Page 124 of Witchshadow

“Lost in the Solfatarra,” she lied. He was so close. Cloying in his closeness, overwhelming in his Threads. The yellow stain where his eye had been now stank. Fetid, rotting—it was not healing well.

“Luckily for you,” he said, “I recall most of it. There is much you can learn from me.”

“From you,” Iseult countered, using the moment to launch back to her feet. “Or from Eridysi, who actually wrote it?” She stared down at him, briefly taller.

And he smiled, though it did not reach his eye. “Your mother used to have a sharp tongue too, Iseult. It did not last.”

“And I am not my mother.”

“A good thing, for she was too weak to serve my purpose in the end.” Still sitting, he waved to Evrane. While the monk approached, Iseult finally glanced at her mother’s shadow.

Gretchya did not lift her head. She was made of stone. A stasis statue, as she’d always been.

Evrane reached Corlant and offered him a small white cloth, foldedover something that Corlant quickly withdrew: the noose off a Hell-Bard. The one that had first connected Iseult to Corlant several days before. He could touch it without being sucked in. He could hold it to the light and watch it glitter, no fear of its frozen grasp.

“You will take this,” he said, lone eye pinned to Iseult’s face. “And together we will enter the Loom.”

“Why?”

“Because there is work to be done and Threadstones to be found.”

Before Iseult could react, before she could back away and try to flee, Corlant’s fingers lashed out and gripped her wrist. Then he shoved the gold against her hand, warm from Evrane’s pocket, and the world of the living fell away.

It started with Caden. They were an hour into their flight when he floundered away from the railing, a choke garbling from his throat. Then he was on all fours and gasping for air. Black lines crawled across his face.

Safi dropped to his side in an instant. “Caden.” She tried to haul him upright. “Caden, Caden.”

He pawed her away, head shaking. “He… wants you.” His eyes screwed shut. “He wants me to bring—”

Lev screamed. She fell to the deck, and when Safi whipped toward her, she found veins of shadow crawling beneath the woman’s skin. They were like Safi’s, but wilder. More deadly and spreading fast. Only Zander seemed untouched as he scrabbled toward Lev.

He yanked off his belt. “Between the teeth,” he barked at Safi, and she quickly moved to do the same with Caden.

But Caden grabbed her wrist. Stopped her from shoving the leather in. “Dump us. Run.”

“Never.”

“You have to,” he begged. His eyes blackened, pupils claiming everything. “Please, Safi—”

“No.” Leopold’s voice sliced out, calm and commanding. He stalked toward them from the tiller. “Safiya claimed she could stop Henrick’s command, so…” He pinned her with a hooded stare. “Stop the command, please.”

Safi stared right back. Caden’s grip tightened on her wrist; nails dug in. But she didn’t withdraw—and she didn’t recoil from Leopold’s challenge. She had known this moment would come, and if Leopold sought to makean example, to teach her a lesson, to catch her in her earlier lie and force her to watch as her friends were doomed before her eyes…

Well, Leopold fon Cartorra—and Henrick fon Cartorra too—could eat goat shit.

She pulled her wrist free from Caden. He was convulsing now. His nails had drawn blood on the sliver of space between cuff and glove. She welcomed the pain, the welling heat. It brought her clarity as she forced her belt between his teeth. Then she sank onto her haunches and grabbed the gold chain still looped about her wrist.

Instantly, Caden and Lev stopped seizing.

At first, Safi thought she’d done it. That just by touching the chain and willing her friends to be better, she had stopped the doom and interfered with Henrick’s command. Leopold seemed to think the same, for his posture softened as if on the cusp of an apology.

But then Lev’s voice croaked out. “He has a message.”

“Yes,” Caden wheezed, a broken beat later. “He says you will not… get far. He will find you.”

And Safi realized in that moment that she had done nothing; Henrick had simply released them and finished his punishment.

Leopold realized the same. His sneer returned, hard eyes sweeping over the Hell-Bards before settling at last on Safi. “Do you still believe they should have joined us?”