Chapter 76
SEVENTY-SIX
Tonight was a dazzling night in Venaza City.
The stars shone with nary a cloud to interrupt their performance, and the city positively pulsed with heat baked into its cobbles from the day.
Salt carried in off the sea, scented with jasmine and roses—and with lies and truths too, forever murmuring in that rhythmic way of the Dalmotti language.
Gods, how Safiya fon Hasstrel had missed this place.
She’d especially missed this particular rooftop tucked in the Northern Wharf District, where she found a sprawled-out Iseult gazing up at the Sleeping Giant.
A pot of fresh coffee steamed on the shingles near Iseult’s feet.
Safi plopped down beside her Threadsister. “Coffee at this hour?” There were two porcelain mugs, familiar and used. Safi always took the one with the chipped arm. “You’ll never sleep, Iz.”
“I don’t want to sleep.” Iseult stared straight overhead.
She wore a fine gray suit with a matching cloak that would blend well into shadows.
The fabric was light and strong and worth far more than anything Iseult had ever owned in Venaza City—and Safi would know because Safi was the one who’d had it custom made for her.
She’d also had one made for herself, although right now, she still wore her white half gown over it all.
And right now, Habim, Mathew, and Uncle Eron were likely cursing Alix for helping Safi first sneak into the ball … then sneak right back out again. But Alix had always had a soft spot for Safi. He had housed her for all those years. And clothed her. And fed her too, on occasion.
“Is this done steeping?” Safi grabbed the coffee pitcher and squinted into its murky depths.
“Another few minutes.” Iseult finally tore her gaze from the sky. “You don’t see them anymore, do you?”
Safi didn’t have to ask to know what Iseult meant. “Only if I look through the Truth-lens. Then I see them like I did right after the Collapse.”
A nod. Then a grunt as Iseult pushed herself to sitting. “Well, it’s different now. They’re simultaneously brighter and thinner. Especially the ones up there.”
“Yes, well, we are still missing one Paladin. There were six Wells, but only five Paladins have given up their magic.”
Another nod, but this time, it was accompanied with a pensive frown from Iseult.
And also a silence as she set to pouring their coffee.
It was such a familiar combination of sounds.
A music Safi hadn’t known she missed until this precise moment, when the first clink came from the strainer laid over Safi’s mug.
True, true, true, her magic sang, swelling in her chest. Prickling at her eyeballs.
Next came the burble of coffee pouring. The slight crunch as thick grounds gathered in the strainer. Another clink and finally a scrape as Iseult moved the strainer to her own cup and finished pouring.
Then both girls lifted their mugs and grinned at each other. A breeze tugged at Iseult’s hair. She wore gloves now because her hands were still too raw to leave exposed—and perhaps because, unlike Safi, she wasn’t comfortable yet with how they looked.
Safi was frankly just glad they could both still use them. What they’d done in the Contested Lands certainly could have ended much worse for them both.
“To Evrane,” Iseult said, extending her mug toward Safi. “Th-the Nameless Monk who s-saved me many times over.”
Safi’s heart twisted. “Saved us both, actually. Even if she was stingy with her knives.”
Iseult laughed, a taut sound. Then she and Safi tapped mugs. Steam twirled up between their faces.
After they each took a sip, Iseult lifted her mug again. “To Zander. Who was the best of the Hell-Bards and who w-was … a protector for any who needed him.”
Safi sucked in. Her nose hurt now with the intensity of the truth radiating off Iseult’s words—and off the ache that hadn’t left her lungs yet and perhaps never would. “To Zander,” she squeezed out.
Their mugs tapped again. They each sipped again. But where Safi thought they might be done, Iseult once more thrust out her mug. “To Kullen Ikray, as well as e-e-every other life we knew and … and all the—the ones we didn’t. Even the Raider King. And even…”
“Polly,” Safi whispered. She couldn’t pretend she grieved him—she didn’t. Not after everything he’d done. But she did grieve the boy he’d been before the Rook King’s memories had taken hold.
She’d loved that boy, and he was worth mourning.
One more clink of their mugs, and after a sniffle, after a dab at her eyes, Safi gulped down her coffee.
Both girls did, in total silence save for the ceaseless noises of this city where they had first met.
Where they had become Threadsisters. Where they had been trained and taught and honed into the Cahr Awen.
