THIS WILL NOT BE SIMPLE, THE BOOK WARNED FARIDEH. TARCHAMUS WAS a very powerful arcanist.

Farideh had spread the map of the Hells, her ritual book, and the three other texts the Book had sent her to search for—two scrolls on planar powers written in the same spidery hand as the notes on the map, and one thick tome about the theory behind ritual magic. The text was so complex and dense, Farideh despaired of ever understanding it before Lorcan suffered his sister’s wrath. Dahl, she suspected, would have called it a nursery story, if only because it would make her feel stupider.

“At least I have your help,” she said, searching for a passage outlining alternate power sources. In truth, the Book was the one doing most of the work of it. Farideh simply served as its eyes, a hand to do calculations, a pair of feet to crisscross the library in search of more texts.

“Do you think it was easier before?” she asked, copying a series of runes from the scroll—once the keys to Malbolge and, with some careful adjustments, perhaps a backdoor now. “The Weave sounds …” She paused and looked over the complex net in the ritual book’s illustrations. “Like having a hundred pacts, a hundred tethers to the next plane.”

The Book chuckled. So you’re not a wizard, it said. Your magic comes from somewhere else … a binder? A warlock?

“A warlock,” she admitted. “But I’m not … It’s not a wicked thing. I swear.” You are defending yourself to a talking book, she thought. She turned back to the parchment. “Only I draw magic from the Hells, I suppose.”

How very interesting, the Book said. A style of magic the Netherese never truly mastered. Much has changed …

Not a word of it sounded like chastisement—Farideh smiled. “Do you know much about the world since Netheril?”

Some, the Book admitted. Not nearly enough. Long gone are the days when like minds came to share their knowledge with me. It’s quiet now. But … there are events that shake the plane to its foundations, that seep even into the ground at this depth. The death of Mystryl and the fall of Netheril. The death of Mystra and the fall of the world. The phaerimms’ tricks and the return of Shade. The Ascension of Asmodeus … Not even Tarchamus’s fears could seal away the library from events that shook the worlds so.

How old and strange the world was, she thought. To imagine the way it must have looked when the library was buried: no Spellplague, no dragonborn, Netheril a sprawling empire. Did people fear it then the way they did now? She felt so lost, not recognizing any other of the events the book listed.

Except for one, she realized. Asmodeus. She heaved the book from its pedestal and held it a little closer. “Have you ever heard of the Toril Thirteen?” she asked quietly. “It would be … much more recent, but …”

Now let me think, the Book said. The script on its pages seemed to shiver and squirm. She shifted the tome onto her lap, trying to find a more comfortable position. When she’d settled it, she must have stirred up the dust from its pages. She flinched at the sudden itch in her eyes, her nose, her throat.

Ah, yes, the Book said, and the text flowed into red, spiky symbols she didn’t know, the followers of the Brimstone Angel.

Farideh’s heart sped up. “Was that … were they involved in one of those events? One of those things that shook the world?”

The voice was silent for a long moment. They are all that stood between Asmodeus and powers the likes of which none have seen.

“What do you mean? He’s a god, isn’t he? What could be worse?”

Oh my dear girl, the Book said. You cannot imagine how it was in the days before …

Asmodeus was not a god, but still the king of the Hells and craved every scrap and snippet of power he could gain. The tieflings in the world, well, their lives hung on his balance. He sought to make them all his slaves, because he could.

But a devil loves a deal, and Bryseis Kakistos offered him the chance to become greater than an archdevil, a very god if he took the chance—but only if he agreed to spare the tiefling race, to let them master their own souls. Those first thirteen warlocks took the pact with Asmodeus to appease the Lord of the Ninth’s vanity, and to spare their loved ones the yoke of the Raging Fiend. Doing so gave him the power of the gods, but gave them all the chance to escape his traps.

Ah! How he gloated to think he’d won! Without a doubt, every being on Toril and beyond, every being remotely sensitive to the music of the planes, heard the God of Evil’s crowing. But to look at the facts … those thirteen knew what they were doing. Sometimes the only choice we have is between two evils. Sometimes the only right choice is a sacrifice.

Farideh hardly knew what to say. All her life she’d been warned that she stood on the edge of utter damnation, that the wrong decision would awaken the fiendish blood that flowed through her and doom her as it doomed every other tiefling. Since taking the pact, the worry that she’d leaped over the edge was as inescapable as a literal fall. But if Bryseis Kakistos had led the Toril Thirteen for the good of the world, if she took the pact for good reasons—perhaps, perhaps Farideh wasn’t doomed. Perhaps none of them truly were.

