He Who Breaks the Earth (The Gods-Touched Duology)
He Who Breaks the Earth: Chapter 19

Lia dug her paddle into the water, her heart still lurching at the sight of Altahn pulling Noa’s limp body out of the water and Anwei screaming directions for how best to keep her alive. A current had caught them, swirling the two boats apart, but after a few minutes, Anwei had announced that Noa was all right.

She’s all right. Lia breathed through the words, trying to replace the image of Noa’s limp body. Knox was all right after we fought. I didn’t kill anyone.

I’m all right. The Warlord won’t replace me out here. I’m alive and free to save Aria. That’s all that matters.

“This inlet here,” Anwei called, jabbing a finger toward a thin stream of water cutting into the sand. Not their river. Not where they needed to go.

Vines hung down over the little stream from the trees above. Lia angled the boat alongside a wave, Anwei paddling to ride it up into the little channel. “You’re sure?” Lia asked, shivering as the vines seemed to close behind them like a curtain.

“This will connect to the main river upstream. We’re meeting Bane and Gilesh at the tributary you showed us on the map—this will get us there without Ellis scooping us up and cooking us slowly over a bonfire made from all that’s left of his ship.”

“We had to blow up the boat. Ellis getting caught in the explosion wasn’t on purpose. The Warlord was there. And Mateo.”

Anwei dug in her paddle a little too deep at the sound of her brother’s name, the silence like poison.

Lia wanted to say something. But also, she didn’t. “What do you plan to do with your br—” Lia stopped short, something glimmering at the edge of her aurasight.

“What is it?” Anwei’s paddle dragged in the water.

Lia blinked, then blinked again, the flicker of gold disappearing over the edge of her aurasight. She pulled her paddle out of the water and set it across her lap, closing her eyes. Anwei stilled behind her, waiting.

The aura cruised into her sight almost immediately, tearing up the little tributary after them. “Stormy skies!” she swore, stabbing her paddle back into the water and pulling with all her might. Anwei matched her, still waiting. “One of the Devoted from the bay is following us.” Eyes glossing over the bank and forest beyond, Lia tried to think of a way she could hide, but there wasn’t much she could do but paddle faster. “The Warlord won’t believe I’m dead unless someone drags my bloated corpse to her feet.”

“Which probably isn’t feasible for us to accomplish,” Anwei agreed. “Finding a body match is complicated even with lots of notice.”

Lia couldn’t spare the energy to properly grimace at Anwei, though the healer must have noticed a change because her voice was a little defensive when she spoke again. “I’m not a miracle worker, Lia. My only contact in this region is compromised.”

“Oh, well, if your contacts are compromised—”

“How many Devoted?” Anwei interrupted, digging her paddle in to turn the boat around a sharp curve in the channel, Lia ducking under some trailing vines. “And how long do we have before they catch up?”

“Only one. There are two of us so we can row faster, but he’s lighter, and…” Lia gulped. He was lighter, and he had Calsta’s third oath burning inside him, making him stronger than she or Anwei could be together. “Maybe ten minutes?”

“But you’ve seen him, so that means he’s already seen you and knows you’re still alive and here. So why are we running?” Lia glanced back at her, incredulous, and Anwei shrugged. “Fine. Paddling.”

“It’s not your choice of verbs I’m wondering about, Anwei.”

“If we paddle our hearts out and get away, the Devoted will report back to the Warlord, and then the whole camp you saw last night will be after you.” She was quiet for a moment, and frustration sparked inside Lia as she felt the healer’s paddle begin to drag. The golden aura loomed closer.

“Where’s Vivi?” Anwei asked after a moment.

“A mile outside of Kingsol on the other side of the Felac.” Lia ducked another vine, swearing when it clipped the top of her head. It wasn’t loose, but woody and stiff, like a branch.

“Too far to be a resource. And you’re not strong yet?”

“Knox told you about the oaths?”

“No, but I’m not blind. I did live a few feet away from Knox for a year. The Devoted is gaining on us because he’s”—Anwei gestured awkwardly—“whatever you call it when Calsta thinks you’re obedient enough to let you kill people more easily.”

