Page 103 of Bloodwitch

Iseult’s breath slid out. The room was melting together; her chest felt a jumble of feelings—hot and cold alike in a hundred ways she didn’t recognize.

She pulled the book closer, ready to peel it open, when she noticed a stamp on the cover. A bird with three legs and a crown atop its head.

“What is this?” Her fast-tiring gaze lifted to Leopold’s. “My version did not have it.”

“Thatis the sigil of the Rook King. You can find it all over the Monastery.” He tapped it with his uninjured hand. “This whole place used to be his fortress a thousand years ago. Have you never wondered why the Carawen sigil is a bird?”

She had, but nowhere in her book—inthisbook—had there been an answer.

The Rook King,she thought. The man from her dream. Ithadto be, even if she couldn’t explain how.

Again, she rubbed at her bandages. This time, though, she let her fingers scrape the cloth. No pain, but Leopold still grimaced and whispered, “Leave them.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked, ignoring him. “Nomatsis do not, but Safi always swore they were real.”

“Oh?” He blinked, pallid confusion in his Threads. “Yes, well, shewouldbelieve in them. The Hasstrel castle is full of ghosts. But… why do you ask?”

Iseult wet her lips. “So youdobelieve?”

“Most Cartorrans do. We are not a worshipping people, but we take our ancestors very seriously.” He planted his good hand on the bed and leaned toward her, a frown knitting across his face. “Again, Iseult, why do you ask?”

She scratched her nose. More gauze scraped. It was one thing to ask for his insight, and quite another to tell him she had ghosts haunting her dreams. “No reason,” she said at last.

His expression and Threads wore open disbelief, but he did not press her further—for which Iseult was grateful. She grew more tired by the second. Heavier, too, like a cave had collapsed atop her.

“Owl,” she said, but the name came out as a long, slurring moan.

Shock brightened Leopold’s Threads. In an instant, he was on his feet. “You are ill again. I will get Monk Evrane.” He moved away, so fast. Too fast. Streaks trailed behind him. A hundred Leopolds, a hundred versions racing across time.

“No,” Iseult called out, but like before, that was not what left her tongue.

By the time Evrane rushed in, shadows veiled Iseult’s vision. Evrane looked made of darkness, black waves coiling off her.

Wings,Iseult thought before the healing magic dragged her under.It looks like she has wings.

When Iseult next awoke, it was to someone barking, “Get her up,” in Cartorran. A man’s voice attached to vague, hazy Threads.

She stretched her eyelids high. The world wheeled into weak focus. Threads, Threads, Threads—the man who had spoken, as well as two more people now striding toward the bed. Monks she did not know.

For a brief, disoriented moment, their white cloaks looked fused together, a single entity crossing the room with Threads of hostile gray and green focus. Then the white smear reached Iseult, split once more into two, and faces materialized above her.

A woman, a man. The woman seized Iseult’s left arm, the manseized her right. Then, with grips that dug beneath her bandages and into her flesh, they wrenched Iseult into a sitting position and heaved her backward until her spine hit the headboard.

The world reeled around Iseult. No pain, only vertigo and confusion. Sleep still clung to her. The Firewitch still laughed in her ears.

Then the monks strode away, no longer melded into one, even as their Threads aligned in a single color: silvery revulsion. They were disgusted by Iseult’s weakness. Or perhaps disgusted by the touch of her. But Iseult was accustomed to disgust and hate, and if those feelings could kill, they would have slain her a long time ago.

She drew in a long breath, relieved when she felt her lungs press against her ribs. When her vision grew clearer and clearer by the second. White moonlight slashed through open curtains. She neither saw nor sensed Evrane or Leopold nearby.

She had little time to puzzle over their absence before the third monk—the man who’d first spoken—stalked into view.

At first, as Iseult watched his Threads approach, she thought the colors blended because of her own exhaustion. Because of the shadowy sleep that refused to fully release its hold. Except everything else in the room had crystallized. She felt alert, awake. Even her muscles felt light enough to move of their own accord.

Then she realized:He’s a Bleeder. Someone who bled from one emotion to the next, feeling each with frenetic intensity, yet never staying in one place for long. It gave their Threads a muddy weave.They are unstable,Gretchya had warned Iseult years ago.Each emotion is frayed and somehow simultaneous.There is no predicting what a Bleeder will do next.

Instantly, Iseult’s body tensed. Cold shoveled through her—hard ice after so much sleep saturated by flame.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked. He was young. Perhaps only a few years older than she. With his sallow skin and fair hair, his features bled together like his Threads, and the illusion was only compounded by the softness of his jaw and figure.