“Thank you,” she said. “I think it’s a story people have forgotten.”

Easy to do. And it is my pleasure to enlighten you. When you are finished with this part of the spell, perhaps we can delve further into these lost tales. Perhaps there are other things that have been kept from you.

She smoothed the map open and searched the spellbook for the incantation the Book had mentioned, her heart a little lighter … but she couldn’t help but wonder why Lorcan had never told her. Even if he’d kept secret the nature of collector devils and the implications of a Toril Thirteen set, the story of Bryseis Kakistos would have made her far more comfortable with the pact far sooner.

Maybe he thought you’d give in and corrupt like any other warlock, a little voice said.

Tell me, the Book said, who laid those spells on you?

Farideh ran a hand over her upper arm, feeling the raised edges of the infernal shapes through the thin cotton. What else could it mean? “It’s part of the pact. It ties me to the Hells. To a devil in the Hells.”

A most … protective master, the Book mused.

She pursed her mouth. “He’s not my master.”

The Book chuckled again. Your pardon.

She finished the line of runes—neat enough, she hoped. “What now?”

There should be a very long section near the center of the book about components.

Farideh paged ahead, past field after field of neat, close-spaced handwriting describing the long development of ritual after ritual.. She could only imagine how many years it had taken someone to craft the tome.

She frowned. “Where did this book come from?”

Where do any books come from? The imagination and effort of the wise and determined.

“No,” she said, “I mean, this is a book about ritual magic, and you said there was no such thing in Tarchamus’s day. That there was no need for such things.”

There wasn’t, the Book said. The rabble of wizards made all sorts of magic by abusing the powers of the Weave. And a few worked around it, like Tarchamus. If you should like to know more about the origins of magic like yours, I should be happy to point you in the proper direction.

“Tarchamus was a warlock?”

Oh my, no, the Book said. But he did come up with terribly clever ways around the limitations of the Weave by seeking the powers of the planes.

“And the ritual book?” she said. “How did it get here?”

The Book was quiet a moment. Left by some earlier visitors, obviously, it said. I don’t know why you couldn’t figure that out.

Farideh didn’t argue, and went back to searching for the pages on components, but in the back of her thoughts, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person would abandon a book so clearly valued as this one.

Mira made herself close the book, but marked it for later. Just a misfiled ledger of caravans passing through Low Netherese cities—no hint at all of what she was supposed to be looking for there—but, Watching Gods, how many little jewels of information lay gleaming just under the surface of such ephemera! Why did this city need so much lumber when it lay near a forest? Conflict with the elves? A rot afflicting the trees? Border skirmishes with another city? Why did that city see half as many caravans? Fewer people? More resources? A more insular council?

A whole world came to life in such mundane details. Patrons like the Harpers might want magic scrolls and spellbooks, maps to lost ruins and treasure hoards. But a graveyard? A midden heap? A record of commerce? Mira would trade a hundred magical weapons for such rich artifacts.

A shadow fell across her as someone stepped into the space between the shelves.

Maspero. She pulled down another book. “Can I help you?”

“You can tell me you’re not wasting my time,” Maspero murmured. “You know well what happens when my time is wasted.”

Mira gritted her teeth. “We’ve found the library,” she said, “ahead of the Shadovar. You’ll have your spells. I don’t see how we’re wasting your time.”

“And yet your Harpers can’t find my spells,” he said. “I have to wonder, is it because they’re not so clever as you said, or because they’re stalling until those reinforcements they keep mentioning arrive? Those two need to be taken out. Now.”

She mastered herself and turned. “Why would we do that?” she said, sweeter than she felt. If there was one danger to working with Maspero, it was managing his impatience. “Everyone is getting along fine, everyone’s working so well. You kill any one of them and you’ll lose the rest. Would you like to dig this place out with only Pernika to assist you? I promise this is the best way to get what you want.”

Maspero sneered. “What you want doesn’t seem to be what the Zhentarim want.”

“To be honest, Maspero,” Mira said coldly, “I don’t think the Zhentarim know what they want. Graesson sends assassins after your people and prizes, Naliah cuts off your caravans, and that damned Vaasan nearly killed you two months back. ‘The Zhentarim are a fractured organization, imagining they still have world-spanning powers,’ isn’t that what you said?”

