“One of them will kill her,” I said dully. “Simply to put an end to that reminder. Simply to be sure that no witness remains.”

“So I fear,” Epiny said and sighed.

“Every time I have tried to use the magic to my own good, it has cut me. Cut me and burned those I hold most dear.”

“I fear that is true.”

“And I fear that there is only worse to come, Epiny. The Specks’ anger against the Gernians grows. The young men, I am told, are restless and want to do worse than the magic already does.”

She gave a small, bitter laugh. “What worse could there be?”

“I don’t know. And that is what I fear. Soldier’s Boy has access to my memories. I fear he will turn what I know against Gettys. Epiny, there must be some way to resolve this. Some way to make the Gernians leave our lands and stop cutting our ancestor trees.”

For a moment, Epiny just looked at me silently. Then she cocked her head, leaned closer to me, and said, “Nevare?” in a cautious voice.

“What?”

She reached across to me and set her hand on mine. “You are Nevare?”

“Of course I am. Why? What?”

“You said ‘our lands’ and ‘our ancestor trees’ as if you were a Speck.”

I sighed. “Did I? I share Soldier’s Boy’s thoughts so much. And sometimes, what he thinks makes a lot of sense to me. It’s not comfortable to see both sides so clearly, Epiny. I can never retreat to feeling right or justified about anything. The Gernians are wrong to cut the trees without taking the Specks’ beliefs into consideration. The Specks are wrong to sow disease and deluge the Gernians with misery.”

“But we committed the first wrong. We came into their land and took it from them.”

“They took it from the Kidona.”

“What?”

“They took those lands from the Kidona. Took the lands and forced a settled folk to become nomads. And then did all they could to destroy the magic of the Kidona and deny them access to the spirit world.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “It’s that—no matter how far you go back, someone took the land from someone else. I don’t think anything can be solved by trying to work out who stole it first. The solution is in the future, Epiny, not the past.”

I’m not sure that she even heard me. “There must be a way to make us stop cutting the trees. There has to be someone who can stop the road. Someone who would listen to what you’ve learned, to what we know now. Someone who would believe us and have the power to act on it.”

I shook my head. “It will never be that simple, Epiny. We’re talking about the movement of people here. You can’t just say ‘stop’ to progress.”

“The Queen could.” A strange light had come into her eyes. “Why did I never think of it before? The Queen is fascinated with all things mystical and magical. Before I ‘ruined’ myself, I was a guest at her séances; it was probably due to her séances that I became so vulnerable to magic. If I wrote to her, reminding her of who I was, if I told her what we’ve discovered about the Specks and the trees…”

I snorted. “That silly woman, with her superstitions and mystic circles and séances? No one takes her seriously.”

Epiny laughed, and it was a hearty laugh. “Oh, Nevare, listen to yourself! You are caught up in a web of magic, and yet still disdain the Queen for believing in it!”

I had to laugh with her. “My father left a deep imprint on me. Even when I know he taught me incorrectly, I still have all those old reflexes. Even so, my comment stands, Epiny. You and I may know that her studies are not foolishness. But enlisting her as our ally wouldn’t work. She’s powerful, but most of her nobles still regard her fascination with mysticism as, well, a foolish quirk. No one would believe what you wrote to her. And we have no proof, short of bringing her out here and letting her break a proper Gettys Sweat.”

That brought a muted laugh from Epiny, but the thoughtfulness didn’t leave her face. “I could send her your soldier-son journal. That would convince her. And where she took it from there would be—”

“No!” I was adamant. “Epiny, in the good god’s name, don’t make what has befallen me any worse. You’d ruin the Burvelle name with that book. I was far too frank, much too honest. I wish I’d never kept that journal.”

“It’s safe with me,” she said quietly. “You can trust that I won’t do anything dangerous with it. Don’t you think I know what it would do to the Burvelle name? After all, once that was my name, too.” She was silent for a time and then asked, “Would you want me to send it to my father, to keep it under lock and key? He would, if I asked him to.”

“And never read it?”

She hesitated. “I would ask him not to. But it would be very hard for him. He’d want to know why I had it and how I’d come by it, and all sorts of things that I’d have a hard time explaining. But, yes, I think he’d be honorable about leaving it unread, if that was what I stipulated. It’s a book that should be preserved. And it would be safer in the Burvelle library than in the back of my cupboard.”

I scarcely heard her words. My mind was busy with another thought. “What have you told your father about me?”

She bit her lower lip. “Nothing. And that pains me, Nevare, but there it is. I cannot think what I could tell him. Or your sister, or your father. Or your poor old sergeant teacher. And so I’ve kept silent, and now that winter is closing in, no one will expect to hear anything from us until spring. I pity your little sister, left in an agony of waiting and wondering. But I just couldn’t think what to write to her. Do you think that is awfully wicked of me?”

“No worse than what I’ve done.” I felt something, a tugging, a weakening in me. I felt a peculiar recognition. Soldier’s Boy slept restlessly. He might even now be waking up.

“You’re fading,” she said mournfully. “Come to me again tomorrow night, Nevare. We must be able to find some solution to this. You cannot simply vanish into him!”

“I don’t know if I can come again.”

But before I had even finished my words, I was gone from her dream. I felt the pull of Soldier’s Boy’s awareness stirring. With every passing day, we became linked more tightly. Now it seemed that when he was wakeful, there was not enough left of my awareness for me to dream-walk. For a moment, I felt my dream superimposed on his. “Lisana,” he groaned, but he dreamed only. Not even in his dreams could he reach her.

He shifted in the moss bed. The only part of him that felt warm was where Likari slept against him. In his sleep, Soldier’s Boy scowled and then used a bit of magic. It warmed both of them, settling over them like a good bear rug. He sank into sleep. I waited then, waited until his breathing was once more deep and steady. I was tempting my luck and I knew it, trying to slip away from him twice in one night. But my concern for Amzil was such that I felt I had to risk it. This time, when I tugged at his magic, pulling free what I needed, he stirred slightly and scowled. I dared take only a little. Now or never, I challenged myself, and fled with it, arrowing straight to Amzil. Finding her was effortless; I had only to think of the sole kiss we had ever shared, and I was with her, holding her, tasting her mouth, smelling her skin. I found her, and for one wildly joyous instant, I broke into her dream. “Amzil!” I cried and reached to pull her into my eager embrace.

“No!” she shrieked. She sat up in her bed and I felt her fight wildly to break from her sleep. “No more dreams of you. You’re gone, and I’m here, and I have to live with that. No more foolish dreams. No more foolish dreams.” She sobbed on those final words, and then leaned her head on her arms. She sat in her bed and wept. I hovered near her, but found a wall so tight and so strong that I sensed she had been building it for a long time.

“Amzil, please. Please let me into your dreams,” I begged her. But even as I spoke, I felt the magic dwindle away. My vision of her faded. Suddenly I was back in my body, trapped like a fly in an overturned glass, alone with the rest of the night to ponder my fate.