old women such as yourself need to take c–”

Baltisse’s eyes flash, and Ryon is suddenly hunching over his stomach, panting desperately. “All right!” he says, eyes scrunched shut. “Allright!”

Abruptly, whatever pain possessed him seems to release, and Baltisse wears a wry smile, sweat sprouting along her hairline.

Dawsyn, however, has drawn a knife and does not return it. Knuckles white, eyes wild, stare locked on the mage.

Baltisse is staring back with something like supressed amusement. The corners of her mouth threaten to lift. Ruby gets the impression that words are being passed between the two women – one furious, the other entertained.

“There she is,” the mage murmurs.

Ruby suddenly feels the same thrill that ran through her back in the palace, when Dawsyn Sabar had threatened the Queens’ lives. She feels violence coat her tongue; she smells blood in the air.

Ruby watches Dawsyn place the blade slowly back into her furs and feels the potent desire to flee from this woman and all of her wrath.

A glow catches her eye, and Ruby’s stare shifts toward it. There is a dulling but definite light emanating from… Dawsyn’s hands? It is slight. Like the moon behind a blanket of cloud – muted, but compelling.

A low curse comes from Ryon.

“It is rising to join the chaos again, Dawsyn Sabar, and you are giving it a doorway,” says Baltisse.

Ruby’s eyes wheel between the two women, her confusion likely comical.Of what do they speak?

The faint light of Dawsyn’s palms grows weaker, until it is barely there at all. It could be a trick of the eye, perhaps.

“I have a question for you, witch,” Dawsyn says, switching focus. “You seem recovered enough now to answer it.”

“Then make your ask, girl. Mother above knows, you will ask it anyway.”

Dawsyn smiles faux sweetly, and says, “How do you know so much about iskra?”

Silence befalls the cave.

The half-Glacian stills, eyeing Baltisse warily.

The mage smiles, and one might see it as a goad, an acknowledgment of challenge to whatever this line of conversation might entail. But Ruby, who does not profess to know the nuances of deception, still gleans that the mage is… hesitating?

“All magic is alike,” the mage says easily.

“You’ve said that before. But how would you know that to be true?” Dawsyn pushes.

The mage tilts her head, listening intently – to Dawsyn’s mind, perhaps. “You think I have not gatheredsomeknowledge of the Glacian magic, in all these years?”

“So, this is not your first journey to Glacia then, is it, Baltisse?”

Silence follows once more, thicker now, and Ruby notices Ryon’s quiet reproach. Not for Dawsyn, but for the mage. The Glacian frowns at Baltisse, who is slow to answer.

“No,” says the mage, finally. “It is not my first journey.”

Dawsyn nods, understanding filling her stare. “Tell me how the Pool of Iskra came to be. You are the ancient keeper of all knowledge, after all.”