He moves back to the center of the divination chamber. “And so I have devoted myself to finding a new way to look forward. And that is something you sorely need, little sibling. You are thrusting your spear in the dark.”

  The condescension burns me, but he isn’t wrong. I’ve been in over my head since demons first struck the borough tour on Summer Solstice. Winter Solstice approaches now, and my footing is no firmer.

  “What did you mean, Nie is stirring?” I ask.

  “Everam’s battle with Nie is as eternal as night and day.” Asome gestures to the sky above. “We do not see the stars in the day, but they are still there. So, too, the alagai. Father and the Par’chin may have won us a respite fifteen years ago, but the enemy is regrouping.”

  I’ve heard this all before. “Can you tell me how many? Where they are? When and how they will strike?”

  Asome shakes his head, unsurprisingly. Of course not. Creator forbid a seer actually offer anything useful.

  “I can tell you a convergence is coming,” Asome says. “That futures once clear soon become clouded by the Void.”

  “When?” I press, though I know the answer will be more meaningless vaguery.

  “The new moon before Summer Solstice,” Asome says, “there will be a…birth.”

  Asome watches closely as the words register. I keep my face calm, but no doubt he can see it in my aura. This feels dangerously close to a real answer.

  “Have you told the Damajah this?” I ask.

  Asome chuckles. “My mother has not spoken to me since I was banished here to my tower.”

  “I cannot imagine why.”

  Asome nods, accepting the rebuke. “Even if she did, I do not believe she or any dama’ting would put faith in a man’s Sight.”

  He’s right. Dama’ting look down their noses at men in general, and would be more likely to burn a dama caught performing magic for heresy than trust his visions.

  But Inevera said it herself. I must seize every advantage. If Asome knows something…

  “Not a birth.” I can hear Inevera’s tsst in my head, but I ignore it. “A hatching.”

  “Of course.” A shock runs through Asome’s aura, there and gone like a flash of lightning. “I can help you, Olive. But you must trust me.” His eyes flick to the mosaic floor.

  I have no illusions about the enormity of the request. Asking me to kneel in one of his divination circles is tantamount to Inevera asking for my blood. To calculate my chances, to glean anything useful, I must give my half brother access to everything I am, to my deepest secrets and privacies, to things I don’t even know about myself. I must do this, and trust him not to abuse the power. Not to turn it against me. And to be truthful about what he sees.

  I must put all this trust in Asome, who admits to murdering dozens in his bloody coup for the throne, and carries no burden on his aura for it. Asome, who can look back on killing his uncle with bare hands, shrug, and say, It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  Even mentioning the hatching is more trust than I should have for this man, who was the ruin of so many lives. I look at the glowing wards climbing the crenels, blending into the brightening stars filling the night sky.

  But he knew a birth was coming in the forces of Nie, and that it would herald change. I thought we might have a year or more, but if my brother is right, there’s even less time than we thought.

  “And what will you give me in exchange?” I ask.

  Now it is Asome who crosses his arms. “Must we play games like dama’ting? You claimed at court to be a sister to them, but it is said, too, that you have the heart of a Sharum. Sharum do not haggle favors with their spear brothers when they are in the Maze.”

  He’s right, but he’s got some stones to say that to me. “What would you know of it, Dama Asome? Have you even set foot in the Maze? My brothers would not hesitate to bleed for me, and I for them. What do you sacrifice, here in your private tower?”

  Surprisingly, Asome offers a shallow bow. “You are correct. I apologize. Like you, I was denied the spear as a child. Dama were not allowed to fight the alagai. I changed that, for a time, but it is nothing compared to the sacrifice of countless generations of Sharum.”

  Honest word, or a political apology? His aura tells me nothing.

  My brother spreads his hands. “I have nothing else to offer you, Olive am’Paper. Wealth? Power? You have your own, no doubt far exceeding anything I can offer. I am trapped here, and cannot stand at your back in the night. Information is all I can offer, but I cannot give it without trust.”

