BRIGITTA’S HANDS SHAKE AS SHE brings the porcelain teacup to her lips before replacing it upon its saucer with a rattling clink. We’re alone in the commandant’s office, her hands unbound, though Artemisia is waiting outside in case Brigitta tries anything foolish. I don’t think that will be an issue—there is not much fight in the woman. Even now, dressed in a rough-spun cotton shift, with weather-beaten skin and frizzy hair barely contained in its braids, she looks every bit the Kalovaxian noblewoman she was raised to be.

“Where did they take Jian?” she asks, gray eyes settling on mine.

Jian must be the name of the man she was with. The man I assume she left the Theyn for.

“We thought it best to question you separately,” I say. “To ensure you’re both being truthful.”

She arches her blond eyebrows the same way Cress does. “Truthful,” she echoes. “We were being held here, prisoners as much as the others.”

It isn’t that I don’t believe her. All signs say she’s telling the truth. But sitting across from her now, I can’t help but think about Cress, about one of the last conversations we had as friends, when she told me that her mother had left her. I can’t help but wonder how different things would have been—how different Cress would have been—if she hadn’t.

“You can’t blame us for taking precautions,” I say instead, sipping my own coffee. “You are Kalovaxian, after all.”

I expect her to protest, but she only lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “What would you like to know?” she asks.

There are so many things I want to know. Why did she leave Cress? What has she been doing in the last decade? Who is that man—Jian—to her? Why is she here? But those are not the most pressing questions to ask.

“Have you had any contact with your daughter since she became Kaiserin?” I ask.

She blinks, surprised into silence for a moment. “How do you know who my daughter is?” she asks.

I consider lying, but I don’t see what that will get me. “She told me her mother left her, ran off with a Gorakian man. I knew her mother’s name was Brigitta. And I’ve seen a miniature painting of you—Cress wears it on her bracelet. Besides, you look just like her.”

She flinches from the name like it was a physical strike. Her eyes drop from mine, focusing instead on her hands.

“I’ve had no contact with her since I left,” she says, her voice wavering. “I’ve heard things about her, how she’s faring, over the years, but she’s heard nothing from me. I thought it would be better that way….” She trails off, shaking her head. “No. That’s a lie. I kept my distance because I feared her father would use any communication I sent her as a way to find me, and Jian. I’ve spent the last twelve years looking over my shoulder, waiting for the day he did.”

At that, I feel a pang of sympathy. After all, I know something about fearing the Theyn. The man was a constant fixture in my nightmares for a decade.

“The Theyn is dead,” I tell her.

Her smile is grim. “Yes, I heard that. I suppose I owe you a debt of gratitude. He was not a good man.”

“I’m well aware,” I say curtly. “You still left your daughter with him easily enough.”

“There was nothing easy about it,” Brigitta says, her voice taking on a sharp edge. “I left her because I had to. You must believe me, it was the best thing for everyone.”

“I have a hard time imagining how it was the best thing for her,” I say. “You let him shape her, raise her into a monster. If you had stayed, she would be a different person now.”

“If I had stayed, the world as you know it would be little more than a pile of ash,” she says sharply.

When I’m too surprised to respond, she shakes her head.

“What was the rumor?” she asks me. “That I left my husband for another man? That I fled the Kalovaxians for love? Maybe there is some truth in that—I did love Jian, do love him. I wouldn’t have left my child for that, but it was an easier rumor to spread than the truth, I suppose.”

“And what is the truth?” I ask her.

She smiles, but there is no mirth in it. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you, Queen Theodosia, but I’ve seen how power corrupts, and what people are willing to do when they become desperate.”

I want to disagree, but I know there is at least some truth in her words. “I can’t help you if you don’t help me,” I say instead.

She considers this for a moment, lifting her teacup to her lips to take another sip.

“Are you familiar with alchemy, Your Majesty?”

