“All it takes is one seed, my love,” she told me. “One sprout to push through the earth, to dig its roots deep and wide. If I have to plant a million seeds to find that one, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

Time became liquid, slipping through my fingers whenever I tried to get a grasp of it, but my mother never left my side and I never left hers. We kneeled together in the dirt and ash of her garden, digging and planting seeds. Dirt swallowed my skin, smothered the color of my dress—was it red before? I couldn’t recall. My stomach was gnawed by hunger and my throat was so dry that it hurt to speak, but I couldn’t complain because my mother was beside me once more and so there was nothing to want for.

I plunged my hand into an untouched bit of earth, but this time, when I scooped out a clump of dirt, a quiet sob reached up from the ground and grabbed hold of me. It was pure anguish, reaching into my chest and twisting my heart. I remember how I froze at the sound.

My mother began to sing.

“I once knew a girl with hair like night,

With eyes that shone like stars so bright,

Kept the moon on a string round her wrist,

Passed its magic to each soul she kissed.”

I tore my gaze away from the ground and found her watching me.

There was something I needed to be doing, somewhere I needed to be, but that slipped through my fingers as well.

“With each soul kissed, the moon did wane,

And the girl’s magic continued to drain

Until naught was left but bones and skin.

The girl was no more but only had been.”

Something stirred in my memory, pushing through the din of my mind. That wasn’t right. It had been some years since my mother had sung that song to me, but that wasn’t how it ended. The girl’s magic drained as the moon waned—I remembered that—but the ending wasn’t so macabre.

“Until naught was left but bones and skin,” I sang, my voice hoarse and dry. “And once again the world did begin.”

I looked back down at the patch of dirt before me and began to dig again. Each handful of dirt unearthed a new sob, a wail, a scream. Each one twisted my stomach and dug its nails into my heart. My hands shook, but I forced myself to keep digging, to find the source of all of that pain.

“My love,” my mother said, struggling to be heard over the cacophony. “Stop that now.”

I paused, but I couldn’t look at her. I knew that if I did, I would falter.

“They need me,” I told her. I don’t know how I remembered that suddenly, that there were people who needed me, but the certainty was bone-deep.

“You need me,” she countered, her voice breaking. “Stay with me and I’ll keep you safe.”

I looked up at her then, and the sight of her knocked the breath from my lungs. The gash at her throat had grown wider, but the blood was gone, leaving a hole of black nothing. Her bright eyes were dull and sunken, her skin like old paper doused in water and left to dry in the sun.

To keep you safe while your world burns, a voice deep inside me whispered. To keep you safe while those you love die.

“They need me,” I told my mother again, but the words were harder to say this time. “They’re calling for me. Can’t you hear them?”

“Stay with me, my love. Stay safe and never want for love. Stay with me and never want for anything.”

I dug more until I reached for dirt and my fingers touched only air. I looked up at my mother, who watched me with wide eyes and a solemn mouth.

“I love you, Mother,” I said, swallowing back tears. “And I hope I won’t see you again for a long, long time.”

And then I pitched myself forward and into the hole I had dug, and fell into a vast nothingness.

WE HAVE TO PUT OFF our departure for a few hours. It’s unlikely that the messenger traveled entirely by himself—if I were Cress, I would have sent spies with him, to monitor our movements. And sure enough, when we send scouts to the mountains, they count twenty men watching us. They’re killed instantly—we don’t have food to waste on hostages. It’s Maile’s call, but I can’t bring myself to protest too strongly.

As we ready to leave in the afternoon, Artemisia finds me in my tent, her expression as guarded as ever, but with a vague hint of curiosity twisted in the corner of her mouth. I look up from the weathered map spread over the floor—the only thing that hasn’t been packed yet.

“Any news from Heron?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “When I saw him this morning, he had that lump of gold clutched so tightly in his hand, I thought he would break it.” She hesitates, glancing over her shoulder at the closed flap of the tent, where a figure waits, outlined in shadow. “I did find something, though…or, rather, someone. A woman who was in the mines when the Kaiserin came a month or so back.”

My spine stiffens. “Cress came here?”

“The Kaiserin,” she corrects me, not quite gently. “And yes. The official story was that she was taking on her father’s duty of inspecting the mines until a new Theyn could be chosen.”

“And the unofficial story?” I ask.

“She was asking a lot of questions,” Artemisia says. “About the mine, and specifically about the springs within it.”

The words don’t surprise me, exactly—I already suspected as much—but the thought still drips down my spine like cold water.

“So she knew about the springs,” I say. “This must have been after she’d tortured someone into telling her what Encatrio was.”

“Yes, but that’s the thing,” Art says. “None of the slaves, none of the guards, no one who has worked at the mine since the siege, knew anything about any springs. No one’s seen them.”

I cross to the other side of the tent, leaning against one of the poles and folding my arms over my chest. “That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “I heard the springs as soon as I stepped into the mine, even before I lost my memories. And I think I might have seen one once, though I’m not sure. And you…Whoever you got the Encatrio from must have gotten it from a mine.”

“The source of the poison I got didn’t bottle it himself, and I doubt he could have told me who did, or how long ago it was. It might have been sometime before the siege,” Artemisia says, shaking her head. “And I don’t know what you heard or saw, but every former slave I talked to said the same thing—they never saw a spring, no matter how deep they went. At first I thought maybe they didn’t tell the Kaiserin in order to keep the springs hidden, but they told me the same thing just now, and I get the feeling they were telling the truth.”

“But you brought someone with you,” I say, glancing at the shadow of the person on the other side of the tent. “What do they know?”

“Apparently the Kaiserin wasn’t keen to leave empty-handed after all of that trouble,” Artemisia says. “So she started asking around about other ways to create a fire poison, something that would have the same effects as Encatrio.”

“And this woman helped her?” I ask.

Art shakes her head. “But she knows someone who did, and more important—she knows what that someone said.”

* * *

—

At first glance, the woman Artemisia brings into my tent looks to be in her late thirties, with weathered skin, a frail frame, and black hair threaded with gray. Her eyes are heavy and guarded—after she worked more than a decade in the mines, so I’m sure she’s seen horrors that I can only guess at. When I offer her a seat, she takes it but sits at the very edge of the chair, hands clasped tightly in her lap. It’s then, when I really look at her, that I realize she can’t be as old as I originally thought—I would be surprised if she were older than twenty-five.

“Thank you for speaking with me,” I tell her. “What’s your name?”

“Straya,” the woman says, looking up at me with large dark green eyes that skitter away as soon as they meet mine.

“Straya,” I repeat, glancing uncertainly at where Artemisia stands behind her, blocking the entrance to the tent to ensure we’re not interrupted. “I understand the Kaiserin paid a visit to the mine to gather information.”

“No one wanted to tell her anything, Your Majesty,” Straya says, her voice shaking. “When she first arrived at the camp, she wore her hair bound up under a silk scarf that wrapped around her neck. Even though the weather was warm, she wore a cloak that covered her from the throat down. All we could see of her was her face. Her mouth was painted red, but I could see that underneath the paint something wasn’t right—her lips were flaking and black.”

I remember Cress as I saw her last, black lips, charred throat, white hair—she made no attempt to hide the effects of the Encatrio; she wore the disfigurements with pride. But that wasn’t always the case, it seems.

“Did you realize what had happened to her?” I ask.