“We’re heading to the Water Mine to interrupt a meeting between Cress and Avaric,” I say. “How do you propose we keep that from their spies?”

“I’ll have my suspects watched closely,” she replies, “and a perimeter of guards set up as well. They’ll shoot down any possible messenger birds they see and let no one pass. And no one can know anything about this strategy until we’re on the field. All meetings have to be between you and the other leaders and a handful of people you would trust with your lives. That’s it.”

I nod. “But Heron’s right—we shouldn’t even tell the other leaders about Erik,” I say, thinking about Maile’s reaction to him. I don’t think she’s a spy, but I’m not sure what she would do with the information, and that is enough for me not to trust her with it.

Heron nods. “He didn’t have time to tell me much without raising the messenger’s suspicion, but he said he would pass us information with this.” He inclines his head toward the molo varu. “The Gorakians will be staying on the fringe of the capital, but Erik will be inside the palace—an ally and a hostage in one. He’s going to play whatever game the Kaiserin wants him to play and try to get S?ren free before escaping. You and Blaise know the palace passages better than he does, though, so when the time comes…”

I glance at Blaise before nodding. “We’ll find the best path, once we know where Cress is keeping S?ren.”

Artemisia leans back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. “So we have a few spies of our own now,” she says. “The new Theyn’s servants, and Erik. It’s a start, so long as they don’t get caught. I can’t imagine that this new Kaiserin will be any more merciful toward spies than the Kaiser was.”

“She won’t be,” I say, before biting my lip. “And I think we have another spy, as bizarre as it’s going to sound, though it’s one Cress won’t be able to catch.”

Artemisia leans forward. “Who? I thought I’d accounted for all of our people.”

I take a deep breath. “Me,” I say, before telling them about my dream last night. When I’m done, the three of them only stare at me, but I can read their thoughts clear enough on their faces. “I know how it sounds, but I haven’t gone mad,” I say.

“Of course not,” Artemisia says quickly, glancing at the other two with raised eyebrows. “But…well…we all know better than anyone else what that much time in the mine can do to a person. It’s perfectly understandable if you might start getting a bit…delusional.”

“I’m not delusional,” I say. “How else would you explain it?”

Blaise shrugs. “Clarity of hindsight,” he says. “You dreamed she said a few vaguely phrased things, but you’re looking back at it with what you know now, and that’s coloring it.”

“It’s not that,” I say, struggling. “I can’t explain it, but I felt her. I felt her breath. The weight of her presence in my mind—it wasn’t ephemeral. It was heavy and solid and real.”

“It felt that way,” Artemisia says, her voice surprisingly gentle. “But that’s madness, Theo.”

Heron’s the only one who doesn’t say anything, but his expression is drawn tight.

“What are you thinking, Heron?” I ask him.

He jerks out of his thoughts and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he admits. “It does sound like madness, but I’ve heard madder things. You’ll tell us if it happens again?”

I nod. “I’m done keeping secrets from you three,” I say. “I don’t think it’s ever ended up doing me any good. Yana Crebesti. I trust you.”

It isn’t until I have to force the words out that I realize how difficult they are for me to say. I survived for so long by not trusting anyone. It was a necessary lesson to learn, and I wouldn’t be alive today if I hadn’t learned it, but now I don’t think I can make it to the end of this war without trust. There is nothing I wouldn’t trust Artemisia, Heron, and Blaise with—not my life and not the future of Astrea, if it comes to that.

The three of them exchange looks before nodding.

“Yana Crebesti,” they say.

* * *

—

Artemisia lingers after Blaise and Heron leave, her expression thoughtful but distant so that I can’t begin to guess at what is running through her mind. When we’re alone, she turns her gaze to me, lips pursed.

“The Kaiserin,” she says.

I wait for her to continue, but after a moment it becomes clear she has nothing more to add.

“What about her?” I ask.

“You keep calling her ‘Cress,’?” she says. “You need to stop doing that. She’s the Kaiserin now. Anything more familiar makes it look like you see her as a person—as a friend—instead of the enemy, and you can’t afford that.”

I swallow. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it. In my mind, the Kaiserin will always be S?ren’s mother, with her sad eyes and broken spirit, and Cress will always just be Cress, ambitious and cunning, but not dangerous, not capable of all of the evil she has wrought.

Artemisia’s right—I need to stop, but I don’t know how to.

“I’ll try,” I say.

“She’s not your friend,” Artemisia says. “She’s not your heart’s sister or whatever else the two of you used to say. She’s the girl who tried to kill you and very nearly succeeded. She’s the girl who sits on your mother’s throne and holds our people in chains.”

“I know that,” I say, each word feeling like it weighs a ton. “Some habits are difficult to break, though. Some things are far easier said than done.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” she says. “I said you had to find a way to do it.”

I nod, pressing my lips together. “Do you believe me?” I ask her. “That somehow our minds have bridged?”

Artemisia doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I believe that you believe it,” she says carefully. “And I believe I’ve seen strange things happen in the mine. But sharing dreams? I’ve never heard of that.”

A thought occurs to me. “The poison she gave me,” I say. “Did it come from the Fire Mine?”

She blinks, understanding arriving slowly. “I assumed it had. Encatrio does. Did she say otherwise?”

I shrug. “She said she’d figured it out through torturing Astreans who knew the recipe.”

Artemisia tilts her head to one side. “Recipe,” she says. “There is no recipe. It’s water from the Fire Mine—nothing more. Do you think the poison she gave you was something else?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But if she got the poison from the mine, the slaves who were working down there would have to know about it. We can ask them.”

Artemisia nods, her mouth twisting into a frown. “I still don’t believe you,” she says. “But theoretically, if you are sharing dreams, it means she can see inside your mind just as easily as you can see into hers.”

“I know,” I say, the thought crawling over my skin like the legs of a thousand spiders. “But she thinks I’m dead. As long as she continues to think that, she’ll have no reason to think her dreams are anything more.”

She considers this for a moment before shaking her head. “It’s all ludicrous,” she says. “I can’t believe I’m even acting like it isn’t.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m not sure I truly believe it myself. Which is why we need answers.”

SOMETIMES, THE TIME I SPENT in the mine filters in like sunlight through a curtained window, diluted and soft-edged and incomplete. But other times, the curtain shifts and light pours in, sharp and jarring. I remember darkness; I remember being cold. I remember my mother.

The memory hurts, forcing its way into my mind like a dagger into flesh. Unlike a dagger, though, it is impossible to pull out again.

* * *

—

She tended to her gray garden, though nothing grew there anymore.

I remember trying to tell her this, to explain that the Kaiser had burned everything, that the dirt is mostly ash and not even weeds are able to force their way through the dry ground, but she wouldn’t hear it. She continued to dig with her hands, placing seeds deep in the ground before tucking them in beneath a blanket of dirt.

Even in the mine, I knew my mother was dead, though sometimes, when I just saw her out of the corner of my eye, I would forget for just a second. The woman before me with her dirt-caked hands was not my mother—was not a woman at all, really. She was a product of the mine or a product of my mind or perhaps some combination of the two. She was not real. I knew this but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Instead I crouched beside her and dug my hands into the dirt as well, feeling it wedge beneath my fingernails. I pressed seeds into the pockets of earth, just as my mother had taught me.

She watched me, her eyes appraising, and when she smiled, it was so warm that I didn’t miss the sun.

“Nothing will grow here,” I told her again. “The Kaiser made sure of it.”