The word is familiar, but only distantly. It’s a Gorakian practice, a blend of science and magic that created the molo varu, among other things.

“Vaguely,” I tell her.

“Jian was considered the best alchemist in Goraki before the Kalovaxians came. As with your Spiritgems, the Kalovaxians wanted to find a way to use alchemy for their own gain. My husband, the Theyn, took Jian into his household, where he could be watched, studied. Where his skills were to be used to create weapons that the world had never seen before. Jian refused, of course. For years, he gave them only trinkets, little bits of alchemy that were just enough to keep him alive—swords that could cut through anything, even muscle and bone, cannons that never missed their targets, a battering ram with the strength of a thousand men.”

My mouth goes dry. “I’ve never seen weapons like that,” I tell her.

She smiles. “You wouldn’t have. Jian was smarter than the Kalovaxians thought, and alchemy isn’t like your Spiritgems. It is more akin to a living thing—it needs tending to, nurturing, in order to last. In a matter of months, the weapons he created were useless.”

“I imagine the Kalovaxians weren’t happy about that,” I say.

“No,” she says, anguish flashing across her face. “But in those few months, the Theyn had set Jian to creating a new kind of weapon, one that would only need to work once, but that would have the power to bring thousands to their knees. Quite literally.”

I sit up a little straighter. “What weapon?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer right away. “Jian called it velastra. In Gorakian, the word’s combined roots mean something close to dream taker, but there’s a translation error. In Gorakian, a dream isn’t only something that happens when you sleep, or even a distant hope for the future. It’s closer to the soul itself, to want. Created properly, velastra takes away a person’s wants, their desires—their dreams.”

My mouth goes dry. The Kalovaxians have always had their slaves, but it seems even chains are not enough for them.

“How?” is the only thing I can think to ask.

She shakes her head. “A gas—expanding to fill whatever space it can, but a single inhalation is enough to render a person little more than a marionette. Their lives will revolve around the smallest suggestions made to them: clean the kitchen, take off your clothes, jump off a cliff. The victim would have no choice. Jian figured the formula out quite quickly, all things considered, but he kept it from them. I only discovered he knew by accident—I caught sight of some of his scribblings, and he didn’t realize that I understood enough Gorakian or science to make sense of them. We both knew what a dangerous weapon it was, that Jian couldn’t keep it from my husband forever and that when the Theyn discovered it, the world would crumble. So we hatched a plan to escape.”

“That was why you left Cress,” I say.

She hesitates, then nods. “I left Cress to protect the world,” she says. “It was not an easy decision, but it is one I stand behind.”

“And Jian still knows how to make velastra?” I ask.

She pauses. “If you had the chance, Your Majesty, to bring the Kalovaxians to ruin in a matter of moments, would you take it?”

“Of course,” I say, without hesitation.

“You could, using the velastra. Take away a person’s autonomy, their choices, what makes them human,” she says, tilting her head to one side. “Would you do it?”

That gives me pause. On the one hand, it’s hard to imagine there is anything I wouldn’t do for my country, but that? I was the Kaiser’s puppet for ten years, though even when it felt like I had no choices, I did. That was the only reason why I was eventually able to say no, to stand up, to escape. If he’d had access to velastra then…The thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. I’m not sure I would wish that fate on even my enemies. “No,” I tell her after a moment.

“I might believe you,” she says. “But, you are still only one woman, queen or not, and I’m unsure the others in your rebellion would feel the same. I won’t risk it.”

I almost protest, but then I think of Maile, who I don’t doubt would use such a weapon if she could. Heron wouldn’t, I know that, but I’m not sure about Artemisia. And the other leaders who aren’t here, Dragonsbane, Sandrin—what would they do? No, Brigitta is right. Jian should keep it to himself. Whatever it is, it’s dangerous, and Cress cannot be allowed to get her hands on it.

“So you left to keep the plans for this weapon away from the Theyn, away from the Kalovaxians,” I say. “But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.”