My brother is still asleep when I reach the medical wing, his face half obscured by bandages.
Sheen dozes in a chair next to the bed. He’s barely left Flint’s side since the third trial, more of a sentinel than a chaperone, guarding him with such sombre devotion that sometimes I feel as though I’m intruding. My gaze lingers on his outstretched hand lying just inches away from Flint’s, my heart sinking as I take in the sight of my brother’s brandmark, which no longer glows. Fresh pain rears up and threatens to choke me.
It’s not just that Flint lost. It’s far worse than that. It’s that Emberwon. I can barely think about her without wanting to break something. A glass. A vase. A neck.
Last night I walked in on Aunt Yvainne weeping uncontrollably in the arms of her wife, Seraphine, who was murmuring words of comfort. Our aunt has never disguised her hope that it would be Flint who would take her place upon the throne. Except now …
I clench my jaw, my eyes falling on Spinner. She’s sleeping too, sitting propped upright on the windowsill, head tipped forward on to her chest, a single tear still dangling from her chin.
Every time I enter this room I’m torn between disappointment and relief. Disappointment because part of me longs to hear Flint’s voice, to see him sitting up in bed waiting for me, and relief because the other part wants to prolong the time he spends safely tucked into oblivion, entirely unaware of what has happened to him.
He mumbles something incoherent in his sleep and I reach forward instinctively, gently pushing his thick curls back off his forehead, which is warm and damp with sweat. I cool the water in the wash bowl beside the bed, soaking a scrap of cloth and wringing it out before dabbing it lightly across the right side of his face.
A cloud of drizzle follows me all the way back to the Aquatori Wing. Yet as soon I reach my chambers my gaze lands on the eye-shaped door knocker, and I realize that there is still one person I have to visit.
I dart along the candlelit corridors to the Golden Library. My little alcove is deserted, but a small orb of light floats gently in the air beside the larger of the two armchairs.
‘I know you’re here,’ I say into the silence. ‘Show yourself.’
Suddenly the light begins to grow in both size and brightness until I’m forced to shield my eyes from the blinding glare of it. When I emerge, the old man is sitting in front of me, arranging his pale-gold robes neatly around him on the chair.
‘So, girl. To what do I owe this entirely unforeseen pleasure?’
‘I need answers,’ I say firmly. ‘And you’re going to give them to me.’
He raises a bushy eyebrow. ‘Am I, indeed? And what would incite me to do that?’
I don’t hesitate before looping the chain over my head and dangling Syla’s Eye in front of him. ‘This.’
There is a long, loaded silence.
I sink down into the armchair opposite him. ‘Who are you?’
The old man smiles crookedly, age lines carving deep grooves into the skin of his face. ‘The girl asks who I am. Not who I was.’
I stare at him, my mind blank.
‘There was a time,’ he begins, ‘when I held the world in the palm of my hand. I was a force of nature, a ruler unrivalled, a God among men. I was the most powerful being on this earth. Or so I thought.’
His dark eyes are clouded with memory.
‘I heard rumours,’ the old man continues, ‘whispers about three Magi sisters, each of whom possessed an enchanted golden Eye. The Eye of the Past, the Eye of the Future and the Eye of the Soul. I had to find out if these stories were true, and when I discovered that they were, I knew I had to act. I knew I had to take these Eyes for myself. War raged, blood spilled, and the third sister was brought to Ostacre in crystal chains.’
‘Syla,’ I murmur.
‘Syla,’ he confirms. ‘Yet her elder sisters were not such obliging girls. You remember what happened to Sifa and Seera?’
I nod. ‘You said they fled, that they were killed. But beforethey died, they hid their talismans where they would never be found.’
The old man chuckles. ‘Where theybelievedthey would never be found.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, sweet girl,’ he says, shaking his head fondly. ‘Do you really think I don’t know that the Eye of the Past swings from your friend the Earth Cleaver’s neck?’
My chest constricts, crushing my windpipe. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘A lie. And not a very good one either.’
