Kimry is looking down at her hands, shivering. Leah sits, dumbstruck. “Escape?” Leah can almost remember Kimry mentioning this before, but she’d always thought it was in a more literal sense, of running away, not ceasing to exist in a world.

“She wasn’t happy,” Kimry says. “She was…really quite miserable. I don’t know why exactly, but she wanted to escape her life, like she’d escaped the faire. She didn’t want someone else to swoop in and do it, either, like the five did when they took her in.”

“And the song?”

“It’s a prayer.”

Somehow, Leah feels she already knew that, even as Kimry said it. The next part she also feels bubbling up in her memories. “To which God or Goddess?”

“Na ievessoi Dokair. The Lady of Murk.”

“The one who says you’re supposed to marry two people of the same gender on the night of the new year, to ensure continuity?”

Kimry makes a face. “Only in Volst. In the northlands she’s the patron of barriers between one thing and the next; rest stops on long journeys; eclipses; unwed lovers.”

“And escaping?”

Kimry’s head falls again. “The song…it’s a prayer of return. You sing it when you or someone you love is lost, and you want to light the path to home.” She shrugs. “I heard her sing it a few times, but I thought she was just very religious. If that song has something to do with why you’re here, it means my Leah isn’t just missing; she’s taken a new path. She’s gone.”

Leah is lost in thought. If she wanted to go home, why did she leave her body? And how did my mind end up in this body? Why not just leave the body to die and go to whatever new place? She remembers the sounds of the street, from when she first held her hands over the anchors, and the strange double-vision at the end of her dream when she touched them. I think…I think she really is in my world. Does she know that I’m here? Does she even know that I exist? –ed? She must know; my body is so different from hers – fewer scars, to start with, and way less muscle. Functional eyes.

Has she been getting any of my memories? How would I notice if some were missing? Would it have to do with Bitter Dream, or with whatever did this to us?

“Say something.”

Leah blinks, and sees Kimry still watching her face for some response. “Say what?”

“Do you know what happened to her? Is she safe? Is she coming back?”

Leah shakes her head. “I only have speculation.”

Kimry seems to deflate, dwelling for a long time before speaking. “How long have you known you were…not Leah?”

“Since I woke up here. I’ve always had my memories of my world.”

“So you were…pretending.”

Leah chooses her words carefully. “I wasn’t sure what was going on, and I thought blending in was the safest option. I pretended.” Leah sighs. “Imagine you wake up in a totally unfamiliar world, no clue where you are, no idea what’s happening.”

A third voice weighs in. “I can certainly relate to having no idea what’s happening.”

Leah and Kimry turn to the open door, where Meredith stands, arms crossed but not looking upset. Kimry stands with a quick bow and scurries off. Leah raises an eyebrow and waits for Meredith to talk first.

Meredith, it seems, has the same idea. The two stare off until one of them cracks. The falcons chirp in the background.

“Did Vivitha explain it to you?” Leah asks.

Meredith nods. “She tried to, at least.”

“And Iris?”

“Iris ran off to try and find you. I think she was afraid you were going to get yourself gutted by an estate guard.”

Leah nods uneasily. “Do you need another explanation?”

“I’d like to know why you didn’t trust us.”

Leah blanks at that. Meredith takes the seat beside her, sitting very stiffly. “I didn’t know where I was, who any of you were…” Leah tries to explain it, but Meredith’s expression makes her fall silent.

“We all knew something was wrong. Between the five of us, we could have come up with something…some way of keeping your situation secret, until we found a cure.”

Leah shakes her head. “When Vivitha found out, she…didn’t react well.”

“Because by that point you’d been lying for nearly a month, pretending to be Leah. If you’d told us at the beginning – ”

“But back at the beginning I didn’t know who to trust. I woke up to a bloody fight.” Leah swallows hard, avoiding the memories. “Back where I used to live, the most death I ever saw was…processed meat at the butchers. When I woke up here, one of the first things I saw was a man’s head getting smashed in.”