Lia started to laugh. “Exactly that, Anwei.”

“So a direct fight isn’t a good idea.”

“I can fight—”

“Yes, I’ve seen. But he’ll be easier to get rid of if he’s confused.” Anwei dug in her paddle, and the canoe lurched toward the shore. “You get out of the boat. I’ll take care of this.”

“I don’t want to kill him.” Lia kept rowing, her muscles burning as she fought Anwei’s steering, the familiar feeling of helplessness kinking in her spine. She hadn’t wanted to kill the Rooster she’d accidentally pushed to his death. And Ewan—

Ewan she hadn’t wanted to kill either, for all he’d done. She’d wanted him to end. To cease to be a threat. And he hadn’t agreed, so there had only been one path forward. Something she, Noa, and Vivi had all seen, the three of them coming together to make Ewan stop.

As they rowed farther up the inlet, trees loomed overhead, blocking out Calsta’s sun. Where are you, Calsta? Lia thought. If taking Tual down is so important, couldn’t you have just kept the Warlord away from us? Couldn’t you take away my aura sparks or take away that Devoted’s power so he can’t see me?

Calsta had only spoken to Lia once, the memory of the goddess’s voice like a spot of char in her mind. Lia knew Sky Painter wouldn’t just take a Devoted’s power. The one behind them had made the proper oaths. He’d made the sacrifices. Oaths went two ways. Ewan hadn’t gotten his power back after he had attacked Lia, though. Surely that meant there was something Calsta could do.

“Help me replace a good place to destroy the boat,” Anwei interrupted her thoughts.

“A good spot to what?”

“Do you trust me, Lia?” Anwei placidly continued to row.

“I mean…” Lia swallowed, thinking of Noa lying still at the bottom of the boat. That had been Lia’s fault. It had been Anwei who had given Knox the help he needed to bring her gasping back to life.

Of course, it had been Anwei’s plan that put Noa on the boat in the first place. But it was also Anwei’s plan that was going to get them into Tual’s house. Knox trusted her. She still needs us.

“I guess I kind of trust you?” Lia still didn’t stop rowing.

“Why don’t you pretend to be a little more confident about it for a few minutes.” Anwei flashed a smile at Lia when she glanced back at the healer. That smile—it had always bothered her because it was familiar, and just then she realized why: Anwei had been wearing it the day she and Lia had met.

The Beildan had been holding some kind of poison behind her back, ready to throw it at any moment even as she’d talked Lia through a panic attack.

“Look! This is perfect.” Anwei was already turning the boat into a gap in the trees, roots twisting up out of the water clear to the rocky shore and vines hanging from the branches spread over the river like a curtain. “You get out of aurasight range. Don’t leave any footprints.”

“What are you going to do? Throw herbs at him?” Because that’s what Knox said she did. She brought herbs to a sword fight.

“Something like that. Maybe stay close enough that you can help if things go terribly—” When Lia looked away from the shore to see why Anwei had stopped, the healer was bending over the boat’s edge, her hand splayed out less than an inch above the water’s surface. Suddenly, something writhed up from the murky water, then splashed back down before Lia could see what it was.

“Calsta’s teeth,” Anwei swore.

“What is it?” Lia hefted the paddle, wishing to Calsta her sword hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the bay with Ellis’s carom. In the deeper shadows she could see little spots glowing in the water.

“Elsparn.” Anwei sniffed her wet fingers and recoiled, her nose twitching. “Don’t touch the water—they’ll strip anything alive to the bone.” She pointed to the vines. “You’ll have to climb. Go quick, or this isn’t going to work.”

Anwei brought the canoe as near to shore as they could with the roots sticking up from the water like dead fingers. Lia tested the strength of the closest cluster, the stiff curls holding when she prodded them with her toe. Transferring her weight from the wobbly canoe, Lia held on to the woody vines for balance, then started up the sturdiest one like a rope, climbing hand over hand until she got to the thick branch overhead. Once she’d pulled herself up, she climbed over to the main trunk, chancing a look down once she got there. Anwei was balanced on the same root Lia had used, clinging to one of the vines with one hand and to her medicine bag with the other. The boat was turned nose-down, halfway submerged, and trapped against the roots. When the healer caught Lia looking, she gestured violently toward the forest. “Go!”

