Page 127 of Witchshadow

She turned right as the first of the rats entered the ruined arena, streaming from the burning, collapsing scaffolding. They aimed for the only place absent of flames. They aimed for Stix and Ryber.

The captain’s room on theBlessingwas almost identical to Vivia’s on theIris.A slight rearrangement of furniture, slightly rougher floors, and slightly brighter lighting. Otherwise, all was the same—for which Vivia was grateful. She had been asleep in the captain’s bed for several hours, and there was a comfort in waking to familiarity.

“This is becoming a most inconvenient habit.” Vaness shifted in a chair and leaned out of a shadow. Lantern light warmed her face. “I thought I was the one with a sickness.”

Vivia offered a weak laugh and pushed herself upright. Vaness leaped forward to help, but Vivia was already sitting by the time the Empress reached her. So she stared down at Vivia, and Vivia stared at up at her.

“This isn’t normal.” “Vivia rubbed at her eyes, crusted with sea salt. “I’ve never passed out from my magic before. And certainly not twice in two days.”

“Hmmm.” Vaness eased onto the bed’s edge. She sat primly, hands folded upon her lap. Like Vivia, salt had caked against her skin.

“All magic has a price,” Vaness said after several moments. “And the more powerful the witchery, the steeper the toll. Although…” A tightening of her face. Then a full frown. “I have noticed my own sickness getting worse. As if the magic I’m tapping into has a limit. As if—”

“You are becoming the iron you need to use.”

Vaness blinked. “Hye. That is exactly it.” Her head tipped sideways, gaze roaming over Vivia’s face. “It happens to you then?”

“Hye.” Vivia’s cheeks warmed at the scrutiny. “And because of it, I lose sight of my own limits. I lose sight of—”

“Who I am.”

Vivia swallowed. Vaness wet her lips. And for several long seconds, they stared at each other. An open, unmasked stare that made Vivia’s neck warm. And her chest and hands too.

A knock thumped at the door. Vivia’s heart jumped; Vaness startled to her feet. And a moment later, theBlessing’s captain shoved in. A stocky woman, shorter even than Vaness, she had been several years ahead of Vivia in training—but like Stix, her family was nobility. And like Vivia, she could control the tides.

Shanna Quintay. She nodded at Vivia and her swagger across the room paused just long enough for a bow, fist over heart. Then she directed her attention to Vaness. “We could not reach Ginna, Your Imperial Majesty. We tried several times, but the Voicewitch must be drugged as you were.”

Vivia’s eyebrows lifted, and she turned a surprised eye on Vaness. The Empress had clearly updated Shannaandasked her to reach out to Vivia’s crew, for which Vivia was… grateful. Surprised, impressed, and grateful.

“We did, however,” Shanna continued, “contact a Voicewitch from Noden’s Gift. She said only that the village was under attack and Lovats would not reply.”

Of course they wouldn’t. It was so like Serafin to hide himself behind the Sentries of Noden. To lock himself within the city while the rest of the world burned.Share the glory, share the blame.

“Then we must help them,” Vivia said. She scrubbed at her eyes—so salty—and searched for the right words, the right plan to help a village faced with hundreds of Dalmotti sailors.

Before she could conjure anything or sort through all this spinning and tightening in her gut, Shanna said: “Where Noden’s Gift has failed, though, we have succeeded. My Voicewitch is in contact with Lovats right now.” She snapped her fingers toward the door, and a lithe man walked into the cabin. His eyes glowed rose, his attention fixed on the middle distance. At his side, a ship’s boy cradled his arm and guided him toward the table.

“He’s connected right now?” Vivia asked, finally shoving off the cot andcrossing to him. Her legs, though weak from lying down, were strong from the boat’s tender rocking. “To whom?”

The Voicewitch found Vivia’s face. “Daughter.”

And Vivia’s stomach bottomed out. She hadn’t heard her father’s voice in over a month—and though this was not truly his voice, it was close enough. The sharpened consonants, the subtle condescension. It was a perfect mimicry. Bile swam upward in Vivia’s belly. Her fingers curled into her thighs.

“Your Maj—” She broke off.No.“Father,” she offered instead. “Nihar burns. You must send in the Royal Navy.”

“Imust do nothing,” he replied, and she could just imagine him seated at his desk, cold eyes locked upon his Voicewitch. Gray light filtering through threadbare blue curtains. “Youmust turn yourself in. You and that Marstoki smut must give yourselves up to Dalmotti immediately.”

“Our people are dying—”

“Exactly,” he barked. “And the longer you wait, the more lives will be lost.”

“Ah.” The word escaped on a sigh, and for some inexplicable reason, Vivia wanted to laugh. She shouldn’t be surprised by his words. She’d told Vaness what he was made of. Yet knowing andknowingwere not the same thing.

What a silly little fox. What a sad little fox.

“What happened to ‘bringing the empires to their knees’?” she asked, head shaking. “What happened to the man who would never surrender, never give in—”

“Says the girl who consorts with the Iron Bitch.”