Page 126 of Bloodwitch

“I watched it, you know. I watched the entire thing unfold, but I could do nothing.”

“Because you were Wordwitched.” Shamed fire burned in Safi’s shoulders. In her belly. She should have seen this coming.Whyhadn’t she seen this coming?

“You know the man who did this to me.” A statement, not a question.

And Safi couldn’t lie. “Yes. I know him, and General Fashayit too. They raised me, and I’msosorry I didn’t tell you. You trusted me, and I failed you.” She tied off the red crepe. Then with all the truth she could summon, straight from the heart of her magic, she said: “Iswearto you, Your Majesty, that I did not know what they had planned. I thought Habim had come to the city to take me home. Nothing more. Had I known they planned to… to…”

She trailed off. She couldn’t say the word “assassinate.” She couldn’t believe the people she’d loved—herThread-family—were capable of such a thing.

Vaness watched Safi. Her left eye blinked and blinked. Her chest trembled. No expression, though. No hint as to what she might be feeling. Until: “I believe you.” She looked away. “I heard what you told the men. And… Well, I suppose people do not jump off cliffs for just anyone.”

“No,” Safi replied, a taut chuckle beneath that word. “They don’t.Idon’t.”

As Safi uttered these words, Vaness changed. Between one moment and the next, the Empress went from injured and weak to poised and unharmed.

“Shit,” Safi whispered. “You’re glamoured again.”

No change of expression hit the magicked Vaness, but Safi heard her gasp. She heard her gown rustle too, as she frantically examined herself.

All Safi saw, though, was a cool, collected Empress staring straight ahead. And ifthisglamour had returned, then the others must have too. Which would make this escape much, much harder.

“Hell-Bards,” Safi blurted at the same moment Vaness said, “The Cartorrans.”

“They can see through this,” Safi went on, and at the glamoured Vaness’s nod, she asked, “Where are they now?”

“Only a level above.” The false Vaness pushed gracefully to her feet.

Then the false Vaness tumbled into the wall, and Safi realized she was barely clinging to consciousness. Safi slid an arm behind the stone-faced Empress. “Hold on to me,” she said. Then together, they walked to the ladder. Together, they ascended—Vaness first, in case she lost her strength.

It felt like a lifetime climbing those rungs. And the higher they moved, the more sounds drifted down from above. A rhythmicboom!that could have been fireworks, or could have been explosions. And a roar that sounded like the water in the sewer had felt. Like wind on a storm-crossed day.

It wasn’t until they reached the small hatch that would eject them into the palace that Safi realized what the sound was.

Fire.

Everything from the escape in Veñaza City was being used again. Glamours and distractions, soldiers with shifted loyalties and fire—lotsof fire.

Heat pressed against them through the door. “We should turn back,” Safi called, but either Vaness did not hear, or Vaness did not care. With her magic, she melted apart the door.

And the heat and roar doubled.

Vaness crafted a shield—a tactic she had successfully employed twice with Safi. Of course, both times there had been somewhere forthe smoke to go. Now, there was nowhere except around the iron barrier as Vaness and Safi climbed into and then across a room thick with flames.

Or maybe they were in a hallway. Or maybe it was a closet. Safi had no idea what was around them. Her eyes streamed. Her throat and lungs spasmed, and she only kept going because Vaness did. When they reached a stairwell not consumed by flames, though, Vaness sagged into Safi.

No warning, since Safi’s magic was still half missing and she only saw a perfectly poised Empress. Again, she helped the woman ascend, this time up low steps clogged by heat and smoke.

They reached the next level, and a familiar sandstone hall met Safi’s eyes. However, now it burned, and now, there was no one alive.

Vaness came to the same conclusion. She shook her head, expressionless, and shouted, “They cannot have survived this!” She tugged at Safi to continue rising.

But Safi didn’t move. In Veñaza City, Habim had started the fires in the walls.A Firewitch’s flames were magic.

“Release their restraints!” she called. “They could still be alive—please!”

A nod. A choking cough from a mouth that did not move. Then Vaness lifted an arm. Her wrist tipped upward, and together, she and Safi waited. Safi squinted into the flames while the glamoured Vaness appeared to do nothing at all.

Two charred breaths later, shadows appeared. Black and skeletal and moving this way.