Lia climbed higher, the burn of aurasparks out of sight for the moment. She edged down to where the tree’s branches twined with the branches of the next tree over and climbed across. Once she was well past the shore, she jumped out of the tree and ran back from the bank, swearing at the hollow echo her feet made, little cracks forming in the moss as she went. It was one of those thin areas where the river continued beneath the ground as if the land was nothing more than skin on cold soup.

Panic and adrenaline buzzed inside her. What could Anwei do? Smiling and joking with a Devoted weren’t going to stop him any more than flower petals.

Still, Lia ran until Anwei’s aura winked out of sight behind her. She curved around to hide behind one of the thick trees. Just as she started to peek out, hoping to at least be able to see what was going on, a pitiful cry reached her goddess-enhanced ears. “Help!”

Lia went still. It was Anwei.

“Please!” the healer’s voice pled. “My boat turned over, and there’s something in the water—”

Even from where Lia was standing more than a hundred yards away, she could see the glint of Calsta’s sun on the Devoted’s blade as his boat slid into view.

When the Devoted spoke, his voice was quiet, but it left all Lia’s senses firing. “How did you come to be here, healer?”

“Didn’t you see the ship burning? I managed to get off, but”—here, Anwei’s voice took a pathetically fetching rasp—“then something came out of the water and tried to bite me—it’s still there, circling. All I want is to get back to Beilda. Please, do you have any water?”

Lia could not imagine a world where she would have let Anwei into her boat, but the Devoted put out a hand to help her down from the vines. He even helped her sit and patted her back consolingly as she sniffled into her palms. “Thank you. With all the ports being closed, I’d finally found someone willing to take me close to Beilda—”

“There was someone on your boat before it sank. Small, with curly red hair. Did you happen to see her after you escaped?” the Devoted asked.

“I didn’t really see anyone but the captain. Most everyone went below, and then that other boat started shooting fire. I’ve never seen anything so horrible.” She gasped down a sob. “Please, if you have water, may I have some? I inhaled smoke from the fire, and when I dipped my hands into the water, those things down there—”

“Yes, of course.” He looked around the boat, picking up the waterskin Anwei must have seen as she climbed in. “There were a few boats that managed to escape the ship—did you happen to notice anyone else on the river here? I saw the red-haired girl in a canoe just like this one. There was a woman with her. With Beildan braids.”

Lia went very still.

Anwei didn’t seem to register the threat, her tears coming even faster. “There was another healer? Was she trying to help the sailors who were burned in the fire? I feel like such a fraud. I just left. I was so scared—”

Lia started running, the trees blocking her view as her humors filled with Calsta’s energy. Of course he let Anwei into his boat. Of course he knew from the beginning who Anwei was. Of course—

Her foot punched through the thin crust of brittle earth, and suddenly she was knee-deep in water, flailing to get free. The forest was so, so quiet by the time she managed to extract her foot through the hole and limp toward the river, and when she finally got a clear view of the boat between trees there was only one figure standing there.

Lia’s eyes seemed to blur, and it took a moment for her to realize they were tears. It was too late. She should run. She should—Lia tore through the foliage toward the Devoted.

What could she do without Anwei? Storm Tual’s house on her own? With the Warlord, Mateo, and Tual Montanne all waiting for her? Aria was in the grip of a shapeshifter, the most conniving, immoral, inhuman person she’d ever met.

She needed Anwei if she wanted to save Aria.

“Lia?” The voice struck out like lightning.

Furious, awful tears burned down her cheeks as she charged toward the boat, rage like fuel inside her—she didn’t need a sword; she didn’t need any weapon but her own two hands—

“Lia?” The voice again. “Lia, stop!”

It was only the last shout as Lia ran into the shallows that stopped her. Pain stabbed into her calf, teeth digging into the skin.

Lia bit down hard, hurling herself back from the water and swiping toward the long, bluish-gray thing clamped to her leg. Her fingers peeled it back, digging into an eye and squeezing until it let go.