“And the Harpers are a bunch of dandies playing hero in the twilight,” Maspero said. “It makes neither of us less dangerous.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her nearer. “And regardless of what the Cyricists are doing, I’m in charge of this expedition, understand? You play nice or your dear old da will get a chance to see how much the Zhentarim are not dandies.”

Mira smiled, even though Maspero’s grip was hard enough to leave bruises. “The Zhents may sneer at how far the Harpers have fallen. They may tell themselves again and again that the lot of them are only fops with secondhand harps and grand ideas.

“But you ought to know better,” she went on, even as he twisted her arm. Her eyes watered. “You’ve seen my father. You’ve seen his chain. And let me tell you, in case you’ve missed it: nothing would suit him better than playing hero to save his only daughter from a mad Banite.”

Maspero held her tight. “You’re playing both sides,” he accused.

“The only side I’m playing is the one that gets this site examined properly.”

“When they figure out who they’re working for, your site won’t matter.”

“You miss the plane for the portal,” she said. “Listen: the Harpers loathe Netheril. Their hatred of Shade is the only thing that kept them from dispersing altogether. This library may be the only place in the world that holds the secrets Shade lost when it shifted planes. No Harper would stand aside and let the Shadovar take those secrets back. In particular, not Tarchamus’s eruption spell.”

“I’m well aware—”

“And,” Mira went on, “it was Risen Netheril who destroyed Zhentil Keep. Who brought down the Black Network enough to let the Cyricists take control from your god and his exarch. The Harpers may not wish to bow to the Zhentarim—and my father least of all—but when the choice is to work alongside each other or bow to Shade and Shar over them … no one would choose the latter.”

Maspero was quiet a moment. He let go of her arm.

“If they work out who we work for,” she said, rubbing the bruise, “remind them of that. My father in particular prides himself on being reasonable. If there’s a zealot among them who wants to act out some chapbook scene, he’ll put a stop to it for you. So long as you stay reasonable.”

A slow smile crept across Maspero’s brutal features. “Hells,” he said, “but you’re devious.”

“Prudent,” Mira corrected. “This is the best way to get what we all want.”

That, she thought, should keep him still. Harper, Zhentarim—Hells, even Shadovar—Mira didn’t care who she worked with if it meant she could be the one to unearth the ancient ruins. The history, the discovery—these were what mattered. If it took the promise of a powerful weapon to get that aid, then that was how things sat. They could fight over it once it was found.

She smiled at Maspero, but secretly, she hoped he prevailed and took the plans—it would mean every other Zhentarim leader on the Sword Coast would come down on him and wipe that sneer from his face. A hundred years ago, the Black Network had been something to fear indeed—across the continent, every Zhent answered to the same calculating, determined master, and the organization hid itself in every city, in every layer of power.

When Shade destroyed Zhentil Keep, the heart of the Zhentarim’s power, the cracks had already begun to form. Those who worshipped Cyric, the god of strife and madness, rose up and seized power from the more orderly Banites, leaving the widely scattered cells to their own devices. Every few years, it seemed, one of them—Cyricist or Banite—rose above the rest of the rabble and tried to seize power over his neighbor cells. And every few years there was another brutal internecine battle.

But as fractured and fractious as the Zhentarim were, Mira could not deny she was one of them.

What she’d told her father before had been the truth, only the details were lies—far more than guardwork, being employed by the Zhentarim meant she had the funds to do what she wished. If they wanted a particularly valuable artifact, well, at least they left the rest of the site to her. If they wanted to exploit her contacts among the Anauroch’s desert tribes, at least they never damaged their trust. If they wanted her to get them past zealous guards and into parts of the world that didn’t often see human eyes, well, at least they let her lead them to actual ruins when their business concluded.

Still, Mira had not gotten to where she was by being a fool. Maspero grew more dangerous by the day, his rivals more bold, and the certainty that one would decide Maspero needed to be stopped became surer. For all her bravado, she wasn’t certain he’d keep his temper steady. She wasn’t even certain he’d let her return to Everlund unscathed. He knew—all the Zhents knew, she was sure—that Mira didn’t care so much about their goals, about their machinations, about who had stood in whose way. She might be one of the Zhentarim in name, but patience for Mira’s lax loyalty was finite, and running out.

But without her ties to the Zhentarim, she was merely another copperless historian, pleading for coin from patrons who had to be convinced to care more about the ancient world than their new wardrobes, or—worse—patrons who only wanted her to look for and confirm what they wished to be true. That their race had been in that valley first, or that the Spellplague had spared their temple or touched their ancestral home.