Meredith smirks. “That’s Iris for you.”

“It’s not funny.” Leah’s tone is hard. “It’s terrifying. You people probably all need counselling to work through the shit you’ve seen and done.” She continues on through Meredith’s confused expression. “When I looked at you, I didn’t see loyal friends. I saw terrifying warriors with lethal weapons, who were ready to kill anyone who went against them. I still see that, and I don’t like it.”

Meredith looks a little hurt, but does not interrupt.

“And when we got to Valerin, I saw all sorts of people; powerful noble families, and servants, and guards. People talked about a great enemy who had kidnapped me, but when I asked what he had done to become the enemy, no-one would answer! Do you realise how useless that was? All you needed to do was say ‘oh, he’s a magic teacher whose presence undermines Valerin’s authority, and who is responsible for an embarrassing duel in the Lord’s family history,’ and I’d have been able to make up my own mind about him, but no, everyone beat around the bush.” Leah takes a deep breath and holds her hands together in front of her face. “Meredith, I didn’t trust you then because I didn’t know the full story – what each side stood for. Now that I do know…I still don’t trust you.”

Meredith sits up straight and actually flinches at that.

“I think you’re good people, and I like you, but I don’t agree with your politics or your methods. I think anti-magic sentiment is inherently classist and upholds existing power structures to the detriment of society’s most vulnerable populations. I think the colonial mindset of Volst and Devad fighting over the Interlands is outdated, and it is far more reasonable to just let the Contested Lands govern themselves in whatever way they see fit. I think that Volst doesn’t actually care about the Jun province, and just wants to make sure there isn’t a precedent of provinces becoming self-governing, because then Valerin and Probesc and Welleslass might get it into their heads to become independent also, and that frightens Volst. The five are fighting to uphold the old government, and I don’t agree with how the old government is structured, or how it enforces its rule. When this is all done, if I can’t get home, I’m going to stay in Seffonshold, and support his cause. Not fighting, because that’s not what I do, but I will stand with him.”

Meredith has been listening attentively to all this, carefully keeping her face neutral. Even afterwards, she considers what Leah has said in silence. Finally, she responds. “Back in your world, were you always this smart?”

Leah cracks a grin. “I’ve had a lot of time here to read and think things over, while I was trying to answer all the questions you refused to.”

Meredith stands up and goes to the nearby falcon cage, reaching a finger through the bars to stroke its feathers. The bird flutters angrily at the touch and side-steps away. “That gave you the information, sure, but the way you express the information…you sound like some of the old scholars from my home.”

Leah remembers then that Meredith is noble-born, and wonders if some of her comments possibly hit a little close for her. “I’m smart in my world, but I’m blind and deaf here. It’s hard to take advantage of being smart when no-one tells you anything about the world you’re in. For instance, sure, I know a lot about the politics of my homeland, how the electoral system works, what first-past-the-post means, and that’s all complicated information – but I’ve been here a month and I’ve only just learned that Lord Valerid is a Baron.”

Meredith looks baffled. “What did you think he was?”

“Well I mean, you all called him ‘Lord.’”

Meredith cocks an eyebrow. “Leah?”

Leah throws her hands up. “I thought he was a Lord!”

Meredith laughs loudly, but smothers it quickly.

Leah laughs at herself a bit too. “But see, that’s the thing. My first two weeks here were filled with such confusion, and the only person who ever offered me answers was Wellen – and you know what? I did tell him about my memory loss. Not about my other memories, but at least that I was a blank slate. He helped me. He gave me reason to trust him, even if he also kept some things hidden. And I would have told him more, if I thought he would believe me, because I never doubted that he was doing it for me, not the reputation of the group.”