It writhed for a moment, purple blood seeping out from the eye socket down its floppy body until it lay still in the mud.

She looked up to replace Anwei contemplating her from the boat, the unconscious Devoted’s arms gathered in her lap while she tied his wrists together with a torn-off strip from her tunic. Anwei pursed her lips. “You are the most intelligent person I know.”

Lia pressed a hand to the wound in her leg, sighing in relief to see it wasn’t too deep. “I don’t need you to make fun of me.”

“I’m not. Would you collect that specimen while I finish up here?” Anwei nodded to the slimy gray thing, then turned back to her job. “I’m afraid I don’t know the long-term effect of Sleeping Death when used in this particular form”—she gestured to the Devoted that she’d knocked out—“but uncertain side effects seemed a better alternative than letting him break my arm.” She gave the lump of a shoulder visible over the side of the canoe a satisfied pat. “He should be out for a day at least.”

Lia still couldn’t breathe. She pressed a hand to her stomach as she tried to inhale. “I thought he stabbed you.”

Anwei frowned. “Stabbing me wouldn’t make any sense. He needed to know where you were.”

“You have too much faith—”

Anwei swung her head around to look at Lia, an abrupt movement that made Lia’s hand clench unconsciously for a weapon. “I have no faith in humans, Lia. Which is why we’re going to leave this man for the animals to replace. Or the Devoted. Or whoever. He won’t remember what happened when he wakes up, so we’ll let Falan and her luck decide.” She gave a resigned sigh. “I guess we can leave him in the boat so nothing has too easy a time eating him.”

Lia slowly stood. “It’s all about control, isn’t it. You telling us all what to do, where to go. But you make promises you can’t keep.”

“Which promises haven’t I kept?”

“You’ve kept them so far because of luck, not because your plans were engineered to keep any of us safe. All of us are relying on you, Anwei. Noa was relying on you, Knox is relying on you, I’m relying on you, and you just climbed into that Devoted’s boat like it was nothing. You run fool-headed into situations without thinking things through! People with knives in their gut can still talk. If you die, where will the rest of us be?”

“I know what I’m doing, Lia. You and I don’t look at things the same way because we have different strengths.” She shrugged. “People know exactly what you are because you hide nothing. For me, it’s people thinking they know exactly what I am that lets me do things like jam a waterskin laced with Sleeping Death down their throats, then make them swallow.”

“What about us? The people on your crew, Anwei. What are we supposed to see in you?”

“You know what I am, so you don’t have to worry, do you?” Anwei grabbed hold of one of the vines and carefully pulled herself up, maneuvering the Devoted’s little boat closer to theirs. She grabbed hold of the upturned hull of their canoe and pulled, gasping when the wood cracked. “Calsta take these awful elsparn—the seats just smelled like us and they gnawed them to pieces!” She let it fall with a disgusted groan. “I don’t think this is salvageable. We’ll have to walk.”

Lia turned back toward the forest, rage still rushing through her deeper than any river, more voracious and destructive than any elsparn, and there was nowhere for it to go. It choked in her throat and begged to be screamed up toward the sky. Who was she angry at? The Devoted who hadn’t killed Anwei? Anwei, who’d taken care of the problem exactly as she’d told Lia she would?

Grabbing the floating paddle from the water, she forced herself to breathe in deep the way they’d taught her at the seclusions. She’d lost control. Like when she’d sparred with Knox. She couldn’t do it again. It would get someone killed.

If she lost control, it could get Aria killed.

But how could she let go of the rage that sliced so deep?

Anwei reached for the nearest vine, tied the Devoted’s boat to it, then stumbled out onto the roots, her medicine bag swinging haphazardly at her hip. She gave the boat a good kick so that it stuck between roots, then picked her way to shore. Lia ignored her, concentrating on the forest, the leaves, the wind on her face. And then on Anwei’s hand on her shoulder. Lia resisted at first but then finally met Anwei’s gaze.

