Maelin told them together. She did not ask Sevenofknine to leave. She did not draw Luvztospoon aside or speak softly enough that one of them could pretend not to hear. She put the complete diagram on the table.
The page had been handled so often that one corner was beginning to tear. It bore three kinds of handwriting: the original scholar's narrow lines, later warnings in a heavier hand, and the cramped instructions of people who had tried to improve the machine instead of destroying it. Maelin pinned the edges beneath two cups. Nobody reached to steady her hands when they shook.
Outside, there were boots in the yard, a wagon creaking, someone calling for a length of rope. A rescue was ending around them. In the room, the work that remained had become smaller and more terrible. Luvztospoon sat beside Seven, near enough that their shoulders touched. Whatever Maelin had learned, he would not make Seven receive it alone.
“The clasp held the last part of the binding outside her. Once Malrec broke it, that part settled into the bearer.”
Sevenofknine looked down at the marks beneath her wrist. Sevenofknine looked down at her wrist. “I'm the third ring now.”
“The living part of it, yes,” Maelin said.
Luvztospoon read the warning beneath the diagram. “Put another clasp on her.”
“These records describe it being attempted. It did not restore the separation.”
“Then cut the bond.”
“We can try to divert a small part first. I will not tear it out of her.”
He looked at Sevenofknine. She nodded.
“Try.”
✦
Maelin placed one broken piece of channel stone in a circle of ash. Rashka had carried it from the keep wrapped in a guard's coat. Now it lay between two candles, dark and cold. Sevenofknine sat beside the table while Maelin bound a thread between her wrist and the stone. The priest touched her silver symbol to the thread. A thin blue line rose from Sevenofknine's skin.
Luvztospoon watched it stretch toward the broken channel. For a heartbeat, hope hurt worse than fear. Then the line split. One half ran into the stone. The other reached toward him. The ribbon at his wrist began to smoke. He snatched his hand back. Sevenofknine cried out as the marks climbed her arm.
Maelin cut the thread at once. The hooded figure, standing beside the door, crossed the room and placed the iron basin over the stone before the light could reach the floor. The basin rang beneath a single blow from inside. Then everything went quiet. Luvztospoon held his burned wrist. Sevenofknine was staring at him.
“It found you.”
Maelin unwound the remaining thread.
“He knows which soul answers hers. The bond will not go into an empty object while it can reach you.”
“Then put it in me,” Luvztospoon said.
Sevenofknine rose so quickly that the stool fell. “No.” Luvztospoon started, “If it can move—”
“That line wasn't leaving her,” Maelin said. “It was drawing you in.”
He looked at the basin. Something tapped beneath it with the patient rhythm they had heard at the quarry.
✦
By midday, the rescued prisoners had gone south with Korr and Torren. Fen went with them on a litter. He was pale, angry, and alive. Before they left, he caught Rashka's arm.
“My bow.”
She showed him the broken string.
“I'll bring the wood back.”
“Bring yourself.”
She looked away first. Nessa stayed long enough to sit beside Sevenofknine in the empty sheep pen.
“You could come,” she said.
Sevenofknine watched the marks move beneath her fingers.
“He'll follow me.”
“We could keep traveling.”
“You should.”
Nessa looked down. Sevenofknine touched her shoulder.
“Find somewhere with a door you can open yourself.”
The younger woman took a shaky breath.
“I don't know where.”
“Neither do I. Let that be the first thing you choose.”
When Nessa left, she carried the bent nail in her pocket.
✦
Luvztospoon walked outside before he said something he could not take back. The hooded figure stood beside the gate, watching the departing prisoners. He stopped there.
“You don't owe us anything.”
The hood turned toward him.
“If you're going, go with them.”
The figure did not move. After a moment, a gloved hand reached out and lifted the loose end of the gate latch. It had been rattling in the wind. The hand settled it securely into place. Then the figure returned to watching the road. Luvztospoon stood beside the stranger for a while. There were questions he could have asked. He had no room for them yet.
