I wake up gasping, to shouting, to the overseer staring at me across the flagstones. It takes a minute to process the arrow sprouting from his ear. His eyes stare dully, and a pool of blood widens around him.

  I start up, ears ringing, world’s colors blurring into focus. Three men run up to me—no, three women, one of them with a bow. Theracant Guards.

  “Thank you,” I rasp. My throat is going to have a necklace of bruises by noon.

  They ignore me, grim-faced, two wrapping the body in a long cloth while the third cleans the blood from the street. “You,” she snaps, finishing her work. “Come with me. Now.”

  Who am I to argue? In this state, I couldn’t put up much fight if I wanted to. Besides, they just saved my life, so I assume they’re not also trying to kill me.

  They hustle me around the outside walls to a small wooden door that leads down, under the yard with its fountains and sick waiting for treatment. We enter an underground network of tunnels—burial chambers, it looks like, though now they’re filled with casks and foul-smelling herbs. I need to know who I can trust among the theracants—one of them probably sent that overseer against me.

  “Who ordered you to save me?”

  The guard in front of me snorts. “Quiet girl. You’ve gotten yourself in enough trouble.” I risk a casual brush of our wrists and catch the memory of Regiana barking orders. Good. I can trust her, at least.

  Not so much the witch who sent the overseer.

  We pass a stairway on the left, and the woman not holding the overseer’s body pulls me aside. The others hustle on and we climb the narrow stairwell, shadows shifting in the light of the lantern she holds behind me.

  “There,” she says, and I open a creaking door into the back of a broom closet. “Wait here.”

  She leaves, and I wait a few moments, my throat starting to feel normal again. It’s probably safe in here, but if more bloodborn show up I’ll do better in an open space. I step out to a hallway twice as rich as the one I passed through yesterday. Low talk comes from a room to my right, but I stay where I am, keeping my staff ready.

  Regiana descends at the far end of the hall, three women attending her. The woman’s grandmotherly face is a thundercloud, and she snaps orders at the women as much with her hands as her mouth. They disperse and she stalks up to me. “What happened?”

  I tell her, trusting she wouldn’t have sent the overseer after me, then ordered him killed. An overseer they could control would be worth his weight in gold to the theracants. Or whatever faction within them wants me dead.

  Her eyes narrow. “No hints as to who? Why they did it?”

  “I was hoping you would know that.”

  “I have a fair idea.” Her eyes harden, and she glances around. “Come.”

  Regiana leads me to a room just large enough for two, with carved latticework windows and silk cushions on a plush rug. She closes the door.

  “Are you the one who ordered the guards to save me?” I ask, settling myself.

  “I am.” She sits across from me, giving her skirts a series of brief jerks. “One of the Fifth Circle spotted bloodborn in the streets, and it was easy from there to follow your progress through town. You’re a brave girl.”

  I shrug, watching the door. “I was just staying alive. But thank you. I owe you my life.”

  Regiana snorts. “You and half the city, girl. You get used to it.”

  A young girl knocks and enters with tea, two delicate cups and a steaming black kettle. I take a moment to pour for Regiana, and she surprises me by pouring mine in return.

  “Who would do this?” I ask. “Who would want to keep me out of the palace?”

  Regiana takes a sip, though the tea is scalding. “Those are guild secrets.”

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  I give her a level gaze.

  “Well, mates in war, mates in truth, I suppose,” she sighs. “Miyara.”

  “Miyara?” I feel my eyebrows raise. I don’t like the woman, but—“Why would she want to stop me?”

  “Don’t be stupid, girl. You know I overrode her yesterday. That she was never as keen on the agreement as either of us.”

  “So she tried to kill me?”

  “I doubt she would have killed you.” Regiana adjusted the cup on her tray. “Likely just trying to scare you off.”

  “Oh?” I pull the scarf I’m wearing lower. “You’re a theracant. What would you say about what just happened to my neck?” I can feel it purpling already, where the overseer choked me.

  Regiana sucks in air. “Jeia’s mercy. It’s worse than I thought.” She snaps her fingers and rattles off a quick order to the girl at the door, who runs off.

  “All this for a disagreement in strategy?” I pull the scarf back up.

  The ancient woman grimaces. “It runs deeper than that. I don’t know what it is, but it’s been in the Guild a while now. Since I took office, at least. The division you saw. Miyara, and Teruwin, and I can’t be sure of who else. Women acting like they forgot their training. Forgot their vows.”

