My mother’s head jerks up. Despair suffuses every inch of her. “It wouldn’t have been a life,” she whispers.

“Perhaps,” Keris says. “But can you be sure?”

Time shifts again. The Commandant holds coals in a gloved hand as she approaches my mother, who is tied to a table.

Far back in my mind, a memory surfaces. Ever been tied to a table while hot coals burned into your throat? Cook said those words to me long ago, in a kitchen at Blackcliff. Why did Cook say those words to me?

Time speeds. Mother’s hair goes from blonde to pure snow white. The Commandant carves scars into her face—horrible, disfiguring scars—until it is no longer the face of my mother, no longer the face of the Lioness but instead the face of—

Ever had your face carved up with a dull knife while a Mask poured salt water into your wounds?

No. I do not believe it. Cook must have experienced the same thing as my mother. Perhaps it was the Commandant’s particular way of getting rebel fighters to talk. Cook is an old woman, and my mother wouldn’t be—she would still be relatively young.

But Cook never acted like an old woman, did she? She was strong. The scars are the same. The hair.

And her eyes. I never looked closely at Cook’s eyes. But I remember them now: deep set and dark blue—darker still for the shadows that lurked within.

But it cannot be. It cannot.

“It is true, Laia,” the Nightbringer says, and my very soul shudders, for I know he tells no lies. “Your mother lives. You know her. And now, you are free.”

XL: Elias

How did someone get all the way to the jinn grove without me knowing?

The border walls should have kept outsiders away. But not, I realize, if they’re thin and weak. Ghosts push against one spot, far to the east, and I slow down. Do I shore up the wall? Move the ghosts? Their agitation is like nothing I’ve seen before, almost feral in its intensity.

But if there is a human in the grove, skies only know what they might be suffering at the hands of the jinn.

I head for the interloper, and Mauth pulls at me, his weight like an anvil chained to my legs. Ahead of me, ghosts attempt to block my path, a thick cloud that I can’t see through.

We have her, Elias. The jinn speak, and the ghosts stop their wailing. The sudden silence is unnerving. It’s as if all the Forest listens.

We have her, Elias, and we have torn her mind to shreds.

“Who?” I drag myself away from the ghosts, ignoring their cries and Mauth’s pull. “Who do you have?”

Come and see, usurper.

Did they somehow capture Mamie? Or Afya? Dread grows in me like a weed, speeding my windwalking. Their machinations have already led to the suffering of Aubarit’s Tribe. To Afya and Gibran being possessed by ghosts. To Mamie losing her brother, and hundreds of Tribespeople dying. The Blood Shrike is too far away for them to hurt. Of all those I love, only the Shrike and one other have been spared their predations.

But they cannot possibly have Laia. She is in Adisa, hunting for a way to stop the Nightbringer. Faster, Elias, faster. I battle Mauth’s draw, tearing through the increasingly frenzied ghosts until I reach the jinn grove.

At first, it looks as it always does. Then I see her, crumpled on the earth. I recognize the patchy gray cloak. I gave it to her long ago, on a night when I never could have imagined how much she’d one day mean to me.

In the trees to the north, a shadow watches. Nightbringer! I leap for him, but he disappears, gone so fast that if not for his laugh on the wind, I’d have thought I’d imagined him.

I am at Laia’s side in two steps, hardly believing she is real. The earth shudders more violently than it ever has before. Mauth is angry. But it does not matter to me. What in ten bleeding hells have the jinn done to her?

“Laia,” I call to her, but when I look into her face, her gold eyes are faraway, her lips parted dully. “Laia?” I tip her head toward me. “Listen to me. Whatever the Nightbringer said to you, whatever he and his ilk are trying to convince you of, it’s a trick. A lie—”

We do not lie. We told her the truth, and the truth has freed her. She will never hope again.

I need to get her mind out of their clutches.

How can you, usurper, when you cannot lay your hands on the magic?

“You tell me what the hells you’ve done to her!”

As you wish. Seconds later, my body is as rooted to the grove as Laia’s is, and the jinn show me her purpose in coming through the Waiting Place. She must get to Antium, to the Blood Shrike, to the ring. She must stop the Nightbringer.

But her mission is forgotten as a fire rages in her mind, leaving her lost, wandering in a prison, forced to watch what happened to her family over and over.

We show you her story so that you can suffer with her, Elias, the jinn say. Cry out your rage, won’t you? Cry out your uselessness. The sound is so sweet.

My scims will do nothing against this. Threats will do nothing. The jinn are in her head.

A powerful yank from Mauth nearly knocks me to my knees, so sharp that I gasp from the pain. Something is happening out in the Waiting Place. I can feel it. Something is happening to the border.

Leave her, then, Elias. Go and attend to your duty.

“I will not leave her!”

You have no choice—not if you wish the world of the living to survive.