She hoped her father wouldn’t press the issue. She’d rather not decide where she stood when the lost treasures of Tarchamus were here within her grasp.

As if her thoughts had called him, Tam appeared at the end of the aisle, smiling pleasantly. Maspero took a step backward.

“Well met, Mira,” Tam said. “How are your studies going?”

“Fine,” she said. “This section’s all natural studies it seems. We ought to—”

“You might find it better to do more searching,” Tam chided. “And less talking.” Mira pursed her lips in annoyance.

“I’ve been doing plenty,” she said. “Have you found anything?”

He gave her a small, tense smile, a vague expression that ignored her tone and her anger and the fact she had a very good point. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Have you considered discussing your search with the Book?”

She had—and had dismissed it. It was a fine artifact, to be certain; it’s quick denial of the existence of Tarchamus’s eruption spell meant it was also far cannier than it seemed. The arcanist’s most famous spell and the curator of his library had no knowledge of it? Unlikely. There was no being certain about the mind-set of a creature like that. Her father ought to know that—and hadn’t he been the one shouting at everyone to stay clear of the thing at the start?

“In due time,” she said. “Right now I think we’re better off narrowing our search area.”

Tam shrugged. “I think it’s worth looking into. Ask it where your city is. Or why not start with something simple? See what it knows?”

“You do that,” she said, turning back to her shelf.

“Why don’t you?” Maspero said with a significant look. “Nail down the necessities.” Prove you’re on my side, he did not have to say.

Piss and hrast. Mira gave them both a false and flimsy smile. “Why not?”

Her father brightened. “Wonderful. Come along.”

Following after Maspero, Mira took several deep breaths. She was not going to lose her temper. She was not going to let her anger show. And she was certainly not going to stoop to her father’s level and act like the child he was treating her as. At least, she thought, as they headed toward the center of the library and the Book’s alcove beyond it, it was warmer here, and brighter too.

She looked back the way she’d come. The lights had moved away from the shelves, casting them in dreary shadow. Unlike the sanctum at the center of the library, it seemed colder, more forbidding. Odd—she thought. She’d been standing there reading a moment ago, with no trouble. She looked up at the cavern ceiling—the magical lights were drifting back toward the center of the library in that section. As if the library were discouraging anyone from wandering into those shelves.

“Oh clever, Tarchamus,” Mira murmured, and she headed back the way she’d come.

“Mira!” her father called. “The Book is this way.”

The lights didn’t follow as she pressed farther into the darkness. She pulled a second sunrod from the kit at her belt as she passed the books she’d been examining.

“Stlarning Hells!” Maspero shouted after her. “I don’t shit those things!”

“Mira!” her father scolded. “Come back here!”

There was something here—there had to be. The darkness warred with the glow of the sunrod as she moved past the shelves to the face of the cave. More shelves lined the wall here, stretching up beyond the edges of the sunrod’s light. She pulled a scroll from the shelf—a copy of the Teachings of the Path of Enlightenment—and farther down, another—Earlanni myths. Not the spellbooks. Nothing to hide. The sunrod’s light moved along the shelves with her.

And then, abruptly, broke in a neat line. A corner.

Mira rounded it and thrust the sunrod into the darkened alcove. Where the rough and rippling cave wall should have been, the surface was smoothed stone, decorated with the figure of the same elderly man as the outer entrance. Mira felt the edges of the space—a seam in the rock all the way up both sides and across the top. Her grin spread so wide her cheeks ached.

A door.

“Maspero!” she shouted. “Da!”

Eyes locked with Tarchamus’s jade ones, she held the sunrod high, listening as the two men’s footsteps clattered ever nearer. Maspero reached her first and she beckoned him to come nearer, until he stood facing Tarchamus’s likeness too.

“There!” she said. “I will lay down coin that what we’re looking for is in there.” Maspero started toward it, but she put up a hand to stop him. “It’s sealed by some means. If you shove it open, you might well trigger one of those traps that blasted book mentioned.” She spun on her father. “Did you know about this?”

But she found she was demanding answers from the darkness. Tam Zawad was nowhere to be seen.

“Something’s odd,” Brin said. Havilar had no memory of their argument in the stacks, of telling him to find the Book, of flirting shamelessly with him.

“That doesn’t even sound like me,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You must be stupidly fond of me to fall for that.”

He ignored her. “But what’s the point of making a replica of you just to … what? Get me over to the opposite side of the library?” Brin shook his head. “And who would do it?”

