Page 21 of No Greater Sorrow

“How is Violet?” he asked.

“Sleeping. She has a few bruised ribs she didn’t notice until the adrenaline wore off. The fey medicines are… very nice,” Aleja said, resisting the urge to giggle. Someone had cleaned and bandaged her shoulder while she dozed, and she’d awoken in a fit of laughter. The euphoria had mostly passed, but the sight of the healer’s bulbous vials and bubbling potions made her feel like she’d stumbled into a fairy tale.

“How are you?” Nicolas asked, looking her up and down while trying not to seem like he was. Aleja caught it anyway.

The words nearly pushed themselves out of her mouth, all at once.The Second made me kill myself three times.I know what it’s like to cut my own heart out of my chest.But recalling the snake tangled in thorny vines across his chest, Aleja kept her breath shallow and folded her hands into her lap.

“I passed,” she finally said. “That’s what counts, doesn’t it?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“I understand.”

He’s lying, said her inner voice.

Aleja ignored it.

Nicolas’s eyes flashed cold, like when she’d first shaken his hand in a dead woman’s basement. “The Astraelis prisoner claims Violet can still connect to the Authorities. They have a sort of hive mind, as I’m sure you remember. We may be able to use her to confirm their plans.”

Aleja’s eyes flitted to the linen curtain, behind which Violet slept so deeply that not even her limbs twitched. “That’s not true. She would have told me,” Aleja said, after a moment.

She’s a liar too. You already knew that, said her voice.

“Scrying is safe. This could save many lives.”

“I’ll talk to her. Who is that guy, anyway?”

Nicolas told her the story, and Aleja did her best to follow along without letting her mind drift back to the Trials. She took in the basic facts: the defector had come with a warning that the Astraelis were looking for a way to trap the Third. They wanted to use him to kill the Second and that would mean a violent end to all the witches who had accepted his gifts.

Her cousin Paola—one of the few members of her family who hadn’t shunned Aleja— would die. As would every keeper of the old secrets, everyone who remembered the Silent Arts, and those brave enough to speak to the beings in the shadows.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “What do we do?”

“Honestly?” Nicolas said.

“Yes, honestly.”

“I don’t know. Not until we convince Violet to use her connection to the Astraelis or we…”

“What, Nicolas?”

“We find the Third before they do. We need to warn him. He may know if what the Astraelis mean to try is even possible.”

Aleja took a breath. She knew the basics of the Otherlander creation myth. There was the First among all living things; the Second, who had given every creature the gift of knowledge and free will; and the Third, their youngest sibling, who’d come later to take it all away. Death. A gift of its own, but one that was rarely welcome. A vision of her younger self screaming in pain as Aleja sliced a sickle into her chest briefly filled her mind, but she pushed it away.

“How do we do that?” she asked.

“The first step would be to visit his realm. I must warn you, I’m not exactly on his best side.”

“Whose best sideareyou on, Nic?” she asked. This time, she couldn’t keep a smile off her face. Dammit.

So much for being mad at him, murmured her voice.

Shut up. I still am.

Want to take a bet on how long before you jump into his bed?

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