Meredith turns around angrily at that. “Do you have any idea what the early days were like for us? How hard it was to be taken seriously? People hired us, sure, but did they pay us? We kept getting shoe-horned into jobs that were done ‘for the honour of such-and-such,’ because only a bunch of golden-hearted girls with no common sense to guide them could ever care for those causes. I fought so hard to get us acknowledged, and yes, carefully managing our reputation was a part of that. It took years for people to believe we were quality fighters, not just a bunch of dumb muscle you could throw at a problem until it was squashed.”

“Meredith, you are a bunch of dumb muscle being thrown at a problem until it’s squashed.” Leah stands up to face her. “You willingly went up against Seffonshold, killing people, because other people hired you to do it, and you never asked why.”

“You think that we didn’t know what a pretender-lord was? You think that a magic school so near Volst’s territory is a neutral thing?”

“Did Vivitha tell you about Areiu?”

Meredith stops. “Who?”

“Areiu. She’s a six-year-old half-Gllythe girl who lives in Seffonshold, and has done so all her life. She goes to school and is taught by the clerics, and when she comes back to the Hold she hears the militia talking about the five, and she knows us, not by name, but by how we fight.” Leah bites her hand to steady herself. “When she first met me she asked if I was the one who killed people like this.” Leah mimes drawing a dagger across her throat. “A six-year-old asked me that.”

Meredith slumps down to sit on the opposite bench. “What is a child doing in a military stronghold?”

“Is the Valerid’s estate a military stronghold? It’s a capital city, Meredith, and so is Seffonshold. The school teaches different branches of magic, not just the offensive ones; they teach illusion, and medicine, and…how to make plants grow, and stuff like that. When Seffon’s forces get here, I wouldn’t be surprised if they can bring the burnt fields back to normal, though probably not fully back to life.” Leah kneels down in front of Meredith and takes her hands. “Did you never consider that there was more to this conflict than ‘my country says this country is bad, therefore it is?’”

Meredith slumps, staring across the room, over Leah’s shoulders, not seeing and not responding. Leah stays with her a while, and then gets up to leave.

“What’s the girl’s name?”

Leah turns at the door. “Areiu.”

Meredith mouths the name, then nods. She gets up and gestures for Leah to follow her.

“Are we going to the prison?”

Meredith shakes her head. “If you really are as clever as all this, then we could use your help. Even if you’re not a fighter.” She pauses at the top of the stairs. “If you’re willing, of course.”

Leah reaches out and gives her shoulder a squeeze. “I may not agree with your side of things, but I like you a lot, and I want you to get out of this alive. If I can help, I will.”

Patting Leah’s hand a few times, Meredith resumes her path. She leads Leah down and towards the now-empty bathing rooms; Leah remembers the Lord mentioning that the water had been diverted, and she is expecting to see the rooms dry.

What hits her first, however, is the lack of scent. “It’s so…empty.”

She looks around the carved stone of the bathing room, going from section to section. The source of the water is bone dry, not even a trickle, and all the tiers of baths have been scoured clean. The sulphur smell is almost entirely gone, replaced by a sort of musty-basement smell. Without the water to warm it, the air down here is chilled.

“Three days ago, we woke up to find the baths had gone dry. There was a little bit of stagnant water left, at the bottom of each tub, but the source wasn’t running.” Meredith paces along the edge of one round pool, then slides down into it to kick at the dust on the bottom. “We had to flush the system with river water to get rid of the smell.”

“The smell didn’t leave when the water did?”

Meredith bends down to brush away dust at the bottom of the tub. “If anything it got stronger. As the water evaporated, the smell escaped too.”

Leah joins her at the bottom of the tub, and runs her fingers through the powder at the bottom. There is a faint smell to it, a sort of rotten egg aroma.

“We don’t know for sure why they did it,” Meredith is saying, climbing back out of the tub and walking down the drainage line. “But we think they went to the spring’s source and diverted it there. They can’t be blocking the spring, because the pressure’s too strong, so it has to be flowing out somewhere else. Probably it’s to try and remove all our safe drinking water, but if that’s the case why not just poison it with acid like they did the river? Maybe they’re using it, but we can’t figure out what they’d need hot water for when they can heat it themselves with magic.”

