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“I can’t give it to you,” Havelock said, with another disbelieving laugh. “Whatever your errand is, it can’t possibly be more important than mine. Vortigern’s lantern can—”

I shook my head. “It won’t work. You will only waste the enchantment in the lantern. You can stop the world from ending, but you must travel to the Fourth Fathom of the Rivenwood, and you must gather enough magic for a twelve-layer spell of partitioning.”

He stared at me in complete befuddlement. In fact, I shared some of his surprise; I hadn’t realized I had ever listened to him closely when he went on and on about magic.

“You aren’t a person at all, are you,” he said. “Just an enigma wearing a human face. I’ll admit, partitioning magic is an interesting idea, but there’s no such thing as a twelve-layer partition spell. No one’s ever managed more than nine.”

“You will,” I told him. “You’ll invent one. You can, Havelock. You’ve done this, haven’t you?” I made an incoherent gesture—at the unnatural dark of the city below us, the sky full of tempests, the crumbling edifice of the world.

He stood there, gazing at me in a way that made him look very young. He was also trembling lightly, as if he’d not slept or eaten in days. Had Havelock been alone during all this?

Yes, of course he had. Havelock had no friends among magicians, who feared and distrusted him—apart from Yannick, whom he hadn’t met yet. He had only ever had his twin sister.

He reached into an inner pocket of his cloak and withdrew a small object that glowed only faintly. The lantern was a beautiful thing, though smaller than I’d expected, about the height of my hand. It was made of silver and stained glass, and though its light was like fire, I saw no candle within it.

“Very well, Mme. Pythia,” he said, handing it to me. “I’ve not the slightest idea why I’m so certain I can trust you.”

This was belied by the almost hopeful way he was gazing at me, and I realized he was giving me the lantern because he still thought I might be Vortigern. No doubt my telling him about the twelve-layer spell had only encouraged him in this. The deception made me prickle with guilt—but, I reasoned, surely he would forgive me if I used the lantern to save his life.

“I have a trustworthy face,” I said. “Now, undo whatever it is you have done to Élise.”

Élise gave a grunt. She was still slumped upon the cobblestones, supporting the weight of her upper body with her hands. “Undo,” she slurred, “it. Bastard. What my sister sees…” The rest was lost in an incoherent mumble.

Havelock frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t. It’s a sleep enchantment, and I never bothered to work out a counterspell. It will wear off in a few hours.”

“A few hours!” I exclaimed. Élise gave an outraged grunt.

“It’s remarkable that she’s conscious at all,” Havelock said, examining Élise with interest.

“My sister is quite single-minded,” I said. Then, before I could question the wisdom of it, I threw my arms around him, pulling him close enough to feel the brush of his hair against my cheek, and smell the magic on his rain-dampened skin. He still felt like Havelock, still seemed more magic than flesh and blood, but there was more substance to him than there would be in three years. The thought made me sad.

Havelock had gone stiff. He lifted his arms as if to embrace me, then lowered them, then lifted them again and let them rest awkwardly at my waist.

“Will you be all right?” I said when I drew away.

He gave a quiet laugh. “That remains to be seen.”

He helped me to my feet, then lifted a hand. A seam opened in the world, through which I saw trees waving, smelled the overrich scent of unfamiliar flowers. He turned back to me, a frown between his eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here when I return,” he said at last. “I don’t know what state I’ll be in, given how deep I must go.”

I nodded, my heart thundering in my throat. I didn’t want him to leave. “Havelock,” I said, but stopped myself there—it would only unsettle him further. “We’ll see each other again,” I finished.

He gave me one last frown. Then he stepped through the door and was gone.

I had thought that retrieving the lantern from Havelock would be the most difficult part of our ridiculous quest. And yet the true test turned out to be a much more practical challenge: that of hauling my sister from one end of the city to the other.

“I’m,” Élise slurred. “Lighter. Than you.”

“You keep saying that,” I said, leaning against a lamppost as I tried to catch my breath. Élise had one arm slung around my shoulder, and though she was capable of moving her feet, I needed to support her to keep her upright.

“It’s beside the point who’s lighter,” I added. “Havelock hit you with the sleep spell, not me. Anyway, do you hear me complaining?”

“I hear,” she said. “You. Thinking it. And you’re. Grunting. Like. A bear.”

We had to stop again so that I could lean against a building, laughing until I couldn’t breathe. Élise was laughing too, which in her present somnambulatory state came out wheezier with a great deal of snorting mixed in, which only made us laugh harder. This was the third time we’d had to pause for this reason—likely a product of stress, or perhaps mild hysteria given the events of the evening. Either way, it was like being children again, unable to stop ourselves from giggling at the most inappropriate times. Sometimes curtains would twitch and people would gaze out at us from their windows, frowning and perplexed, but some laughed at the picture we presented.

Fortunately, the black kitten hadn’t needed much encouragement to follow us down from the mountain. I would have preferred to carry her, given her disability, but I couldn’t manage both her and Élise. A remarkably obliging cat, she trotted along at our heels like a dog, pausing only to sniff at the occasional trash can before limping to catch up.