In the healer’s eyes, she saw understanding there that she didn’t expect to replace. “You have to focus your anger,” Anwei said. “Choose something to direct it at, or it’ll take who you are. Poison inside you will kill you just as fast as any sword.”

“Is that what you do when… there’s nothing you can do?” Lia couldn’t look away from Anwei’s steady gaze, desperate for an answer, because Anwei was nothing but control after losing so much. “I wanted so badly to be free that I let people I loved die for it.”

“Nobody died because of you, Lia.” Extracting a jar from her bag, Anwei emptied out something cottony and studded with dead leaves. “They died because Tual Montanne killed them.”

“But Aria—”

“Is alive. We’re going to get her. She isn’t going to be the next bloody exchange Tual makes to get what he wants. He steals from the rest of us instead of making his own sacrifices, but no more. This is us doing something.”

“It’ll never be enough.” That was the truth bleeding inside Lia. The one that made her eyes blur and her fists clench, that made her scream until her throat was raw and swing at anything that moved. “I can’t be enough. I can’t do this anymore, can’t have this inside me—”

“You have to do it, and it has to be enough. What could be enough? We have to settle for what we can take.” Anwei knelt down by the dead fishy thing, her eyelashes dark against her cheek until she finally looked up. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Anwei’s answer cut the hole inside Lia deeper, Aria like the one spot of color flying over the burned-out remains of a shining future Lia had imagined with her family in Chaol. Killing the man who’d set the fire wouldn’t give the charred skeleton of that dream breath again, wouldn’t grow back muscle and bone. Nothing she could do would bring her family back. Not even a confession, an apology, remorse could change the past. But Anwei was right—Aria was still alive. Lia could still save one thing.

So, as she held the jar for the elsparn’s severed head, its ribs, and its long strings of guts, Lia promised herself that once she’d reclaimed the one thing left of what she’d wanted before, she was going to take Aria and build a new house. A new dream. A new life.

Whatever that was.

It felt like an impossible goal, like building as solid shelter from rotted wood, or sewing the disembowled elsparn back together, but Lia forced herself to swear she’d replace more than an ending.

An ending wasn’t enough.

“I have a plan,” Anwei said when they finally got to the shore across from the tributary Lia had scouted, Knox coming out in a boat to ferry them across.

“This isn’t the channel that leads to the house,” Knox said, reaching out to help her into the boat. “We walked part of the way carrying the canoe to avoid Ellis, and I saw Mateo and one of the Devoted come up the river. They… went through a rock somehow. I didn’t understand it. But I know where it is.”

Anwei didn’t take his hand as she climbed in, the sound of Mateo’s name like a razor pressed to her neck. He’d been right there.

And she’d been where Knox and the others needed her instead of doing what she’d set out to do.

Again.

There would be other chances to get hold of him. She had to believe it—that’s what plans were for. She wouldn’t be distracted again.

When Knox had rowed them across and into the little tributary, Anwei was impressed by how they’d managed to hide the boat, secreted by a screen of trees. But when she saw Noa upright and cackling over something with Gilesh, Anwei stopped thinking about hiding. She climbed aboard while Knox was still tying the canoe and ran to her friend, scooping her up in a hug that made Noa cough and squirm to be let free. Anwei inhaled quickly before letting go, sensing a thread of a chalky puce hugging one of Noa’s left ribs—cracked while Knox had been making her heart beat. But otherwise, Noa was fine. Anwei sat down, arm still looped around Noa’s waist as the dancer told a story about a copper-coated bathtub and fish getting caught in her skirts and Galerey being a model firekey, not sparking once as she picked sand out of her hair. Like almost dying in a bathtub was a theatrical production with colored lanterns, fire tethers, and a full orchestra. Not a promise nearly broken.

