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“You said you wouldn’t apologize,” Raff snapped, his voice nasal.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Keil replied flatly.

In the trembling, blood-dripping silence, I reached into my hip bag. Back in Daradon, I hadn’t won Carmen’s trust through threats. I’d won it by offering a vulnerability I couldn’t retract once I’d spoken it into existence.

It was with that same conscious vulnerability that I now withdrew the compass. “I don’t know what the empress would give for a minute with a Spellmaker. But I know what I would give.”

“What are you doing?” Keil murmured.

In answer, I crouched and set the compass on the floor. Then I stepped back.

Raff narrowed his eyes. “You’d give a compass?”

“A secret,” I corrected. Hoping I was making the right choice in trusting the person who’d just pointed an arrow at my chest, I took a deep breath. “I stole that compass from the king of Daradon, who had taken it from his Hunters. It is one of the most coveted Spellmade objects in the world, and the king would do anything to get it back. If the wrong people find out I have this . . . they would kill me for it.” I looked steadily between Calytrix and Raff. “Now we are all at each other’s mercy.”

The couple shared a glance, another silent conversation passing between them. Then, seeming skeptical, Calytrix retrieved the compass.

I silently exhaled. Though I’d never known how Spellmakers could sense power, I’d taken a guess based on Calytrix’s leather gloves; they’d reminded me of the silk gloves I’d worn during Rose Season to avoid touching items doused in dullroot.

Now she removed one glove and transferred the compass to her bare palm. She gasped softly, and Raff inched closer, concerned. But as wind whistled through the bricks, Calytrix’s eyes went round with wonder.

Because she could sense the compass’s power.

“I’ve felt the pull of this compass,” I said quietly. “It felt . . . wrong somehow. Unnatural. It made me wonder if Erik wished to somehow exploit the power of a specter. Can you tell me if that’s what it does?”

“I cannot,” Calytrix said, and my rising hope plummeted. “I can only sense the imprint of the vat that forged it. There’s more power here than I’ve ever sensed.”

“Remarkable,” Keil murmured, studying her in awe. “The bloodlines were said to have run dry centuries ago. How did your ancestors remain hidden?”

“They rarely used their craft; they kept themselves out of society. They were careful.”

“In other words,” Raff said sourly, still pressing Keil’s handkerchief to his nose, “they didn’t agree to meetings with deceitful highborns.”

Keil dragged his gaze toward him, unimpressed. “Yes, it was very deceitful of us to stand in the way of your arrowhead.”

Before they could descend into bickering, I spoke again. “The Hunters had been using that compass to find Wielders. But Erik claimed it possessed a greater purpose—that it would win him an empire.” I paused, afraid to give life to my theory. “I believe this compass is the sibling of the Unbreakable Blade.”

The group drew back in disbelief. But this explained why Erik had appropriated a conqueror’s symbol, and why he believed the compass would get him an empire of his own. It also explained why, after seven years of possessing the compass, he wasn’t yet using it the way he wanted to: because the compass wasn’t performing as it should. Pointing toward Wielders—toward specters—must have been an unintended effect of whatever it was created to do.

“But Erik wouldn’t have been able to exploit the compass’s full power,” Keil said, finishing my thoughts. “Not without the blade.”

“I don’t think he knew that.” I began pacing, my theory gaining momentum. “The legends say that the Unbreakable Blade lost its power after Saxon’s death, and Erik wouldn’t have had a Spellmaker to tell him otherwise. He commissioned a bladesmith to forge eurium weapons. He wanted Ansora in his debt so he could force Rheya into trading dayglass.” I halted, facing the group. “Perhaps he believed he could imbue another weapon with the compass’s power, so long as he discovered the right material for the blade.”

Keil’s brows furrowed. “So you think he’s been experimenting with the compass. Trying to work out why it wasn’t functioning as he wanted it to.”

I nodded, my dread rising. Erik had increased the Huntings to gain Ansoran attention, but was that the only reason? Had he also needed those Wielders for experiments?

And if so, were they still alive?

My breath trembled, something both hopeful and frightened flaring inside me. Because my friend Marge had been a casualty of Erik’s Huntings. And if she had survived all these months . . . it would have been a cruel existence.

I turned to Calytrix with new desperation. “My father believed that the compass could be destroyed. Is that possible?”

“I’ve never heard of it being done.” She put her leather glove back on and handed me the compass. “But as I said, Spellmade siblings are intrinsically linked. If it were possible, you would not be able to destroy one without destroying the other.”

Had Father been nearing the same conclusion? I suddenly wished I’d taken more care with his documents—had looked closer then into the research that might guide me now. But I’d been numb after his death, caring more about a smudge on his final sketch where his hand had brushed the charcoal than—

Goose bumps erupted over my arms as my thoughts fractured.