Page 43 of Bloodwitch

And her magic blared hotter, scratching over her skull now.False, false, false. Then the map vanished entirely.

Somehow, Safi managed not to react. Somehow, she kept a bored, tired expression tacked in place. Her mind, however, was alight. And her heels—oh,how her heels suddenly wanted to bounce and carry her closer to the table.

Instead, she yawned. A great stretching of her jaw that would have earned a scolding as a child. She pretended to hide it. Pretended to turn away from the Empress, all while swishing just a few inches sideways. Then a few inches nearer to the table. Another yawn, another stretch.

Now the map was fully in view, andnowshe could see that it was no map at all.

It was a message.

Do nothing. We have a plan.

That was all it said. Safi read it three more times, but there was nothing else. In Mathew’s familiar scrawl—on a document clearly Wordwitched—there were only six words:Do nothing. We have a plan.

Hell-ruttin’ weasel pies. Safi couldn’t decide if she ought to laugh or cry at the message. Because really, Habim? He wasreallytelling her to keep doing what she had already been doing, and hereallyexpected her to just wait around for some unknown plan?

Safi had followed her uncle’s plan in Veñaza City, and it hadn’t ended well. Twenty years in the making, a scheme that spanned the Witchlands, that was meant to stop the war from resuming and bring permanent peace to the empires—Safi had ruined it all in one night. Oh, she had done as ordered and followed the plan across the Jadansi on Merik Nihar’s ship, but then circumstances had forced her to deviate. Namely, her uncle’s ridiculous, unfair treaty with Nubrevna. And that deviation had landed her here, in Marstok.

It wasn’t her fault, though. It was the fault of a shoddy scheme with too many moving parts, as well as the fact thatno oneever told her what in damnation was going on.

And Safi especially wanted to know about Iseult. Safi wanted to know where in the Witchlands her Threadsister was. She wanted to know if Iseult was safe. And above all, she wanted to know how Habim intended to get her and Safi together again.

“Nomatsis,” she said, but Vaness and Habim only ignored her, continuing their discussion of winter snows and transport. So Safi repeated a bit louder and more emphatically, “Nomatsis.”

This time, Vaness broke off. “What is the problem?” She offered the faintest glare Safi’s way. “What about Nomatsis?”

“You currently provide space for their tribes to congregate outside cities.” Without asking for permission, Safi strutted to the table, chin high. Her shadow stretched across the map, and she tapped where shethoughtTirla had been. “Where will they go in the war, Your Majesty? What will you do to ensure that they are not targets of the empires?”

Vaness regarded Safi. The iron shackles at her wrists slithered and spun. The breeze off Lake Scarza wisped against her hair.

“Many Nomatsi tribes,” she said eventually, “have moved to the Raider King’s banner. They need no protection from me, Safi. If anything, this makes them the enemy.”

“But not all tribes,” she countered. “And perhaps they wouldn’t go to him if they felt they were safer here to begin with.”

“Hmmm.” The iron shackles slowed. Then she twisted back to Habim. “She makes a valid point, General. Have you accounted for Nomatsi tribes? How do you intend to protect them?”

Safi had to fight off a grin.Yes, have you accounted for Nomatsis, Habim? Have you accounted for Iseult?

His nostrils flared. “Twenty years ago, I protected their tribes and everyone else within our borders. I will protect them again, and it insults me that you would assume otherwise.” Habim’s focus never left Vaness as he said this, but his words sparkled in Safi’s rib cage—as true as true could be.

“Does the Truthwitch”—now Habim looked at Safi with daggers in his eyes—“have any other questions?”

“No.” She bared her toothiest grin. “I think your strategy is a sound one, General.”

He visibly bristled, weight shifting, lips puckering. And relief chuckled through Safi that even as Firewitch general and court Truthwitch, Habim still found her insufferable.

“It is good to know that farm life has not softened you, General.” Vaness offered these words calmly. Almost lightly, as if she joked.

Habim, however, did not take them that way. “Farm life,” he snapped, “is as difficult as soldiering, Your Majesty, and it would do well for an empress to remember that.”

Before Safi could blink, the iron at Vaness’s wrists shot to the general’s throat. Two crescent blades against his neck. In that same instant, the Adders unsheathed their blowguns and took aim.

Then everyone waited. Officers patrolling the lower levels gaped upward. The page boys ogled with slack jaws. Even the sails and themasts and the creaking, moaning warships seemed to hold their collective breaths.

“It would do better,” Vaness said with all the force of her title and her magic behind her words, “for a general to remember his station.”

Habim swallowed. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. Farm lifehassoftened me, it seems.”

“See that you harden yourself quickly then, or next time my blades will see just how soft you have become.”