  “Corespawn it,” I mutter, and roll up the carpet Asome cast across the floor, revealing the wards. I kneel in one of the whorls of wardwork. The moment the lines are unbroken, they fill with power, casting the room in beautiful patterns of wardlight to match the constellations above.

  Like a cool breeze, the magic tingles and pimples my skin as Asome Draws it through me. Just a fraction of what I feel when I put my spear into a demon, but still a rush of pleasure.

  Barely a moment later, I feel that breeze move on, flowing into the circle surrounding Asome. He is chanting quietly, not a question like a dama’ting, but a rhythmic prayer that builds resonance in the air until suddenly it breaks, and with a shout, Asome casts his sticks.

  Around the room, prophecy wards flare briefly, and there is a clatter as the sticks rearrange themselves in midair before falling to the ground.

  “You are strong,” Asome says, peering at the throw, “but divided. You will not unlock your full strength until you understand yourself and your place in the world.”

  Again, not wrong, but nothing I don’t already know. “Does anyone truly understand themselves and their place in the world?”

  Asome ignores my acerbic tone, his eyes following the directions the sticks point to their corresponding vines of wardwork climbing the crenels. He pauses, staring at the constellations splayed across the sky. “Your heart pulls to the east, but that path leads to destruction.”

  I tense at the words. Such things were spoken only in the strictest confidence of the Damajah’s casting chamber, and under Mother’s wards of silence. There is no way he could have known about Safehold.

  “Why?” I dare ask.

  Again Asome consults the sticks, their orientation, the stars. “You are too…blunt to accomplish what must be done there.”

  Alagai Ka will see me coming, he means. Darin may have the knack of sneaking into places unseen, but I tend to kick in doors, not skulk in shadows.

  “And the task your mother set before me?” I ask, without hinting what that might be.

  Asome peers at the sticks, and the wards, and the sky, and at last at me. “I do not know,” he says, “but I do know my mother. She is a true enemy of Nie, and believes that makes her impartial, but she is not, and that is dangerous. Do not doubt for an instant that she will sacrifice you, your mother, or even Hollow itself, if it will benefit Krasia or return her husband to her.”

  Selen whittles while Arick and I practice. It’s a habit she picked up from her da, and she ent bad. Top of the stick she’s working on is already a passable nightwolf head, getting clearer with every flake her blade coils away.

  Whittlin’ ent as quiet as most folk like to think. I hear the scrape like she’s sawing a log, and it’s a challenge to keep tempo with the distraction. But I can hear how the simple hobby keeps her blood calm and her heartbeat steady. Ent gonna ask her to stop when I know it helps keep her from worrying every time Olive is out of sight.

  The struggle to keep in sync with Arick ent entirely Selen’s fault. We’re getting better, but it’s slow going. Arick lays down a deep sound I can build off and improvise around, but I smell his irritation every time I do something he doesn’t anticipate. Tried to do it his way, but Arick’s playing is always perfect. Even when I’m at my best, it ent good enough for him.

  A knock at the door makes us all jump. Selen is on her feet and moving while sound still hangs in the air. Night has fallen, and Olive still ent come back from her grandmam’s palace.

  I sniff the air and smile at the scent. “Ent Olive,” I call. “It’s Rojvah!”

  Selen opens the door, and Rojvah gives a cry of delight, throwing her arms around Selen, who stands frozen, smelling uncomfortable.

  “It sounds like two cats deciding if they should mate in here,” Rojvah laughs. “I knew you two couldn’t get along without me.”

  “I fear you are right.” Arick is the next to embrace her.

  Rojvah smells positively delighted. “I am what, brother? I don’t think I quite heard.”

  “Once was enough for your ego, sister,” Arick says. “Don’t expect to hear it again soon.”

  Rojvah laughs again, turning to me with a twinkle in her eye that scares me a little. I step back, and she pouts her lips, still smelling delighted.

  “Darin ent much of a hugger.” Selen smells amused, too.

  “That’s all right.” Rojvah smells triumphant. “His kiss of intention before the Damajah this morning said more than any embrace.”

