‘It would appear our grandparents have history,’ Fox murmurs.
‘You have something to discuss with us,’ Grandmother repeats, stalking into the room. ‘And would that have anything to do with the blood leaking from beneath the doorto your private dining chamber? Or the fact I saw seven of those boorish brutes you call your Imperial Guard dressed as attendants for some inexplicable reason?’
‘Have you been keeping tabs on me, Leda?’ Caius asks mildly, as River closes the double doors and moves quietly to Grandmother’s side.
She points at Caius, and several sparks shoot from her fingertip, landing on the floor with a dull hiss. ‘Where are the ambassadors?’
‘Dead,’ he says matter-of-factly, picking a speck of lint from the sleeve of his robes.
River looks stricken. ‘All of them?’
Caius nods laboriously, up and down, up and down, like a solemn child.
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Grandmother snarls. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? This is all it’ll take to start a war.’
‘Precisely.’
Grandmother glances at River, and something unspoken seems to pass between them. She sits down heavily in one of the five thrones. ‘Caius, what are you doing?’
‘I’m creating a distraction.’
‘You’re starting an imperial war tocreate a distraction?’ Grandmother half shrieks.
‘A distraction from what?’ River asks calmly.
Caius slaps the scrap of parchment on the table. ‘From obtaining the most powerful weapons in the world and destroying the Magi once and for all.’
On the parchment are three identical drawings. As the scene begins to recede, I can just make out the words scrawled beneath each sketch.
The Eye of the Past,The Eye of the FutureandThe Eye of the Soul.
I jerk myself back into the present. I’m sitting upon a carpet of moss, my arm extended towards the hammock above, which is made from vines and slung between two low-hanging branches. It sways slightly as Fox glances down to look at me, his gaze lingering on our joined hands. I pull mine away quickly. It’s cold and clammy and trembling.
‘My grandmother,’ I mumble.
‘I certainly see where you get your looks from,’ Fox muses, chewing on a mint leaf.
I ignore him. ‘She wasfriendswith your grandfather, sheknowsabout the sisters’ talismans, she –’ That’s when another thought collides into me. ‘After the third trial, she sat by my bedside and she saw it – shesawthe Eye of the Soul round my neck.’
I remember Grandmother reaching out to touch it.
An Eye, she’d murmured softly.
‘I told her it belonged to Spinner,’ I continue. ‘She didn’t question it.’
‘Of course she didn’t – then she would’ve had to explain how she knew what it was.’ Fox pauses. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I believe your grandmother is deeply ashamed of the past, and of the part she played in it. I believe she wants to make things right. And I think letting you go was her way of proving that.’
I think back to escaping Fire Mountain. Grandmother had come after Flint and me. She’d begged us to stay. But Fox is right. She’dletus go.
He holds out a hand. ‘Shall we continue?’
The following visions are like something out of a nightmare.
The severed heads of the Magi ambassadors are returned to the Otherlands on golden platters.
A fleet of a thousand ships sails across the Second Sea, bearing the flags of Thresk, Obsidia, Nepta, Veridia, Serolia, Havar and Al Sh’ib – seven isles united as one.
The Ostacrian armies march to meet them. My gaze lands on the Ignitia High General. That must be my mother’s father. Grandfather looks remarkably like Aunt Hester, wiry and graceful astride his horse, his thin mouth set in a grim line.
