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“It would have been better if you’d never seen her again,” the Lady says to Voyne. “It could be only nothingness that was bleeding out. Nothing worth saving, nothing worth staying your hand against me. What a pity that you had to return to her. I gave you a gift, glory and certainty and righteousness, and you squandered it.”

Treila spasms against the floor, blood flowing from her gut despite Voyne’s hands frantically applying pressure, and that reverses Phosyne’s retreat, unsticks her limbs. She throws herself at them, collapses to her knees at Treila’s side, fits her hands with Voyne’s over the wound.

“I can fix this,” she whispers. “I can fix this, I canfixthis.” She understands viscera and flesh, now, and knows healing, received itfrom this girl’s mouth while she lay dying, rotting from the inside from lack of food. Food, food, she needsfood. She will give Treila food and that will staunch the flow.

The Lady holds out a hand, and in it is an apple.

“Give it to her,” the Lady says.

It is golden and perfect.

“No,” Treila whispers. “No, I will not eat.”

But the juice of it is fragrant and sweet. Phosyne wants it, and can see how it will knit Treila’s flesh together again. It will obscure her mind, yes, but it will preserve her body, and what good is a clear mind beyond death?

She is panting, hyperventilating, feeling the pulse of Treila’s blood beneath her fingers, when Voyne collides with the Lady in a crash of steel. The apple falls from Her hand, bruising rapidly as it rolls to a stop against Phosyne’s thigh.

And the Lady is gone, and in another breath, the memory of Her as well. Phosyne blinks against a blank space, an absence, there and then gone as suddenly as it arose. Cumin coats her tongue, sharp and insistent.Pay attention, it says, but she is angry, she isterrified, and she can’t heed it. The room is getting hotter, is roasting them alive, and it is her fault. She is making the floor below them tremble and seeing colors she has no names for blossoming into being all around her.

Except no, there’s something else, something tangled in the flash of light on metal as Voyne convulses, grapples with the air.

Then Treila cries out, “Down!” and both Phosyne and Voyne obey without question.

Phosyne stares at her. At the blood dried on her chin, and wet on her belly. She can see something shining, buried in the meat of her. A solid, ringing core. Something Phosyne lacks, Voyne lacks, they all are missing.

Something beyond the heaviness of iron, and even more immutable.

While Treila stares at empty air, perfectly focused, the thing inside her glows more brightly. Phosyne tries to look where Treila looks, to the left of Voyne, but her vision drifts. Slides. This has happened before, Phosyne realizes. In this very room, Voyne had triedto look at Treila, and her gaze had slid. “Go right!” Treila cries. Fresh blood streaks her lips. She is losing too much blood.

The apple still rests against Phosyne’s thigh. She can’t remember where it came from, but it is also important,veryimportant. She must give it to Treila, must chew it fine and pass it tongue to tongue; it is meant to heal, to stop that flow of blood.

She takes a bite, juice exploding in her mouth. Her teeth crush its delicate flesh.

But no. No, if Treila eats this, it will paper over the core of her. Dim the glow. Phosyne can see that now. It will bind her.

Bind.To what? To her? Yes, to her. Feasts of flesh and food grown from nothing, feasts that bewitch the mind and heart and soul. She who provides the feast earns the fealty. But she doesn’t want that. She holds too many lives in her chest as it is.

How did they get there? What is she forgetting, so momentous, so horrible?

“Left, left!” Treila cries, voice breaking. Growing weaker. Voyne pivots left and slams her sword into the blur that Phosyne can barely see, can barely remember they are fighting. The weapon does no damage, but the target must still be solid; the force of the blow throws it into the wall, and for just a moment, the Lady is visible again, golden and terrifying. For just a moment, She wears no familiar yellow paint, no beautiful raiment, but is a thing made of air and vine itself, thorn and blood, around a tangled, pulsating stomach.

And then She is gone, and Phosyne’s head spins and Voyne staggers, tossing her head like a stallion.

Beneath Phosyne, Treila sags against the floor, and does not look at her. Phosyne wonders briefly, hysterically, if Treila trusts her, or if she simply cannot afford to look away.

Another crack. The thud of a body hitting the floor. Phosyne twists and looks behind her.

Voyne convulses like she’s been struck, gasping for breath, barely up on one knee. There is something attacking her, Phosyne remembers. Something old and dangerous and hungry, but Phosyne cannot feel it, except for a sick sense of absence, a lurching slide when she tries to focus.

Voyne will die like this if Treila cannot be her eyes, and Treila cannot be her eyes if she loses much more blood than this or if she is entranced by a swallow of healing food.

So Phosyne dips her head and presses her lips to the bleeding slit in Treila’s side, and slides her tongue, thick with chewed fruit, against the wound.

Treila shudders, her head falling back against the stone, and Phosyne can’t tell if she moans from pain or pleasure.

All she knows is that the skin heals, and when Phosyne spits out blood and pulp, when she kisses Treila’s side one last time, there is only a white mark to show where the blade had pierced her.

Treila shoves her aside.