“They don’t need hot water,” Leah says, scrambling up and heading back to the door, mentally planning a route out of the keep. “They need sulphur.”

“What for?” Meredith asks, following after her.

The burnt fields…“Are they also cutting down a lot of trees, making a lot of charcoal?”

Meredith’s expression shows that Leah’s hunch is correct.

“And damned if I can remember what the third ingredient is, but I’d bet they found some somewhere, or brought it along.”

“Ingredient of what?”

Leah runs up, following the outer wall. They pick Vivitha up along the way, by accident, and Meredith calls two guards to accompany them. “Where’s the best lookout point to see what they’re doing?” Leah asks, and Meredith takes the lead, bringing them up to a turret at the eastern edge of the keep, overlooking a bridge.

Crossbowmen lining the sides hide under tower shields laid across their backs; the lack of crenellations means grappling hooks have a hard time finding purchase, Leah realises. Cheden soldiers stand back on the bridge, under a shield wall of their own, with archer’s bows peeking through the gaps. There is a vat of hot water ready to be poured over the edge, and a carefully tended fire keeping the temperature steady.

Of course they wouldn’t use boiling oil, Leah realises, smacking herself mentally for her earlier assumptions, back when she first walked the walls with Jeno. They need every calorie they can find to fuel their army. Using oil as a weapon would be a waste.

The soldiers on duty make way for Meredith, though seem conflicted to have Leah there as well.

“What are we looking for?” Meredith asks, crouching at the edge of the turret.

“Forges, smoke, any signs of smithing where there shouldn’t be.”

They scan the city, looking for plumes. Vivitha finally points one out, on the other side of the keep, on the mainland. “That’s over near the marketplace,” she says. “There are no forges there usually, but that’s a lot of smoke.”

“That’s also near the ships, right?” Leah asks, and Vivitha nods. “Have you got a telescope?” At their blank faces, she tries different names. “A spyglass? Binoculars? Two lenses in a tube that make things look closer?”

“Um, if that’s a magic thing, then…” Meredith begins, and Leah shakes her head and changes track.

“Where does the sulphur spring come from? Where is the source?”

Meredith and Vivitha shrug their heads. One of the guards Meredith swept along speaks up, saying that the tunnels run along the shoreline by the north bridge. “When it does get cold enough to freeze, it still never freezes there.”

“Tunnels? How large?” Leah asks. The man gestures with his arms, to a diameter of about two feet. “Big enough for a person, then. Has there been much activity on the north of the main island?”

“No more so than here,” another guard answers. “Captain, is there something going on we should know about?”

Meredith looks critically at Leah. “How certain are you?”

“Dead certain.”

“Unlucky choice of words,” Meredith says. She turns back to the guards. “Keep an eye on the smoke in the marketplace. We’ll go to the north bridge.”

Meredith leads them all back down, trailed by their two guards. They run through the walls and emerge again at the north turret.

Looking down along the short bridge – the river on this side is narrow, about fifty metres, and very fast – Leah remembers Jeno’s mention of trysts under the bridge. “There’s a blind spot,” she says, pointing to the far end. “Not much, but enough for a person or two to stand. Where exactly do the tunnels run?”

The guard points, drawing a line along the bridge at a diagonal. “Before the city was built up, the spring came up on the big island. The tunnels bring the water to the estate.”

“Tunnels made of what?”

“Solid stone, Miss. Carved by hand.”

“Didn’t there used to be a building there?”

The rest of the group turns to where Meredith is pointing. One of the crossbowmen nods. “Used to be the tanner’s guild. The enemy knocked it down the very first day, raided it and took every barrel in the place.”

“Barrels of half-tanned leather?” Vivitha asks. “Why?”

“Where?” Leah asks.

“Not the leather, Miss,” the guard says. “The tanning chemicals. Dumped some in the river, took the rest to the port.”