  “His what of what?!” Selen whirls on me, and I know the smell of her anger the instant it hits my nostrils. Usually when I catch that scent, it’s time to turn slippery and find a quiet place to hide for a few hours.

  But this time, I got nowhere to run.

  Arick looks at his sister, incredulous, and then over at me. “You can both do better.”

  Rojvah laughs a third time, and it’s enough to make Selen boil over the pot. “Will someone rippin’ tell me what in the core is goin’ on?”

  “Rojvah’s mam wouldn’t let her come with us,” I remind her.

  “Know that,” Selen says. “I was right there.”

  “Agreed to change her mind,” I say, “if we got promised. Damajah blessed it and everything. Now that we’re intended, it’s only proper for her to come.”

  “And you agreed to that?” Selen barks. “Are you a rippin’ idiot?”

  “When last we asked,” Rojvah’s voice is sharp, her scent shifting from amused to protective, “you likened a betrothal to the son of Arlen to ‘marrying your brother.’ If you have changed your mind, perhaps I will consider taking you as Jiwah Sen.”

  “Ay, that tears it!” There is rage in Selen’s scent as she balls her fists and stalks in. Rojvah doesn’t flinch, sliding a foot behind her in what looks like a sharusahk stance.

  “Not in my chambers, thank you.” Arick steps between them.

  Selen pulls up short. “Stay out of this.”

  “Yes, brother,” Rojvah agrees. “If the daughter of Gared wants to settle her problems like a dog, I will treat her like one.”

  “Ay, that’s enough!” I bellow. Don’t think I’ve ever been that loud in my life, and everyone stops and looks at me like I’ve turned into a demon.

  “Nobody’s puttin’ hands on anyone!” I shout at Selen, and she instinctively opens her fists and puts her hands down.

  “And enough with the teasin’!” I tell Rojvah. “Askin’ to get stung, poking a hornet’s nest for a laugh. Can always go see the Damajah and call that promise off, you make me regret this.”

  I expect a fight, but Rojvah backs down immediately, taking a step back and…bowing? That ent the Rojvah I know, and I don’t much like it. “Of course, Intended. I did not mean for things to get so heated.” There’s sincerity in her scent. She was just playin’. Din’t expect Selen’s kettle to whistle so fast.

  I look back at Selen. “Ent real. Just a Jongleur’s show so Rojvah can come with us. We make it back from Safehold, we can just call it off.”

  “Ay, that’s what she wants you to think.” Selen shakes her head. “Gives her time to put her claws in you.”

  Now Arick smells protective, taking a step forward. “Perhaps you should leave, Selen am’Cutter, before you say something we all regret.”

  Selen eyes him a moment and nods. “Honest word.” She’s out the door a moment later, stomping all the way back to the chambers she shares with Olive.

  “She was just surprised, Intended.” Rojvah’s voice is calm. Soothing. “And perhaps offended you did not share our plan with her, before going to the Damajah.”

  “Ay, maybe.” That does sound like the kind of thing Selen would get steamed about, but not so much she’d go around hitting folk. Thoughtfulness in Rojvah’s scent suggests she ent told me all her guesses.

  Corespawn me if I can understand what either of them are thinking. Ent like I’m some great catch. Arick’s right that Rojvah could do better, and if Selen wanted me, I been there for the takin’ all this time. Heard enough kissy stories to know she ent shy.

  Even if one of them really did think I had what it took to be the man in her life—whatever that even means—I ent sure what I want, myself.

  Krasians call me a prince, and to the Hollowers the son of the Deliverer is as good as, but truer is my lifestyle ent got much in common with the palaces and pampering Selen and Rojvah are used to. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life at court any more than they want to climb trees in Tibbet’s Brook. Anyone thinks they got a fancy catch marryin’ me is in for a lifetime of disappointment.

  * * *

  —

  With an ear to the wind, I hear Olive’s escort long before they make it to the palace. Rojvah’s long gone and Arick’s fast asleep, so there’s no one to see me flit out the window, down to the ground, across the yard, and over the wall. I scale one of the houses across the street and run like wind across rooftops until I find their procession.

