And it was getting better, Revy thought fiercely. Closer to normal. Most of what she planted in the garden grew now, even if carrots still sometimes came up clover or kudzu, even if cabbages cried in the night and tomatoes disappeared. The ruined fields were still mostly barren, but Revy had seen weeds growing there, leggy and yellowish but no uglier than weeds usually were, so maybe the damage was starting to fade, maybe the spilled magic was draining away.

Later, far later, at a different door, Luz would realize why this conversation had felt so awful, and she would bristle and rage at the wrongness of it; in hearing that name that wasn’t her name at all. But in that moment all she felt was shame in herself. She had bolted from the old door, tears streaming down her face, and found herself wanting to be anywhere but there.

I had learned where she had gone from an article covering her marriage, after she had left home without a word. She had married a Mississippi congressman, and they had relocated to the nation’s capital. She had never written to tell us where she had gone or that she was married. What kind of person did this, unless they were ashamed of their kin? But what reason had she to be ashamed? So she was passing light; so our parents had been enslaved before Emancipation. These were not reasons. These were the grossest of excuses.

How does one explain it to one such as her, how motherhood tugs at you? For nine months he had grown under her heart, and then he was supposed to have been hers, but instead he was gone. She did not reply.

There was a horrible power in the Ishanis’ twisted words, something not of the gods at all. I did not know if it was the feather or the scroll, or perhaps the act of bringing the two together, but whatever was written by the white-clad outlander was taken from our minds. I wondered if he were an evil spirit, able to reach inside our heads and pluck the knowledge from within. But when I tried to tell my grandmother so at the cookfire that evening, I found I no longer knew how to put my feelings into words.

She had decided to keep the corseted bodice and satin overskirt that marked Hauthasan high fashion. But she’d splashed the cream silk with beaded serpentine leaves the tender green of new spring, using a unique two-leaf pattern of her mother-in-law’s design. The heavy folds of the skirt were trimmed in white fur, from northern foxes Miyohtwāw had trapped and tanned herself. The soft deerskin leggings underneath—a testament to the days she’d spent dragging the stiff skins over the mouth of a metal pipe to break and soften the hide—were pure Otipēyimisowak. Rosettes of porcupine quill, echoing the decorated ankles of Miyohtwāw’s own leggings, were laid over ribbon work in every colour of wildflower imaginable.

"Secrets." Twistfinger chuckled without a trace of warmth. "I’d wager at least one of you knew how Eru used his magic. Not you, Mane. Until just now you thought I deserved death for killing him. Or were you the one who knew, Grenn of the Rapids? No, you’re off balance, just like Mane. What about you, Slowscarred? You’re a man of influence. Your dreams range wide; you learned from Dule's own students. Maybe you're the one who knew what Eru was doing."

The Walker was taken aback. There had been whisperings of rogue factions with ideas so absurd that the Walker had not quite been able to believe them. Those factions, the Gardeners said, claimed that there was something wrong with the work of protecting world-hearts. They had twisted this sacred duty into sinister conspiracy, espousing some sort of anarchy in its place. The Walker did not know the details; indeed, they did not want to know.

I needed to be careful. There were things I could tell her, things that would be true and would cover my tracks, but those things were the most dangerous. Rin's face was never far from my thoughts. That private smile piercing my heart. Those brown eyes seeing straight through me, to my innermost truth. A reckoning, even in their absence.

Even in her delirium, my lover smells the offering meal cooking and sees my half-full pack. She begs me not to go. It’s a journey lovers and pilgrims take—to exchange vows or to petition Mother. The paths to the mountain shift with their travelers’ intentions, and we were much younger when we traveled there to be wed.

Men from her kureç came; men from elsewhere in her clan came; men from all the clans of Vraszan came, and some say even foreigners from beyond the lands watered by the Dežera. Her father the kureniç fretted to himself, for Clever Natalya had given them a year and a day—and if no one passed her test, who would lead his people after him? But to his daughter he had given his word, that she should be the one to choose, and Natalya disliked losing.

8. One account, however, insists that the Queen loved only one person, a member of another Court whom the account does not identify, and remained faithful to this person for her entire reign and even her life. Raidne Seiren considers this account fanciful; Tyronoe Ablach, in an otherwise exhaustive account, does not even mention it. Adele Lanyon Dormir, however, has argued that this passion may be the only explanation for the Queen's actions before and during the battle.

“Thank you, Mr. Drakon.” The smile hurts her teeth, but she pulls it across her mouth like a shield. She knows too well that Drakon prefers grace to sullenness. “I’ll be back soon,” she says, instead of saying she dreams each night of warming her frost-chapped hands over the burning wreckage of everything he owns. These are the dreams of a fool, and Viktoriya aspires to become something other than a fool. After all, she is one of the things Drakon owns. She cannot burn him down until she is free.