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T HE KING’S PROPHET WAS WAITING OUTSIDE LEVAN’S CHAMBERS, one soft-heeled foot pressed flat on the wall he was leaning against. His dark red hair was like molten copper beneath the lamplight, and his pale, freckled skin danced with shadows. He peered irritably at a goldenjade pocketwatch.

“Levan’s otherwise engaged,” Saffron said, without preamble. “He sends his apologies.”

Harrow looked up, frowning. “Is everything alright? He never misses our … communions.”

The image of that impaled hand sent a shiver down her spine. “Something came up.”

“Hopefully not his vock, ” Harrow said mildly. “Do you have him tied up in a dungeon somewhere? He always did like the, ah, firmer restraints.”

Saffron snorted at the accidental accuracy. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll be off, then.” Harrow dropped his heel to the ground, standing up to his full height, which was at least half a foot shorter than Saffron. “I don’t usually frequent the pleasurehouses—unbecoming, for a King’s Prophet—but my well is especially dry today.”

He turned to leave, and an idea came to her.

“Harrow, wait.”

Swiveling on his boot, he quirked a brow.

“Are you an Augurest?” she asked.

Just because he didn’t shave his head and tattoo his eyelids didn’t mean he wasn’t harboring radical beliefs. Historically, most Foreseers swore fealty to the Five Augurs. And if this was the case, he would want to see a Timeweaver like her eradicated.

“Absolutely not.” His laughter was high and bright, like the peal of a church bell. “Just like I’m not loyal to any crown, I’m not loyal to any religion either. My only true faith is pleasure.”

“And have you always had the gift of prophecy?”

“Ever since I was a boy.” His voice was arch, well educated, the subtle Bellandrian accent adding a marbled lilt.

“They came so thick and fast I struggled to discern between tenses, for a while. Never quite knew what had already happened, what was currently happening, or what was going to happen. My parents thought I was talking in riddles half the time. Why do you ask?”

She was surprised by his openness, but supposed he had no fundamental reason to distrust her.

“I’ve never had a knack for it myself, but I touched an artifact several months ago, and it showed me a glimpse of …

something.” She talked quickly, breathlessly.

It was the first she’d spoken of the prophecy in over a year.

“Do you think that could’ve been a real vision?

Or at least an echo of one? Or does the fact I have no foreseeing power mean it’s impossible, and I might have just banged my head a little? ”

An amused smirk notched a dimple in Harrow’s cheek. “ Had you banged your head a little?”

“I don’t know,” Saffron admitted. “It’s all a bit of a blur.”

She didn’t know why she felt the need to ask—Aspar had confirmed the prophecy was real in the hours that followed.

And yet the captain had devoted her entire life to the Augurs, and so her faith in the power of prophecy was inherently stauncher than most. For some reason, Harrow’s libertine perspective held more weight.

Saff didn’t know, either, why she so desperately wanted him to tell her it had likely been an illusion, a mirage. A trick of the light. She didn’t know why she so badly did not want to kill the kingpin’s son.

Harrow leaned back against the wall. As he shifted, Saff caught the scents of honeywine and sandalwood. “Well, my Five Augurs history is a little wanting , but many scholars believe that wands from that era could store prophecies cast long ago.”

Saff absently patted Rasso’s head. He was whining; she’d forgotten to feed him amongst all the chaos. She’d need to send a servant for some fresh ewe hearts. “But there would only be five of said wands, wouldn’t there? And the first four are locked away in the Museum of Verdivenne.”

“Oh, no.” He smoothed a loose strand of red hair from his face. “Foreseers were so common back then that most people could conjure a vision or two. They were usually mundane—foretelling weather patterns was the best most could hope for—but there was the occasional big ticket vision.”

“But that was a thousand years ago. The prophecy I saw related to something that might happen in the next few weeks or months. Could they have foreseen an event that was over a thousand years away from coming to pass?”

“Er, possibly?”

“And why show itself to me ?” Saff went on, a year of questions tumbling out of her like small rocks loosening before a landslide. “Someone with no foreseeing ability whatsoever? Plenty of mages must have handled the wand between then and now.”

“Well, does the prophecy relate to you ?”

“It does.”

He shrugged, as though this settled matters.

Saffron decided to push her luck, to follow her detective’s instincts. “What kind of prophecies do you share with Levan?”

“Aha, now you’ve overstepped, my darling.” He pushed off the wall and blew her an elaborate Bellandrian air-kiss: three smooches, pressed against the tips of his fingers. “Tell Levan I miss his vock. ”

“I probably won’t,” Saffron replied drily.

Once Harrow’s clipped footsteps had disappeared around the corner with a swoosh of navy cloak, Saffron opened the door to Levan’s chambers. Rasso padded in beside her, nuzzling at her hip, a smudge of silver-white in the low light of the glimmering candles.

It was late, and exhaustion pressed into Saffron from all angles.

A heavy, breathless force that felt like the stifling heat of Lyrian’s fire.

It had been a fraught few hours inside a fraught few weeks inside a fraught life, and there was still no end in sight.

