The place burns and itches horribly, but it’s proof.

I clamber out of bed as quickly as I can and change into the clean white cotton shift dress that was left out for me, folded neatly at the foot of the bedroll. When I sit down again to pull my shoes on, S?ren stirs, rolling toward me, blue eyes barely open.

“It can’t be time to get up yet,” he says.

I shake my head. “I had another dream about Cress—well, not a dream. And I can prove it this time.”

That banishes all remnants of sleep from his eyes. He sits up quickly.

“What happened?” he asks.

“You were right,” I say. “She’s building her own army, using the Encatrio made from her blood. It might be killing most of them, but not all. I saw one of them. Dagm?r—Lady Dalgaard. I don’t know if you remember her—”

He has to search his memory for only a second. “I remember you were very nearly Lady Dalgaard, until I persuaded my mother to make other arrangements. That poor girl.”

“Not such a poor girl anymore. She’s changed. Like Cress. Like me,” I tell him. “And the first thing she did was to rid herself of her boor of a husband and all of his sons.”

I see the realization dawn on him. “And his daughters?” he asks. “He had a few of those as well.”

“I’d imagine that those young enough to still be under Dagm?r’s care will be the next victims of Cress’s poison, or her newest recruits,” I say.

“Recruits for what?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know. But she has something planned, something she wouldn’t tell me. She thinks she’s doing something good—liberating women, empowering them. But she has a very limited idea of which women qualify for her kind of empowerment.”

“She thinks Amiza is on her side,” he reminds me. “She thinks she’ll have all of Sta’Crivero.”

“She’ll learn soon enough that she doesn’t,” I point out. “But it seemed like more than that. She said I would see before long.”

“Does she still think you’re…” He trails off. I suppose this soon after thinking as much himself, he can’t say it out loud.

“She still thinks I’m dead,” I tell him. “But you were wrong earlier—we all were. She didn’t want me dead, not entirely. She wanted me changed. Somehow, even after everything, she thought that I would be on her side, a devoted disciple like Dagm?r.”

He frowns, thinking it over. “Maybe it does make sense,” he says slowly. “To her way of thinking, you were corrupted. Isn’t that what she said? That you’d been swayed by rebels, brought over to their side? Maybe she thought that by giving you powers, she would make you strong enough to come back to her.”

The thought of it makes me sick. It’s so convoluted, but then Erik and S?ren both said that she wasn’t well. I saw it myself when she thought I was Amiza—her blind desperation, her lack of logic. The Cress I knew always operated like a dagger, precise and exact in every sense of the word, but these latest moves are more erratic. She’s become a rogue cannon, firing in every direction and hoping something strikes true.

I knew her mind well enough to see her dagger strikes coming, to prepare for them, but this new Cress is something I can’t begin to understand. She’s unpredictable, and there is nothing more dangerous in war than that.

“You said you have proof?” S?ren asks, dragging me out of my thoughts.

I summon the flame to my fingertips again and show him my arm. When he sees it, he inhales sharply, reaching out to touch the tender skin, but as gentle as he tries to be, it still hurts and I pull away.

“Sorry,” he says. “What happened?”

“She grabbed my arm in the dream and dragged me back from the balcony’s edge. It hurt then, but I didn’t really feel it. Now I do.”

“I’ve never seen a burn like that,” he tells me. “And those nail marks are deep. I’m surprised there’s no blood. Heron might be able to help.”

“Hopefully,” I say. “And I need to show him and the others. You believed me from the beginning, but they need the proof of it.”

He nods, throwing the blankets off and grabbing the boots he shucked last night. “Then let’s go,” he says.

I glance toward the door. “There’s one problem with that,” I say. “Blaise has been taking over guard duty for Art at night so she can get a few hours of sleep.”

Understanding dawns on him. “You don’t want him to see me coming out of your tent at this hour,” he says.

“I know that there are more important issues at the moment, but we left things a bit raw the other day,” I say. I hesitate before continuing. “We ended it—whatever it was. For good this time.”

He pauses, hands on the laces of his boots, and looks up at me.

“You didn’t have to do that because I’m back,” he says. “He means a lot to you. I know that. I’ve known it as long as I’ve known he existed.”

“He does,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “But I think that kind of love—it’s not good for either of us. It’s more destructive than not.”

For a second, he looks like he wants to ask more, but he doesn’t and I’m grateful for that.

“You go, then,” he says. “I’ll wait a minute before following and I’ll meet you at Heron’s tent.”

“IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING,” MAILE says when I finish recounting the dream again for her, Heron, Erik, Artemisia, and Blaise.

She’s the first one to speak after a lengthy pause, which I suppose makes sense because she knows the least about Cress and about my fraught and tangled relationship with her. I didn’t want Maile to be here at all, but since she and Heron are sharing a tent, she insisted on joining for fear of being left out of another strategy meeting.

“Are you joking?” Heron asks. I don’t think he’s lost the look of shock on his face since he first saw my arm. “She’s sharing dreams with the Kaiserin—and they aren’t just dreams. That’s a physical injury. Which means Theo can be hurt in these dreams.”

“Theoretically,” Art says softly, “it also means that the Kaiserin can be hurt in them.”

It’s a possibility I hadn’t considered until now, but Art is right. If Cress can hurt me through our dreams, why can’t I hurt her? Or worse? If I managed to kill Cress in a dream, would it kill her in real life? It’s a question I can’t begin to know the answer to, though I remind myself that it doesn’t matter either way. Cress is only the face of the problem—with her dead, the Kalovaxians would just replace her, but things could very well get worse. At least I know Cress. At least I understand her, to some extent.

“No,” Blaise says before I can answer. “It’s too dangerous. We don’t know what would happen, and if the Kaiserin learns that these dreams are anything more…”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. The implication hangs in the air. They think she would try to kill me, but they don’t know what I told S?ren—that Cress didn’t want me dead. That there is a part of her that thought she was saving me. From them. From the life I chose, which she thinks was forced upon me. I glance at S?ren, who seems to be having the same thought. But when I don’t correct Blaise, he stays quiet.

I don’t know why I keep that bit of information to myself. Maybe because it feels like a vulnerability they would judge me for, a tie between me and Cress that hasn’t been severed—that may not ever be able to be severed.

“She doesn’t suspect,” I say instead. “She seems to know they aren’t dreams somehow, but she thinks I’m dead. She thinks I’m haunting her.”

“If she thinks you’re dead, why wouldn’t she just tell you her plan?” Maile asks.

I have to think for a moment, turning over possibilities in my mind until I strike on one that feels undeniably true.

“Because she wants to make sure I keep coming back,” I say. “She was angry that she hadn’t seen me in a few days. She’s holding that information so that she knows I’ll return.”

“But you can’t,” Blaise says. “It’s too dangerous. Heron, you can make some kind of medicine, can’t you? Something that will give her dreamless sleep?”

Heron frowns but nods, his eyes finding mine. “I could,” he tells me. “It’s an easy enough draught, if you want it.”

Do I want it? The prospect of dreams that aren’t plagued by Cress is a tempting one. Not just to avoid her finding out the truth but because of Cress herself, how she talks to me, how she makes me feel. I don’t like remembering that she’s a real person, someone I hurt. It’s easier to think of her as my enemy when she’s far away, monstrous and threatening.

“No,” I tell Heron. “This bond is our best chance at staying a step ahead of her, and we need to keep an eye on her progress with Brigitta and the velastra. We don’t have many advantages over the Kalovaxians—we must use every one we can.”

“Theo…,” Blaise starts, before breaking off and shaking his head. “Are you sure?” he asks instead.