Page 97 of Witchshadow

“Ah.” Alma’s fake smile smoothed away. “Corlant sought her. He expected her to be delivered, in fact, when we were in the Sirmayans. But someone killed the raiders who’d taken her. You, I suppose?”

It had not been Iseult, but Aeduan. Back in the Contested Lands, where death had razed like wildfire. Yet there was no point in explaining this—it was too complicated, too tiresome. Fortunately, Alma’s attention had already slid back to Owl.

“The child is a witch?” she asked.

“An Earthwitch.”

“What type?”

“No type. She is a full Earthwitch.”

“Oh?” The faintest twitch hit Alma’s eyes.Surprise,Iseult recognized—and the young woman hadn’t managed to hide it.Perhaps she is not so perfect after all.

Iseult’s delight was short-lived, for Alma didn’t seem to care that she had shown emotion. She seemed to relax into it, her melodic voice shifting to almost conversational. “I didn’t know full Earthwitches existed anymore.” She tapped a finger against her thigh. “No wonder Corlant wants her.”

“Or maybe Corlant wants her because of who sheusedto be.” Iseult scrutinized Alma’s face as she said this, hoping for some reaction. Hoping for some clue that the Threadwitch might know more than she let on. But Alma offered nothing. She only shook her head and glanced Iseult’s way.

“Used to be? What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Iseult pushed away from the flap before Alma might press for more. In five long strides, she’d reached Owl’s side. The healer’s work was finished, and a tiny Painstone winked against the girl’s chest. Gone was any sign of steel pain in her Threads. Now there was only hostility and exhaustion.

Which of course Alma could see. Iseult’s molars ground in her ears, and though sheknewshe ought to start with gentle words—perhaps even ask how the child was feeling—all that came out was a curt “We must move on now, Owl.”

“Move on?” Stubborn gray wefted up her Threads. “Why? I don’t want to.” She looked at Alma, and strands of green Threads reached,reached.The Threads that build, looking for a connection. Looking for someone to listen and care.

But Alma didn’t care. Not really. She would leave Owl behind just as Gretchya would, and pretending otherwise would help no one. Least of all this little girl with a magic everyone hunted and a past that was not her own.

“They do not want us here,” Iseult answered simply. “And so it is time we leave.” She offered Owl her hand. The child didn’t take it. Instead, she stared at Alma, those green tendrils still straining for humanity of any kind.

Iseult hated how familiar it was.

All she had ever wanted in life was a place to call her own. A home, true and steady, where she would never be afraid. Where she would never feelunwelcome. But she did not belong here, with her Severed Threads and her Void magic, any more than she had in the Midenzi settlement, tucked away from the world with a magic that could never be what her mother wanted. She had not belonged in Veñaza City. She had not belonged in Praga.

Either she was too Nomatsi, or she was not Nomatsi enough. Either she showed too few emotions, or she showed too many. And now Owl was facing that same truth, the same knife she could never escape.You are unwanted.

Owl must have seen something on Alma’s face—something that even Iseult missed—for her Threads abruptly stopped reaching. Abruptly reversed course, shriveling in while grief-stricken blue laid claim.

Her lip wobbled, but she did not cry, and heartbeat by heartbeat, more of that green determination that made Owl who she was assembled around her Threads. Until at last, she took Iseult’s hand, a weak grip but an accepting one all the same.

And something warm and new unwound in Iseult’s lungs. Something she’d never felt before but had craved every time another person had sent her away. Such a different heat from the Puppeteer rage, such a different heat from the tongue-thickening shame.

Maybe she and Owl were not enemies after all.

“Thank you,” Iseult told the healer as she hefted Owl off the table, the child’s eyes holding hers. “We are grateful for your help.” She didn’t wait for a reply before guiding Owl toward the tent’s flap.

Neither she nor Owl looked at Alma as they passed.

There was a way out of this prison tent. That much Aeduan knew—that much had ebbed to the surface, knowledge gleaned from the first Aeduan. Knowledge the new Aeduan should have tamped down…

But that he also was desperate to use.

The young woman named Iseult had unsettled him. Weakened him for just long enough that the other soul had clawed upward and seen this world, seen this tent… Then he’d overwhelmed Aeduan with a certainty that there was an escape here. It had something to do with his magic, something that Iseult should have seen but failed to protect against.

So now the new Aeduan was puzzling his way through what exactly his escape might be.

He was a Bloodwitch, that much he knew. And he had power over blood so vast that people feared him. Called himdemonwhen they thoughthe could not hear. Even the Raider King had looked at him with mild fear during their journey. But Aeduan still had not tapped into all the nuances and corners of this magic. He still, despite relying on it more and more each day, had no fathoming of just how much he might do.

He could move his muscles faster. He could track people by scent. And what else? What more?