“Let me go,” she protested, but Lila only snorted, pushing her toward the wall where a small stain darkened the wood.
She reached up and touched her cheek, where blood leaked from a deep cut, and then used that blood to draw the symbol fresh. Tes watched as a single silver thread drew away from the net and laid itself over the mark.
“Kell?” she called over her shoulder, and moments later the prince appeared, looking weary as he brought his hand to Tes’s shoulder.
“Hold on,” he said gently, and then Lila was saying something, and the room was tumbling away, and Tes was falling, not down, but apart, the whole world unraveling around her, thread by thread and all at once. And when it wove itself together again, she was no longer in the ruined tavern, but standing in a massive marble-floored room, with gilded curtains and an ornate bed. She looked up, and saw the night sky, only it wasn’t a sky, but hundreds of gossamer lengths that stretched and billowed to form the illusion.
A pair of glass doors gave way onto a balcony, the crimson ribbon of the Isle shining far below, and Tes realized that she was in the royal palace. A wave of dizziness swept through her, and she reached out to steady herself, but the instant her hand met the cloth edge of a sofa, she recoiled, half in pain, and half in horror. Her hand. She’d tied a kerchief around it at some point, but the cloth had long soaked through, and a stain now darkened the ornate fabric.
“Don’t worry,” said the prince, sinking heavily into a chair. “The servants are well versed in removing blood.”
The silver threads around him twitched. Tes found herself following the path they made, as if he were an object open on her desk, her fingers tracing their way to find the breaks.
Kell Maresh saw her staring. “What is it?”
Tes ducked her head, and said nothing.
Lila Bard had stopped before a full-length mirror, and seemed to be taking note of her own injuries, examining the cut on her brow, the tear in her shirt. Her gaze met Tes’s in the reflection.
“That was a clever ruse,” she said, turning from the glass. “Now where is it?”
Tes stared at the Antari. “Where is what?”
“The persalis.”
Tes’s head was spinning. She didn’t understand. “I destroyed it. In the tavern. You saw me.”
“I saw what you wanted them to see. But it was obviously a decoy.”
Tes said nothing, and the amusement died on Lila’s face, replaced by a slow but vivid horror.
Her boots echoed sharply as they crossed the floor. “You mean to tell me,” she said, enunciating every word, “that what you destroyed back there was the real persalis.”
Tes’s silence spoke for itself.
Lila shook her head. “Empty your pockets.”
When Tes did not, Lila grabbed her roughly by the arm.
“Gently,” warned Kell. “She’s clearly injured.”
But Lila began to search them for her. When her hand grazed Tes’s injured side, she hissed in pain, the whole room threatening to disappear. When it steadied, the Antari was holding, of all things, the dead owl. It stared up at her, one eye blue, the other black.
“What the hell is this?” she asked.
In response to the question, the owl cocked his skull, and fluttered his bone wings.
Lila yelped, and dropped the bird. Tes lunged to catch it before it struck the floor. Her side screamed at the movement, and sweat broke out along her brow, but the little owl was safe.
“His name,” she said, breathless, “is Vares.”
Kell Maresh looked up at the mention. So did the bird. Tes had to resist the urge to laugh. It wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny. She had lost a lot of blood.
Lila crossed her arms. “How do we know that was the real persalis? Maybe you’ve stashed it somewhere.”
“Why would I? I never wanted anything to do with it! I run a repair shop. Someone brought it in to me, to be fixed. I didn’t even know what it did.”
Lila’s eyes narrowed, and even though one was glass, they both seemed to look through her. “If you didn’t know, how could you fix it?”
Tes hesitated. “I’m good at my job.”
The Antari came closer. “The world is full of good liars,” she said. “You’re not one of them.”
“Lila,” warned Kell, but the Antari’s focus hung entirely on Tes.
“In my experience,” the woman said, “it takes one of two things to survive in the world. Talent. Or cunning. And a cunning person would have found a way to save the persalis. You must have quite the talent.”