“Pernika?” Havilar guessed. “She was trying to get you aside. Maybe she made an illusion to get you away from the others.”

“I don’t know,” Brin said. “I think she’d have to be a fairly powerful wizard. That was … a very solid illusion.” Havilar dissolved into completely inappropriate giggles.

“Be serious,” he admonished, but gods, he couldn’t stop smiling. “I’ll go find Tam,” he said. “I’ll tell him about Pernika and whatever that was. You find Farideh and ask her about what she saw. Meet back at the camp?”

“Yes,” she said, her grin creeping back. She darted forward and kissed his cheek. “If you see me again, be sure it’s really me, first, all right?”

He laughed. “Come on, this might be dangerous.”

“So?” she said, still grinning. “We can be happy and cautious at the same time. It’s not like swimming and eating at once or something.” She considered him. “You are happy, right?”

“Yes,” he said, and he was—not just because the looming question of what she thought was gone. It felt as if things were fitting together where they wouldn’t before.

He paused. “Are you going to tell Farideh?”

“Yes,” Havilar said. “Of course … Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No,” he said. Yes, he thought—how much more complicated would everything be once other people knew? This was pleasant and a little exciting. But he knew full well he was going to hear a lot of nonsense from a lot of people. Even Farideh.

But—gods—Havilar looked so glad, so excited to tell her sister that Brin had kissed her. To brag about it—complicated or not, he wasn’t about to complain about that sort of compliment.

While Havilar hurried off toward the center of the library, Brin made for the Book’s alcove. He’d find Tam, but if whoever it was that was so interested in getting him over to that area, perhaps he’d missed something about it. He moved cautiously through the library, keeping a lookout for traps and watching eyes, and trying very hard to keep his thoughts on the present moment and the serious problem of Pernika and the strange double.

He reached the alcove with no trouble, and found it quiet and still. Farideh sat sleeping on the floor, one leg tucked in and leaning against the chest of the wretched little gnome that made the pillar of the book’s lectern. A variety of books and scrolls and maps lay spread across the floor in front of her, and a stylus was bleeding ink on a fresh parchment.

Hrast, he thought. Maybe she’d just stay asleep while he searched. But his footfalls had disturbed her and she started awake, clutching at the air as if trying to grab hold of someone. She blinked, her breath uneven as she came around and caught sight of Brin.

“Sorry,” she said blearily. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long,” he said cautiously. “Have you seen Havi?’

Farideh stretched her neck with a wince. “No. Why? Was she looking for me?”

“Yes,” Brin said after a beat. “I think she is probably looking for you.”

“Are you two talking again, then?”

Brin nodded. She paused and gave him a peculiar look. “Brin, I don’t know if …” She paused. “Havi may be under the wrong impression about some things.”

“Such as hydras?” He stooped to gather her collection of books from the floor, all the better to avoid her eyes.

But he could still feel her gaze boring into him. “I just don’t want her getting hurt,” she said after an interminable silence.

“Does anyone?” he said. “Don’t worry about Havilar. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

She was still staring at him, as if their secret was written all over his face. Why couldn’t Havi have found her sister first? He didn’t want to have this conversation with Farideh—without quite being sure why, he suspected she wouldn’t like it. And Havilar would probably be furious he ruined her chance to tell Farideh.

“Do you know what I’m talking about?” Farideh said hesitantly.

“Maybe,” he said. “But does it matter? I agree with you. Let’s keep Havi safe.” He smiled at her. “When’s the last time you slept properly?”

Farideh groaned and rubbed her face. “My ritual wore off. So … I suppose it’s been awhile.”

“Dedicated to the treasures of the ages, eh?”

She didn’t laugh as she came to her feet. “Something like that.”

“I think Havilar was heading back to the camp,” he said. “If you want to find her, that’s the most likely spot.” She nodded, too tired perhaps, to remember that Brin was the one who wanted her to find Havilar.

“Have you seen Tam, by the way?” he asked as he handed her the collection of books and scrolls she’d had open.

“I haven’t seen anyone,” she said. “This place is a maze. And the echoes … you know people are out there, but it’s as if the sounds all come around the corners. He could be anywhere.”

Brin sighed. “Damn. All right.” The scrolls were threatening to tumble out of her arms. “What are you doing with all of this? Did you find Mira’s spells or something?”

“No,” she said diffidently. “It’s a ritual.”

He cocked his head. “A ritual? Where’d you find a ritual in here? That’s new magic, I thought.”

