“You’ve been keeping secrets,” Markus said.
“You didn’t ask the right questions.”
He studied her. “You’re a seer, yet the madness hasn’t consumed you.”
Cathrynne smiled. “I’ve glimpsed the future and it isn’t rosy, Markus.”
“You mean the Dark-bringer.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. “You know?”
“I know he will bring chaos, that is all. Have you seen his face?”
“No.” She leaned forward. “But I can tell you this. When he comes, not even kaldurite will save you from him.”
She sensed that Markus was unsettled, though he tried to cover it.
“The end of an age?” His tone was patronizing. “I heard the same from seers at the kloster in Arjevica.”
So others besides Julia Camara were having the same vision. A chill went through her.
“But if you give me a name,” Markus continued in the maddeningly reasonable tone he always used with her, “I promise to keep you under my protection.”
Cathrynne didn’t laugh aloud at the absurdity of this statement—only because it hurt too much to laugh.
“I want my freedom,” she said.
“That might be possible, depending on what you know.”
Berti stepped forward, her mouth an angry slash. “You can’t seriously consider letting her go!”
Markus rounded on her. “And you went well beyond the bounds of what I approved for her interrogation,” he snapped.
“Because you didn’t want to know,” Berti shot back, “but your mother approved it. She has more backbone.”
His jaw tightened. “My mother is not the head of the White Foxes. I am, and you will do well to remember that.”
The two witches stared at each other.
“She’s doomed to go mad anyway,” Berti argued. “It’s obvious she knows nothing worthwhile. All this is just a ruse to postpone the inevitable. We’ll be doing her a favor.” She glanced at Cathrynne. “Wouldn’t you prefer a clean death now that you’ve had a taste of the kloster life?”
Cathrynne didn’t bother to answer.
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” Markus protested, but his voice was weakening.
Ash watched her like a caracal about to pounce on a wounded rat. Kane stood slightly apart from the others. He was pale and sweating, as though he was in discomfort.
Maybe it was because she had just worked her first receptive spell, but Cathrynne sensed something. Muffled, but there. A faint resonance of metal.
Kane had removed his silver teeth. Ash had taken out all her piercings. Cathrynne knew there was not a single pin in this room. Neither Berti nor Markus would be so careless as to wear anything she could use to work lithomancy.
The vision flashed before her eyes. A silent gunshot. Red blooming against the white of Kane’s coat.
Was it possible that Kal Machena’s bullet was still inside him?
Yes, it was. She’d spent enough time at the infirmary to understand basic medicine. If the bullet had lodged near his heart or lungs, the doctors might have left it there rather than risk removing it.
That bullet was the last piece of metal she might ever touch.