Because that’s what promises were: weak. Subject to currents in the bay, the fire scatter of a salpowder carom, the whim of a god. Anwei’s people had come through—Knox and Lia, if their goddess was on your side, were the people you could trust to make a promise come true. She loved the way Knox was laughing at the story, as if listening to Noa speak didn’t make him want to throw her whole trunkful of skirts overboard, and Noa was letting him tell some of it, as if she wasn’t scared of him. Altahn even told them about pushing Loren off his own boat. Gilesh crowded close when Lia gave a terse recollection of their brush with the Devoted and then poked at her until she laughed. Bane enthusiastically handed her a strip of what looked like dried meat that he must have gotten from the crates of goods in the hold. Lia showed them the bite marks on her leg—which were fine after Anwei spread a little eretrin and carbile from her trunk across them to combat the poison. Not worth as much attention as Lia hiding the dried meat behind her back when Bane wasn’t looking, as if she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

Anwei loved sitting there in their little circle on a boat they’d found fair and square. But Anwei also knew that the moment each of them got what they wanted, they’d move on. Calsta would take Knox and Lia; Noa would replace somewhere else to sparkle. Altahn, Gilesh, and Bane would go north with their prize, seeking the favor of a goddess who only blessed her Devoted with lives that no longer belonged to them.

And she knew, whatever happened, she couldn’t let any of them take her ending.

“I have a plan,” she said again when all the stories had been told. “Mateo was out in a boat today like nothing was wrong.”

“With… three Devoted.” Knox pursed his lips. “One of whom was the Warlord.”

Anwei waved the objection away and took out the jar with the elsparn. “We don’t need to worry about the Devoted. Right when they come out of the channel, we’ll overturn the boat. With everyone in the water, it’ll be easy to dose Mateo with some of the Sleeping Death powder we stole, once I’ve formulated the right proportions in a tincture, of course—”

“Oh, of course.” Lia started to laugh. “How long did you say that Devoted would be out?”

“I’m not sure, which is why more exact measurements are necessary. We drag Mateo upriver, sit tight on the tributary until we get the information we need, then we trade him for Aria, the sword… and then double-cross Tual and kill him.”

Knox’s leg had begun to shake, his eyes going a little glassy, as if he wasn’t the only one in his mind present to take part in the conversation. “Wait a second—”

“Yes, I have some questions,” Noa piped up just as Altahn said, “We can get back to ‘we don’t have to worry about the Devoted trying to hunt us down’ a little later, but—”

“First of all, Mateo can see gods-touched auras, no?” Knox looked around, the glazed moment over. “So that means Lia’s out. And I don’t think we can take on two or three full Devoted without her, especially if the others lurking around are watching the channel too.”

Anwei stuck a hand behind Lia and pulled out the little stick of meat, waving it a bit to get everyone’s attention before dropping it over the side of the boat.

“Exactly!” Noa pointed to it, ignoring confused looks from the Trib and Knox. “Elsparn infest all the rivers through Forge and Elantia. Even Ellis warned us about them.”

“The Butcher,” Altahn muttered, shuddering. “Who still has my carom, by the way.”

“So just swimming out and tipping the boat over…,” Noa continued, words slowing as she craned her neck to watch the meat sink. “Maybe this stretch of the river is okay—”

The water began to churn violently, dark shapes with little glowing spots writhing just beneath the surface of the water. The meat jerked this way and that, the elsparn tearing it to pieces. “Never mind, not okay.” Noa breathed.

Anwei pulled the jar full of flayed elsparn from her bag. “Lia, hold up your hand.”

Lia looked around, her blue eyes confused as she slowly raised her sword hand.

“The other one.”

She shifted, putting up both hands, the second stained purple, smears of purple blood and viscera from throttling the elsparn bright against her pink skin.

“Put it in the water, would you?”

“Put it…” Lia narrowed her eyes. But after a moment, she lowered it to just above the water. Hesitated for a second, then plunged it in. The elsparn, already riled up and fighting over the meat, immediately swarmed around her arm.

Noa cried out, reaching forward to pull Lia’s arm from the water, but Lia fended her off, leaving her hand submerged. “They’re not biting me.”

Holding up the jar, Anwei gave it a shake, the one-eyed, detached head giving a gruesome wobble. She wrinkled her nose a little at the stink of it seeping past the tightly clamped lid. “It died under traumatic circum—you can take your arm out of the water now, Lia.”

Lia looked up, laughing a little when Knox pulled her away from the boat’s rail. “It’s uncomfortable to watch, is all,” he said, then pushed her away from him when she smeared river water and eel guts across his tunic. “What are those things, Anwei?”