Safi might resent having had all her choices taken from her, but she didn’t resent where they’d led her in the end. Or what she and Iseult had—together—been able to do.
After swallowing back the final, dreggy sip in her mug, Safi clanked it onto the shingles, and to her surprise, she found something almost like mischief wiggling on her Threadsister’s nose.
“I thought you’d want to spend your evening with a certain prince, Safi.”
Safi barked a laugh. “He’s a minister now, actually. What a boring title, isn’t it?”
“So does that mean you’re not spending your evening with him?”
Safi waved at the night’s balmy air. “There’s plenty of time for that later, Iz. Our first destination will be Poznin—which, before you make a snide comment—”
“I would never.”
“—does make sense. I mean, if there’s anywhere that might have imbalanced magic that needs tending, it’s that city.”
“Hmmm.” Iseult sipped her coffee. “And how long will we be staying there?”
“As long as we need.”
“And what if he doesn’t want you to leave again?”
“Well, that’s inevitable.” Safi flashed her most cavalier grin. “They never do, you know.”
“They?” Iseult pretended to inspect Safi. “What they do you mean? Have you got lovers hiding in those secret pockets on your gown?”
“Oh-ho, you’re one to tease, Iz, given that you’ve got a little godling who won’t let you out of his sight for more than five minutes.”
Iseult’s lips pursed. “It’s been five days, thank you.”
“Right. Because you think I didn’t notice you sneaking off two nights ago?”
Red fanned onto Iseult’s cheeks—a shadow in this grayscale evening. True, Safi’s magic purred, both to the reaction and to her comment about Iseult’s not-so-subtle escapade.
Iseult finished her coffee with a loud gulp, then cleared her throat pointedly. And just as pointedly changed the subject. “Since you’re here and we’ve a-agreed we won’t sleep tonight, then how about a game of taro? There’s a match over by the Southern Wharf. B-big money thrown around there.”
Safi’s eyebrows launched high. Then promptly swooped down again as she became the one to inspect her Threadsister from head to toe. “Heard from whom? You’ve been hiding since you got into the city, tucked up in this attic with letters and books and charts.”
Iseult bobbed a shoulder, her fake nonchalance as obvious to Safi’s magic as it was to Safi’s eyes. “Oh, just a certain Hell-Bard told me. Two of them, actually, who came by three hours ago.”
Safi gasped. “They’re here?”
Iseult stopped feigning boredom. Her face split with an arrestingly truthful grin—something she was doing more and more often in recent weeks. And that Safi would never tire of seeing. “And a Threadwitch is with them. So what do you say?”
“Yes!” Safi scrabbled to her feet. “Let me change, and we can go. Actually, no. I’m too impatient for that.”
Iseult snorted. “Was that self-awareness I just heard, Safi?”
“Shut up.” Safi grabbed her Threadsister’s gloved hands. “Get up and help me take this dress off.”
“Are you fully clothed underneath?”
“Of course I am.” Safi rolled her eyes.
Iseult whistled. “Self-awareness and planning ahead. All in one night. By the Moon Mother, what has b-become of the Safi I used to know?”
Safi grinned, and once her dress was off, she flung it through the open window into Iseult’s old attic bedroom. The night’s air coursed against her gray suit. The scent of salt and sewage and coffee mingled into her nose. She stretched once, feeling her spine crack and her shoulders roll.
“Rooftops?”
“For as long as we can. You lead the way, Light-Bringer.”
“As you wish, Dark-Giver.” Safi pushed into a jog, aiming south toward the beating heart of Venaza City. And when she reached the edge of the coffee shop roof, she leaped for the next slope of shingles.
Initiate.
She slammed down. Pigeons burst upward, wings flapping to get out of the way before Iseult bounded down beside her. Complete. Safi started running again.
“You have bird shit on your cloak,” Iseult called after. “Left shoulder.”
“Are you serious?” Safi skidded to a halt, and sure enough, there was a fresh splat of white on her cloak. “Why? Why is it always me and never you who gets crapped on?”
Iseult’s only reply was bubbling laughter. It floated straight up into the midnight sky. Straight up into the heavens. And Safi couldn’t help but laugh too as she chased after Iseult, toward the next rooftop.
Then the next roof after that, and the next and the next, on and on. Threadsisters to the end.
For their quest was not yet over.
It had only just begun.