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I wanted to win the war. I wanted to save lives. Surely a little personal discomfort was not a pressing enough reason to let thousands die without functioning magic?

‘I … I suppose I could go have another chat with her.’ The words felt like thick, clumpy porridge on my tongue – like something I’d just retched up. ‘There are a few things she said in our last conversation that I could work with. If I dug a little deeper …’

‘You look tired as death,’ Agenor interrupted, rising to his feet with a firm shake of his head. ‘If you want to see her again, get some sleep first. Does anyone mind if I pay her a short visit now?At least she once trusted me – she may be willing to give mesomeclues, even if she still tries to scratch my eyes out.’

I should have objected. Trust was nothing to godsworn magic, after all, and why was I sending my weary, overburdened father out on some doomed mission if I could achieve all we needed with a flick of my fingers?

But I just nodded, guts tangled with dread, and let the guilt wash over me.

We lingered in silence after he and Tared faded out, sitting in the candlelit dusk like mourners waiting for sunrise. Lyn stared at her feet, looking small and conflicted. Naxi seemed on the brink of tears. Creon alone moved after a few minutes – squeezed my hand, then ambled off to rummage around the bookshelves. When he returned, he was holding a bag that turned out to be filled with the small wooden figurines I’d seen on this table before, used to indicate the locations of our allies.

For a while, nothing broke the silence except the soft thuds of wood against wood as his nimble fingers rearranged them on the map again, numbers roughly matching those we’d seen in the hall, colours matching species. Green for nymphs. Black for vampires. Blue for alves. Yellow for phoenixes.

Red for fae.Destruction.

I stared at the measured motions of his hands, at the familiar patterns the figurines were shaping on the wooden surface – the outlines of islands I could dream by now. In between the flocks of colour, some parts of the archipelago remained strangely empty. Human isles. No magic to be found there, save for the occasional half fae in hiding.

Something was itching against the back of my mind – not a thought yet, but a seed that might grow into a thought if I just knew how to water it.

Tared and Agenor returned before I’d managed.

One look at their faces was enough to send the shame rising in my throat again – tight lines around their lips, shadows in their eyes. Tared’s shrug contained a world of meaning:we tried to get her to talk, that gesture said,and we’d probably stand a better chance trying to drain the ocean tomorrow.

I averted my gaze, fixing it on the map again. I couldn’t stand seeing the self-blame in Agenor’s eyes.

‘She demands to be freed and sent back to the court without any constraints on what she can tell the Mother,’ he said flatly as he sat down and settled his wings against his back. ‘Specifically regarding the fact that we found the bindings. When I pointed out she can hardly expect us to give up our best chance of survival, she reminded me she can hardly be expected to helpussurvive, either. Which I couldn’t really argue against.’

Naxi let out a deep, shuddering sigh.

‘At least you got her to eat,’ Tared said, dropping into the chair next to Lyn and folding his legs. ‘As long as she’s not starving, we—’

‘She wasn’teating?’ Naxi shrieked.

‘Well, she is now.’ Tared’s skewed smile lacked its usual genuine assurance. ‘Don’t worry. We’d have let you know before she was dead.’

The way Naxi’s lip curled up suggested there was plenty of reason to worry, forourhealth specifically; her small hands twisted into claw-like shapes, mere twitches away from scratching that smile off Tared’s face. ‘You could havetoldme.’

He sighed. ‘And what would you have done with the information, except feel more miserable?’

Her hands abruptly loosened. The air escaped her lungs in a single breathy sob as she curled up in her chair and buried her face between her arms, rocking back and forth like a little child trying to chase away the dark.

The glance Lyn and Tared exchanged didn’t escape me. There were many, many hours of deliberation in that look, and just as many doubts.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Agenor broke the tense silence, jaw clenched and shoulders stiff, ‘I’m glad she’s not starving, but we don’t have the time to spend weeks convincing her to talk. Achlys and Melinoë know we’re moving against them. They could strike any of our allies tomorrow, for all we know.’

Tared spread his hands. ‘What else do you propose?’

‘I wish I knew.’ A joyless huff. ‘We’re running out of options, if I’m honest. The simple fact is we need our magic, and if we don’t have our magic, we need many, many more people to make up for it. Even if we called upon all allied rulers to see if they could conscript a few more of their subjects …’

‘You wouldn’t win much with it,’ Lyn said bitterly. ‘There simply aren’t that many of us left, and begging would only give them another reason to doubt whether we stand any chance at all. They may pull out entirely.’

Agenor let out an uncharacteristically vulgar curse.

My head ached as I stared at that map, the carved bits of coloured wood staring back at me mockingly.Just get up, I tried to tell myself.Just tell them you need to see Thysandra again. Just use the damn smoothness and be done with it.More magic or more people, and people we couldn’t get – so this really was the only chance we had, wasn’t it? I’d just have to live with it, turning myself into something far too close to the horrors of which I was trying to rid the world; I had reasons enough not to pick the path of spotless ethics.

Reasons are easy to come by, Zera had said.It’s wisdom that creates the true challenge.

What was wisdom?