  “You can’t… read them, or something?”

  “You’re the one who reads thoughts. Feelings are much less precise. Why does a person have a stomachache? There could be any number of causes. Same with Miyara feeling angry, or Teruwin being bone-tired. Sometimes I wish I had a shaved head. Then I might know what was going on in this guildhouse.”

  “But you have her blood, right? Where is she now?”

  “Yes.” She takes another sip of scalding tea. “And I don’t know.”

  “What? But I thought—”

  “Yes, I should be able to sense her anywhere. Point to her and give you an estimate of distance even. But according to my reading, she’s nowhere. Not dead, just not—anywhere.”

  I shouldn’t tell her about temple secrets, but at this point the theracants are as much on my side as the seers are. “There’s an ability we have. The waterblind, we call it. It keeps others out of your head. I think it works with bloodreading too. Maybe Miyara learned it somewhere. Is using it to block you.”

  “It’s a nice trick. Yes, I know of your techniques. And Estrija told me of Gaxna’s resistance. This is not that.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like she’s here still, in the city, but I can’t see where, or what she’s feeling. It’s not the blankness of a blind, but more like”—she gestures at the air—“a glass painted over.”

  I think of Nerimes’ blind, of how it felt different from any other blind. “Is there—another magic, somehow? Is Miyara a craftologist?”

  Regiana frowns. “What do the Seilam Deul have to do with this?”

  “Other than marrying into the temple tomorrow? Well, I think their money was behind my father’s murder, and I know it was distributed by the bloodborn I mentioned, Arayim. Have you sent anyone after her?”

  “Covertly. Things are balanced too finely to act openly against her. And I do not know if this was her doing.”

  I shift in my seat. “Well, does anyone else control overseers? I’d rather not die before I face Nerimes.”

  Regiana sips again. “Not to my knowledge. I would be able to feel them.”

  The girl slips back in carrying a small case of clay jars. Regiana takes it and moves to my side of the table, lithe as a ten-year-old. “What—”

  “Hold still.” She starts rubbing cream into my neck, into the bruises. It hurts like hell, then burns, then tingles cool. It feels strange to be tended by someone so old, and obviously respected, but she has such a practiced hand that I settle after a moment. I trust this woman and read only legitimate thoughts in her when our skins touch.

  I take a breath. “So does our deal still stand?”

  Her hands pause for a moment, then continue their work. “I am a woman of my word. But we may need to wait awhile. Word of this will get out, despite our best efforts. We can’t afford to—”

  “We can’t wait,” I cut in.

  Her hands don’t pause this time, but she sounds irked. “And why is that?”

  Because Gaxna is in danger—but that won’t sway Regiana. “The best time to expose the council is at Nerimes’ wedding tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? No. There’s no way that can work.”

  “Think about it. Everyone in the temple will be there, to read my proofs through the waters. Guild heads will be there too, and they’ll see the crowd’s reaction, hopefully see the council admit their guilt, one way or another. There will never be a better time to get everyone’s attention.”

  Regiana gives me a final rub, then recaps the jars. “It won’t work. They’ll just have you arrested. Thrown away somewhere.”

  “There are monks in the temple loyal to my father, who’ve heard a lot of what I’ve found out. Who want the traditionalists out. If it comes to a fight, they will protect me.”

  “Against the overseers?”

  There are practically as many overseers in the city as there are monks in the temple. “No. Not against them. That’s where you come in.”

  She gives a rich laugh. “I what, heal them into obedience?”

  “No. You stop them with bloodborn.”

  Regiana snaps the case closed. “As Miyara would have me do? That, on top of word of us killing an overseer—it’d be too much. The city would rise against us.”

  “Unless they hear the truth about the council. Understand the reasons you did it. Then they would rise with you.”

  Regiana sighs, sitting down across from me, and for a moment I see a much older woman in her, not just her skin but her eyes, her attitude towards life. A bone-tired woman. “It’s a good idea, but things are too uncertain. If I act now, I risk the entire Guild’s future.”

  “If you don’t act now, you risk it just the same.”

  The theracant stares at me for a long moment, eyes hard, then shakes her head. “You’ll make a good theracant someday, girl.”

  I’ll make nothing of the sort, but I thank her anyway. “So do we still have a deal?”

  “We have our damn deal. Now leave an old woman to drink her tea in peace.”