Then nothing. The images fractured, scattered like someone had thrown stones through glass. The water collapsed back into the bowl with a splash.
I tried again, pouring more power into it, drawing from Silas’s deep well. Same result. A brief flash of something, then absolutely nothing.
“She’s blocking it,” Lucy said, watching over my shoulder. “Has to be. Either she knows someone’s using this spell or she’s paranoid enough to maintain constant wards.”
“Smart,” I admitted, frustrated. “Annoying, but smart.”
I sat back, staring at the useless bowl of water, trying to think past my exhaustion and fear and the clock ticking down toward our deaths.
An idea struck.
“What if we try looking for Dyssara?”
Lucy’s eyes sharpened. “You think a place will answer the spell when a person won’t?”
“A person may hide themselves. But a whole city?” I moved the bowl of water to study the map. “That’s harder.”
“Pip, can I please borrow your Dyssara talisman?”
She reached tiny fingers into the single messy bun on top of her head and withdrew it. “I was hiding it. Just in case we got caught.”
“Great idea,” Lucy said, sharing a smile.
Starting over, I placed the dagger directly on the map and the talisman beside it. The DeC symbol would be our connection.“Locum Dyssara est Civitas.”
The water rose again, forming a perfect sphere. But this time, instead of showing streets and buildings, it showed something else, light. The purple color of the Erelith flame. The map beneath it began to glow in specific places, and within the water sphere, black grains of sand appeared and fell. The grains swirled, gathered, pointed like a compass needle finding north.
The sand moved north like ants marching on paper, forming a dark cluster over a blank space on the map. Beyond the Sleeping Ring within the mountains to where the map showed nothing but empty space, marked only by elevation lines and a note that said: Erelith Border.
“That’s where Dyssara is, where she went.” I met their eyes. “I’m sure of it.”
Lucy leaned in, studying the location. “Just because we know where the city might be doesn’t mean we know where Vitoria is.”
I thought about that for a long time, weighing whether I should say any more to these women I’d decided were not on my team before I ever knew them. Their lives depended on Vitoria dying. That alone was a reason to keep quiet.
I sat back, wrapping my arms around my knees as I remembered the woman I believed Vitoria to be, the way she laughed so hard at her own terrible jokes she’d snort—which in turn made her laugh harder. The way she sat with me as Icried over finding Gran’s journal, her hand finding mine in the quiet. Her teaching me to throw knives in the alley behind the bookstore at midnight.
I thought of the way she’d have stood between me and anyone who looked at me wrong, all five-foot-nothing of her radiating the kind of ‘try me’ energy that made grown men step back. How she’d saved half her meals to give to the sprite children who lived in the eaves, pretending she wasn’t hungry even though she was. The fierce, reckless, impossibly kind woman who always made me feel less alone in a city that wanted us both dead.
That was the Vitoria I knew. The one worth protecting, even if it cost me everything. I wished I could make them see it. But then they’d know everything. They’d know I loved her like a sister. They’d know I'd lied. They’d know I valued Vitoria’s life over theirs.
And I had at one point. But I guessed the truth changed everything.
“She’s had these blades since the day I met her.” I picked up one of the daggers, feeling the weight of it, the familiarity. “She knew exactly how to use them. As if she’d been born with them in her hands. The symbol, the connection to whoever summoned her all those nights, it can’t be a coincidence.” My voice cracked slightly. “I thought I knew her. But I didn’t at all.”
“I guess you’re just lucky she didn’t burn you in your sleep.” Pip’s voice came from the window where she’d been staring out at the Bloodwood with obvious fear. “This place is scary. We shouldn’t be in the Ash. We should just think about going back.”
“We can’t go back,” I said, though the idea was tempting. “We haven’t been able to leave the city freely in our entire lives. If we return now, those hunters will make sure we never get another chance. This might be our only opportunity. On behalf of everyone.”
“But what if the others can’t get out?” Pip’s wings drooped. “What if they’re stuck there and we’re stuck here?”
The thought had occurred to me. Wickett, Calder, Riot, the Oracle—all still in the city, and all unaware we escaped through an impossible portal.
“We have to go on without them.” The words tasted like ash. “The clock is ticking, Pip. We can’t waste time waiting if they can’t follow.”
“We can’t just walk through two countries’ worth of monsters!” Her voice rose with panic. “We’ll die for sure! The Ash will kill us before we get anywhere near the lost city!”
“Maybe.” I couldn’t deny the danger. “But staying here means dying anyway. At least this way we’re moving toward something. If it will make you feel any better, I’ve summoned Si. Barring anything catastrophic, he should be here soon. Fair warning, he’ll be mad as an ash beast that we left him, but he’ll get over it. And I promise as long as we’re in the cottage, we’re safe. I’ve been here plenty of times.”