She shook her head, as if the question were unanswerable. “There’s a little of everything in here, I suppose,” she said too lightly. “Except Mira’s spellbooks. If I see Tam, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.” And without leaving him any room to ask what sort of ritual it was, where she’d found it, or why she was acting so cagey, she turned and vanished in between the shelves. He frowned—he’d tell Tam about that too.

There was nothing out of the ordinary around the alcove, and nothing odd—or odder, at least—about the Book itself.

What sort of tampering? it wanted to know when Brin asked.

“Any sort, really,” he said. He shrugged, and wondered if the thing could appreciate the gesture. “Perhaps I’m imagining things.”

What exactly are you imagining?

There was an edge to that question, as if there were an answer that the Book wouldn’t like, and Brin hesitated. How much did it really know? “Shapes in the shadows,” he said. “There was a concern, when we found the cavern, that the Netherese had beaten us here.”

Aside from those who founded it? the Book said. It chuckled. I assure you, there are no assassins left walking in the shadows.

Brin left it then, uncertain of what he’d discovered, and wound his way back toward the center of the library, hoping to find Tam—or at least someone who had seen the silverstar—before he ran into Havilar and Farideh. Loyal Torm, he hoped that went well enough.

He came around a shelf of neatly packed scrolls and found himself facing, not the rows and rows of books that he expected, but a room. A little room, with a little bed meant for a penitent priest, and a window that overlooked a courtyard. He crept toward it, knowing that he’d see brick red tiles, and scores of milling nobles in dark clothes. A bell started tolling, and he listened to each of the thirty-four peals with bated breath, as if the bell falling short might mean it was another’s years it honored.

“Aubrin,” someone said behind him. He turned. Constancia stood in the doorway, framed in the light of the low afternoon sun. She wore a charcoal gray gown instead of her ubiquitous armor, and she was still young. Younger than Brin was now. Fifteen, he remembered. Fifteen when she’d last worn mourning.

Grief pressed down on him suddenly—ages of sadness, far too much for a boy his age. “Must we?” he asked, his throat aching with the effort of not crying. If they just stayed where they were, if they didn’t go to the bier then perhaps, perhaps, his father would still be alive and everything wouldn’t be falling to pieces.

Constancia sighed. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.” She beckoned and turned down the hallway.

Brin followed, and found himself wishing that she’d taken his hand. That little gesture … it would have meant the world. He watched the drape of her skirt spread over the stone floor as she walked and walked and walked.

It had meant the world, he realized. Because she’d done it. She’d taken his hand in hers and walked as slowly as he wanted, and the dour squire they’d made his nursemaid had suddenly changed from a monster, a symbol of everything that had gone wrong, to a friend.

And they’d gone to the gallery, behind the screens, to watch his father’s funeral from where no one could see that Brin was still alive, still Helindra’s tool, and he’d wept great spots into the soft wool of her dress. Then she’d given him the little flute she’d rescued from the midden heap—one of his father’s carvings. Brin carried it all the years after.

A decade, he thought. It’s been a decade since this happened.

“Where are we going?” he asked hoarsely. The hallway had become impossibly long, the muffled tap, tap, tap of Constancia’s hard-soled shoes beneath her skirts interminable. She didn’t turn. She didn’t answer. “Constancia?” he tried again. “Where are we going?”

He reached out to grab her shoulder, but she seemed to skip out of reach, as if he’d blinked too long and missed her motion. She looked back over her shoulder, her mouth open, but hesitating, wordless.

“What is this?” he asked.

Again, in the space between blinks, she went from girl to woman, her dress traded for polished and well-worn armor. “I think you ought to see it,” she said, her voice shifting as wantonly as snow on a cold road. “You’re never really alone. You haven’t been.”

She beckoned again, and again she was the girl in mourning, and there, behind her was the balcony behind the screens. Brin crept forward and put his eye to the gap in the panels. There on the bier lay the cold, bloodless body of Halance Crownsilver, a tapestry drawn up under his beard to hide the dozens of burning arrow wounds that riddled his chest and arms.

Brin’s throat tightened and his eyes welled with tears again.

It’s not real, he reminded himself. He’s already gone. He looked back at Constancia, who was regarding him with a grim expression.

“There’s nothing here worth dying for,” she said in Tam’s voice.

And all at once, Constancia, the hall, the screen, and the sunshine disappeared, and Brin was left standing all alone in a corner of the library he hadn’t explored. Where the screen had been, there was a shelf loosely stocked with books bound in very soft leather.

And beyond it, where his father’s bier had lain, there was a body.