✦
Maelin found another account near the back of the oldest ledger. It had been copied from the words of the people who first sealed Veyr. His body lay in an iron casket beyond the arch. While it remained whole, the shadow could gather what the channels brought it. The old followers had been unable to destroy the casket without entering the gate.
“If we open it,” Luvztospoon said, “we can reach him.”
“The seat can hold the passage steady,” Maelin said. “It doesn't have to be turned inward at once.”
Sevenofknine leaned over the page. “I sit. Luvz destroys the casket. We pull the bond loose after Veyr is gone.”
“That may work.”
“May,” Luvztospoon repeated.
Maelin met his gaze.
“I'm telling you what I can know.”
He read the account himself. If the casket broke before Veyr crossed, the stolen souls would be released. The gate might collapse without taking its bearer. There was no promise. No neat final sentence written by someone who had done it and survived. But it was a chance to bring her home. Sevenofknine placed her hand over his.
“We try this.”
He nodded.
✦
They had an hour while Rashka scouted the approach. Berrik waited beside the wagon, checking the traces for a third time. Maelin packed the ledgers she could not bring into the keep. The hooded figure took a watch at the road bend. Sevenofknine led Luvztospoon behind the house, where a broken fence overlooked the valley.
For a while they watched the others work. The fence had lost two rails, and beyond it the slope ran down toward a patch of ground where snow had melted to reveal brown grass. It was not a beautiful place. Smoke from the house drifted low, stinging their eyes. Someone had hung torn clothes to dry from a line between two trees.
Seven leaned both elbows on the remaining rail. Luvztospoon stayed beside her without asking which part of the future she wanted to talk about first. Every future they had named before the grave had been ordinary. A door that latched. A good stove. A place to set down a sword at night. He would have traded every victory he had ever claimed for one winter of that life with her. She touched his hand, perhaps knowing exactly where his thoughts had gone. The silence between them was not empty. It held a house neither would see.
Far below, smoke rose from two distant roofs.
“I used to want a place like that,” she said.
“Two roofs?”
“One that didn't leak.”
He leaned against the fence carefully.
“That's a demanding start.”
“A table. Two chairs.”
“One very sturdy chair.”
She smiled. Then she looked at him.
“I don't want to die, Luvz.”
He reached for her. She held his hand but stayed where she was.
“I need you to know that. Whatever happens in there.”
“We'll get out.”
“I want us to. I want boring days. I want to complain because you've left your boots in the doorway. I want to hear the end of the fishing lesson.”
His throat tightened.
“It was a very important knot.”
“I know.”
She took the ribbon from his wrist. The edge was scorched, but most of the cloth had survived Maelin's attempt.
“Show me.”
He laid it across their joined hands and showed her, slowly, how the loose end turned through the loop. She followed each movement. When it was finished, she tied it back around his wrist.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much.”
She stepped into his arms then. He held her until Rashka called from the gate. Before they turned back, Sevenofknine lifted his hand to her mouth.
“If we get that table,” she said, “you're building it.”
“You'll complain about every hinge.”
“Tables don't have hinges.”
“Mine might.”
She reached up and touched the notch in his horn.
“You promised to tell me about this.”
He took her hand, but this time he did not move it away.
“A knight who decided I should kneel. After I came back.”
“You didn't.”
“No.”
Her thumb moved gently along the damaged edge.
“He did this?”
“Trying to persuade me.”
“What happened to him?”
“Eventually, I took his sword.”
She looked at the repaired blade at his side. He nodded. For a while, she held his hand without speaking.
“You should have told me sooner.”
“I promised somewhere with a decent chair.”
She glanced at the broken fence.
“Your standards have dropped.”
“I told you we'd need a sturdy one.”
She laughed against him. He carried the sound with him all the way to Hollow Crown.
✦
The keep's bell was silent when they arrived. Its surviving guards had fled. The courtyard stood empty except for the dead and the spilled grain from Berrik's delivery. But frost spread from the lower stair into the kitchens, tracing blue lines over the stone. Sevenofknine stopped at the entrance. She could feel Veyr through the floor. He had stopped pretending to be anyone else.
Below them, the arch spoke with a voice like stone dragging over stone.
“Come in.”