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Theodore shook his head, his dour gaze somewhere off in the distance. “Not much.”

I gave an annoyed huff. “That means you know some.”

He finally deigned to look at me, only to give a scowl.

“I’m tired of your snit,” I spat at him.

“You’re mad at me. You think I’m being illogical and absurd to even suggest we unbind.

I get it. Be big enough to help me come up with a fucking plan regardless.

” I ripped off a bite of bread and chewed.

“If I can understand how magic works, then I can possibly narrow down a way to find and end Eusia. She uses magic the way Rohana does, I expect.”

Angry color had risen high on Theodore’s cheeks, but he kept a hold on himself.

“I don’t know where she would have learned it,” he relented.

“It’s highly regulated. A Mage Seer is permitted one apprentice ten years before her tenure is done.

” He rose and went to his mare, guiding her from the stream and back to the road.

I followed, thoughts churning. “How long is a Mage Seer’s tenure?”

“Four hundred years.” He put his foot in a stirrup and mounted. “Rohana is two hundred and seventy-eight years into her tenure.”

“So if I’d killed her, like I nearly had, Varya would have been left without a Mage Seer indefinitely.”

“Correct.”

I groaned as I pulled myself up into my saddle. “Where did Rohana learn magic?”

“None of them are old enough to have been taught by the First Mage, I don’t think. I can’t remember when she died. Spells are passed down, but Rohana and all the other kingdoms’ Mage Seers create a lot of spells that are entirely their own too.”

“They create their own spells?” I could only assume the spell that Eusia had used to bind us was her own.

Theodore gave a solemn nod. “The transference ritual my father performed—Rohana is the only one in Leucosia who can do it.” He was thoughtful for a moment as we moved out of the stream clearing.

“I don’t know much about the First Mage, but I do remember that she was executed, gutted if my memory is correct, for the way she used magic.

There’s little in the histories about her.

She was executed back in the First Years, when the Great Gods were new. That’s all I know.”

We wound down a sloping hill, back into the vineyards we’d traveled through on the way north.

“Rohana said that our bond—mine and Eusia’s—was forged by taking the Siren bond and mixing it with magic.

She said I was the one who had performed the spell—that I would have to be the one to break it. But I have no idea how.”

We rode side by side. “The ritual,” he said. “The prayer Nemea would make you recite. What was it, again?”

“‘I give to the sand. I give to the water. Hear me, heed me. Cleanse the sea.’” The words left an acerbic film over my tongue.

“The spell should have made you ill.” He narrowed his gaze, contemplative. “Would you feel unwell after performing the ritual?”

“No.” The night was settling over us, taking the last of the day’s warmth with it.

“I didn’t feel much of anything up in those mountains.

I expect if I perform a spell at sea level I will.

” I wrapped myself in the knit shawl that Antonia had gifted me.

“Do you have books on magic back at the palace? Anything the Great God Jesop wrote.”

“Yes. There are quite a few,” Theodore said carefully. “But they’re not allowed to be accessed.”

“You mean by commoners?”

He dipped his chin and looked at me with a sheepish eye. “No, not even I am allowed to take them from the lower study.”

A harsh wind cut through the vineyard, prickling my skin. I could feel his attention linger on me. “Who dares to tell you no?” I gave him a sardonic smirk. “I’d like a lesson from them on how it’s done.”

His chuckle was dark as the twilight shadows. “There’s a very tightly wound hermitess down there that does not let me—or anyone—enter.”

“Well, Your Majesty”—I straightened in my saddle—“your hermitess has not met the likes of me. I’m rather an expert at making people do what they don’t want to, aren’t I?”

He gave me a smoldering look, the barest edge of a smile on his lips. The warmth of his quiet laugh cut through the night’s chill. “May the Great Gods go with you. The hermitess carries a very knobby stick that she would swing at me when I was little and tried to sneak in.”

I laughed, but soon that awful, strained quiet that we had begun our journey in settled back around us.

He picked up our pace, riding at a gallop through endless vineyards.

It must have been midnight when my eyes were finally growing droopy.

A thundering sound rocked the air, jolting me fully awake. Horse hooves.

Theodore pulled on his reins. “ Whoa. ”

I slowed my mare too. “Is that coming from up ahead or behind?”

Before he could answer, a horn sliced through the night.

“Soldiers.” Theodore called out into the darkness. “Slow up ahead! This is your king. Slow your mounts!”

The retinue came into view and slowed into well-ordered rows.

Bringing up the rear was a small carriage.

“Your Majesty?” called a familiar voice.

Lachlan rode toward the head of the group, fully outfitted in his gold armor.

Even in the moonlight, I could make out the strain on his face, the worry strung through him.

“I thought you’d still be with the Mage Seer. We were coming to find you.”

“What’s happened?” Theodore asked, bracing himself for the reply.

But Lachlan didn’t answer. He looked to me with derision in his gaze instead. “You’re looking surprisingly well for being in the middle of a severing ritual.”

“I…” I bristled in my saddle. “We didn’t—”

Theodore cut me off. “I asked you what happened, Commander.”

“Ammos was sacked,” Lachlan said, grimly.

“So was Notos on the west shore. Nemea’s doubled the size of his fleet with mercenary ships.

More than we anticipated. He shouldn’t have the money for it.

” Lachlan gave me another withering glare.

“The empress isn’t pleased. She’s sent a missive for her own fleet to come and aid you.

She’s demanding you rally Sirens and force them to use their power to bolster the navy.

Sink the fleet so that her daughter becoming queen need not be delayed.

Tell me you performed the severance, and that Imogen is just uncommonly resilient. ”

Theodore was stoic as ever, sitting tall and unmoving. But I could sense that what Lachlan had just shared ripped at him.

“Your Majesty?” Lachlan’s gaze darted between the two of us.

“We didn’t do it,” I said. “Not yet. We… There was—a complication.”

“A complication?” Lachlan gave an angry laugh. “What was it? Like a ‘you lost the draught’ type of complication? A ‘didn’t quite feel like going through the trouble’ type of complication?”

“ Enough, ” Theodore snapped. “You won’t speak to her that way.” He dismounted and made for the carriage at the back of the line. Called out to the riders in a barking command, “Back to the palace.” He glared at me, then Lachlan. “With me. We need to talk.”