  I turn slippery and leap from the roof. Light as a feather, I drop silently onto Olive’s palanquin. Menin rides beside the door, eyes scanning back and forth, alert for threats. I time it so he’s looking away, sliding through a gap in Olive’s window before Menin’s attention comes back to front.

  There’s a hiss as a knife comes from its sheath. Sunny thing I’m already slippery as I twist out of its path. I slide by the next slash, and the one after that. “Olive, it’s me, corespawn it!”

  “Night, Darin!” Olive’s voice is a harsh whisper. “You couldn’t wait for us to get back? I could have killed you.”

  “Ay, sorry,” I say. “But I took a demon by the horns today, and I need some advice.”

  Olive calms at that. “Well that’s got my attention. I’ve been on the receiving end of unasked-for advice all day. Happy to offer some, for a change.”

  I quickly fill her in, and Olive makes a face. “Selen’s got a point, Darin. It was foolish to agree without at least talking to us, first.”

  “Ent foolish to help folk in need, Olive,” I say.

  “Ay, I didn’t mean it like that,” Olive says. “This was just a bit…impulsive. Even for you.”

  “Reckon it was my turn,” I say, “after you challenged half the court to a duel.”

  Olive laughs, and we both relax a little. “I just worry you’re being taken advantage of. I see how this serves Rojvah, but I don’t see what you get out of it.”

  She smells protective now. She’s giving honest word, but…“Don’t see why everyone always needs to get somethin’ out of everythin’. Can’t we just stand by each other without writing debts in the ledger?”

  Not sure why that one lands, but Olive gives herself a little shake at that. “You’re not the first person to say something like that to me tonight. And you’re right. I don’t think that’s why Selen’s mad, anyway. She’s always had a soft spot for you, Dar. I imagine this hurt her feelings.”

  “A soft spot?” I ask. “What’s that even mean? Sayin’ she likes me? Or am I just part of the crowd she plays kissy with?”

  Olive sighs. “Core if I know, Darin. I’m just saying she wouldn’t be mad if she didn’t care about you.”

  That don’t make a lick of sense. “Gettin’ mad’s a funny way of showing you care.”

  “How would you feel,” Olive asks, “if Selen suddenly told us she was engaged to Arick?”

  Reckon I’d feel like I was punched in the gut. I don’t say it, but I don’t need to.

  “You can’t put it all on her,” Olive says. “You could have opened your mouth and told her you shined on her a long time ago.”

  “Ay,” I snap. “And when was I supposed to do that? While we were chasin’ you across Thesa, and the desert besides? In between her kissy stories, with all your spear brothers laughing along? Ay, maybe I shined on Selen, but it’s all just a joke to her, ennit? Teased me about it right in the hall of her da’s manse the night you were took. Made like she was gonna kiss me, then said you were the jealous one, and walked away smelling smug.”

  Olive frowns, and I can smell her annoyance. “I didn’t know that part.”

  “Ay, reckon she had a good laugh about givin’ my head a spin,” I say. “Knew she was makin’ fun, but didn’t know if I should be excited or angry. Then you disappeared and…”

  “Oh, so it’s my fault, now?” Olive’s scent changes from annoyed to indignant. “Need I remind you I was fighting for my life while you two were playing kissy games at Baron Cutter’s manse?”

  “Know it ent your fault.” I put my hands up. “But you got no business tellin’ me it’s mine. Rojvah needed help and we need her if we want to sneak into Safehold without you. There’s your trade, Olive. Fair and square.

  “And even if Selen did shine back on me, can you see her coming to live in Tibbet’s Brook?”

  “Of course not,” Olive says. “You would live in Hollow with us.”

  “And what if that’s not what I want?” I ask. “You and Selen gonna tag along as I play the hamlets with my pipes?”

  Olive rolls her eyes. “We both know you’re never going to be a Jongleur, Dar. Night, you can’t even stand in a crowd without having a fit.”