She was back to square one thanks to the botched raids, and she doubted the Bloodmoons would be so lax with their ledgers going forward.

How in the hells would she ever bring them to justice? It would be even harder for the Silvercloaks to secure a warrant after the chaos of the failed dock raid.

But she couldn’t think about that right now. She just had to keep moving forward.

The first thing she did upon entering Levan’s room was slide a hand under his bed and pull out the discarded wand. Tucking it into her cloak pocket, she wasn’t quite sure why she felt the need to retrieve it—only that the idea of it falling into Lyrian’s hands felt dangerous, somehow.

Then she crossed to the writing desk and tapped her own wand tip against the third drawer down. “ Baudry’s bitch. ” She allowed herself a soft chuckle at the password. Only Levan.

The drawer shook itself loose, and she opened it to find a neat apothecary of various salves and medicinal herbs, all alphabetized and dated as to when they were brewed.

Why did he need to password-protect this?

Almost at once, the question answered itself.

There, in a small wooden trinket box, was a label that said loxlure.

Was it used as pain relief in some of his salves?

If so, it made sense that he had to keep it under lock and key.

Castian was openly an addict, along with Saints knew how many others.

Hells, Levan himself had to be tempted. It was the ultimate test of his own self-control to keep it right there in his room.

He must have a will of iron to resist day after day.

She grabbed the salve he’d requested—a pale turquoise jar, topped with wax-sealed paper .

She wondered why he would ever use a salve on himself instead of healing the wound magically, as he was perfectly able to do.

Were some curse wounds immune to mederan ?

She tried to remember from her mother’s practice but came up empty.

Saff hated the feeling that more and more of her mother was being lost to the murky past. It was like trying to cup water in your hands; no matter how tightly you pressed your fingers together, it would slowly, inevitably, slip away.

She was just about to leave when another thought came to her.

The notebook in the bottom drawer—the one she’d been unable to pry open the last time she snooped in this room. She’d wondered at the time if it might have been a ledger.

She pulled it out of the drawer, running a finger over its plain spine.

Once more, she tapped her wand and said, “ Baudry’s bitch. ”

It fell open on a random page in the first quarter of the notebook.

A journal. The page was dated around six months ago, and Levan’s narrow cursive handwriting looped and swirled all over the parchment. Saff’s heart leapt into her mouth.

SORDING, 14 MAGNáRIEL, YEAR 1174

Almost three years since Alucia died. A thousand days, and I have felt every single one.

They say time heals all wounds, but even with my mother’s wand and a fallowwolf by my side, I cannot convince the slippery seconds and minutes and hours to obey. To wind back the clock to before Alucia was killed.

What use is Rezaran blood if it cannot move time like a tide? I am a slave to its relentless forward march, leaving everyone I have ever loved dead in its wake. Though in truth, Alucia was never mine to love. That much is horribly clear.

How much loss can one person take before the lure of lox becomes too strong to resist?

Saffron slammed the journal shut, chest pounding.

Alucia had been dead for three years ?

There was no way even the most gifted necromancer could bring her back. Surely a mage as smart as Levan had to know that.

There were so many questions, and she held all the answers in her hands. But she also remembered what Aviruna said about moral codes within the confines of Bloodmoon life.

The kingpin is not always here. What you do in his absence matters.

She should put the journal back in the drawer and never look at it again. The idea of Levan having access to her deepest thoughts made her prickly, nauseous. She couldn’t do the same to him.

And yet …

What if he named his Silvercloak rat?

She was here as a detective, first and foremost, and she wouldn’t be able to best the Bloodmoons while the rat was still active. Every raid would meet the same fate if Levan was always one step ahead. No tactical team would ever be able to close in when the Bloodmoons knew exactly what was coming.

She had to read it.

It was yet another line crossed, another betrayal of the good person she’d always believed herself to be.

You’re not better than me. You’re exactly the fucking same.

No. Levan was wrong. She was doing this not to save her own skin, but to bring down the bloodiest, most brutal criminal organization in Atherin’s history.

The end justified the means. It had to.

Flipping the pages until she found the most recent dates, she blurred her eyes as she skim-read, focusing only on proper nouns, on capitalized names, hoping to spot a familiar shape.

But as she passed through the last few weeks of entries, none of her suspects materialized—not Grand Arbiter Dematus, not Detective Fevilan, and not Nissa Naszi.

She was about to close the journal when something caught her eye.

It wasn’t just the name Silver—though that had been mentioned plenty of times—it was the date of the entry. Plenting morning, just after she’d told him where he could find Nalezen Zares.

We have a location for Zares at last, but I keep my hopes tempered. It would not be the first time the necromancer has slipped between my fingers.

I cannot let desperation cloud my mind. Not when Silver has already misted the glass.

I must play this carefully, perfectly. The rat promises to be a valuable source of information, and his father is in the King’s Cabinet—yet another thread to pull, when the time comes.

Saffron clasped a hand to her mouth.

His father is in the King’s Cabinet.

It was Tiernan.

Tiernan was the rat.