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Two names, one older than the other; one too close to the scene, one too careful about not being. Someone was playing both sides.

Horse hooves echoed in the distance, and Alcaeus glanced towards the forest. “Come. Back to the cottage.”

Idonea followed, though dread rose in her stomach. He ushered her inside, but didn't step through after her. Instead, he shut the door firmly and remained outside.

She exhaled and froze. A shadow stood in the threshold of the bedroom.

Her hand drifted instantly to her dagger.

Elzhbeta stepped forward, though she didn't sit or lean. She only watched.

“Elzhbeta?” Idonea kept her voice even. She hadn't yet allowed her mind to finish what it had been doing at the fountain. Now, in the half-dark of the cottage, with the older woman standing perfectly still in the doorway of her own bedroom, the last refusal fell.

She'd hardly seen the Magistrate's wife since the younger witches departed. Elzhbeta had turned silent, keeping mostly to the chapel and her husband's side.

Now her gaze was sharp. Elzhbeta’s lips curved into a thin smile. “I think it is time you understood something.”

Idonea didn’t remove her hand from her weapon’s hilt.

“Your father cannot shield you from the Grand Templar,” Elzhbeta said. “Or from the High Hierophant.”

Idonea's gaze dropped to Elzhbeta's gloved hands. Her gut twisted as a memory surfaced sharp and unbidden. Lance's tongue flickering at open mouths. Edik's right fist closed around chapel dirt. No. It can't be. But her body already knew. Her pulse stuttered, then steadied into cold certainty.

"The teeth," she whispered.

Elzhbeta's smile didn't move, but the muscles around her eyes shifted. "Beg your pardon."

"Arina. Edik. Cleo. You took a tooth from each of them. You pulled them while they were still warm. The wounds on the bodies were dressing, the sigils were dressing, the daemon was dressing. The work was the teeth."

A long silence. Elzhbeta exhaled. It was a laugh, the breath of a person caught by surprise.

"Clever," she said. "How long have you known?"

"I was on the path back from her body when I let myself."

"And your father?"

"He doesn't know."

"No. He wouldn't." Elzhbeta inclined her head. "He is very good at the part of himself that does not want to know things."

She closed the distance between them, removing her gloves with slow, deliberate motions. When her bare palms turned upward, Idonea’s breath caught.

Embedded in the centre of each palm was a disk of blue-black metal, fused with the skin.

“Surprised?” Elzhbeta said.

“Lodamante.”

“They sealed my palms when I was fourteen.” Elzhbeta turned her hands once, as one might display a piece of work. "I wore shackles and a collar for years. They said it was mercy. I have come to a different understanding of the word."

"You can't work the Current."

"Not through these." She lowered her hands. "The Current can be reached. Just not the way you reach it."

Idonea's stomach turned.

"The teeth."