“Elsparn, like Noa said. They’re carnivorous and replace food using… it’s like scent, I guess? That’s how they know when something meaty falls in the water. When one dies in a violent sort of way, it exudes a specific kind of smell that warns all the other elsparn away. Fishers use it on their bait to keep elsparn from taking it. They’ll even kill elsparn and nail them to the docks to keep them out of ports.”

Knox’s head cocked to the side. His eyes weren’t quite focused on anything again, as if something no one else could hear was talking to him. Anwei’s skin pebbled, but she forced herself to look away. Maybe it was Calsta speaking to him, which was none of her business. He’d said Willow was blocked out, but she couldn’t help but think of the sword sitting at the bottom of her things, well within his reach.

“Wait a moment, the goddess…” He trailed off. Anwei didn’t look up, not particularly interested in Calsta’s opinion.

Noa frowned. She’d clearly never heard of elsparn being nailed to anything but wasn’t about to admit it. She had a slight wrinkle in her nose as if this plan did not inspire her at all.

Anwei braced herself for Noa to bring up something about fire dancing.

“So you smear elsparn guts all over us.” Altahn sat forward, eyeing the jar. Knox’s back straightened next to him, his eyes glassier than ever. “Then, we… what?”

“Upset Mateo’s boat,” Anwei provided.

“So when Mateo and the Devoted fall in the water, they’re not protected, but we are? They’ll be too preoccupied with getting bitten to fight us off.” He nodded slowly. “When were you thinking of trying?”

“Wait.” Knox put a hand up.

“We’ll set up a watch on the channel.” Anwei placed the elsparn next to her on the bench. “I can make this into an ointment—it’s already sort of water resistant, but I don’t know how long the effects will last, so I need to do some testing to make it as effective as we can. If I work on it tonight, we’ll have something by tomorrow morning, I’d think. So we could pick him up the next time he comes out of the channel. Tomorrow, even.”

“Elsparn won’t stop them from chasing us once we’re—” Gilesh started.

“Wait!” Knox jumped up, his hands raised. “Stop. Stop talking about this.”

“Knox?” Lia asked. “Are you all right?”

“No more planning.” The words barely squeezed out between his clenched teeth, and he picked his way out of the circle, stepping over Altahn’s outstretched legs and past Anwei’s chair.

“What is the matter?” Anwei frowned, tentatively turning her attention to the part of her mind that belong to him. “Did you get hurt on the boat or—”

There was something building inside Knox, a fire she could feel despite how far she’d pushed him back in her head. It beat like a warning even as he fumbled for words, his eyes clenching shut.

Then Anwei felt it, the subtle aftertaste of ice and thorns inside him. Hiding.

Willow?

“She’s blocked.” Anwei jumped up, ready to run, or grab a weapon, or yell, but Knox just stared at her, heartbroken. “You said she was blocked off.”

“Calsta kept nudging me, not saying it—” He shook his head.

Anwei pressed her hands to her forehead, pulling her braids back from her face. “You woke up the day we broke into the restricted stacks. The day we figured out where Tual lived. And you’ve blanked out in between… when we weren’t planning or talking….”

He clawed a finger through his hair, the ends curling out from their tie.

Lia stood. “Oh, Knox.”

“What is going on?” Gilesh asked pleasantly.

“Calsta would never say anything outright before—about bonds or magic. Shapeshifters. The nameless god. She still won’t unless it’s there glaring us in the face.” Knox’s voice burned down to ash. “Because she was afraid of who might be listening.” He swallowed. “He can feed her, Anwei. She’s going to choose him. She already has.”

Anwei slumped back onto the chair, pulling the dead elsparn jar into her lap and staring down at it. She looked up at Altahn’s voice. “I’m very confused at the moment—it’s almost like Knox is reminiscing about a terrible former… lover? If that’s what this is, it seems sort of off topic.”

“That would be better news,” Noa said slowly. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but Knox is being haunted by the same ghost as Mateo Montanne. And the ghost just listened to our whole plan.”