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“They never teach us such things,” Kitsa said.

“Thank you,” Idonea said quietly. “This was helpful.”

Kitsa didn't stand yet. She stayed on her heels opposite Idonea, her hands folded loose in her lap, her eyes still on the floor.

"Idonea."

"Yes."

"Edik has been asking the other witches things."

Idonea lifted her head. "What things."

"About his sister." Kitsa's voice had quietened. "He asked Cleo what she'd said the night before. He asked one of the older women what the sigil meant. He asked Lidiya—" She caught herself. "I don't know what he asked Lidiya. She doesn't say. But she let him into the larder for a long time and they were not making bread."

Idonea sat with that. "He hasn't asked you."

"No." Kitsa's mouth flattened. "He won't speak of her to me at all. He looks at me and then he looks away. I think he means it as protection. I think he believes whatever he is gathering is dangerous to be near."

"He may be right."

"I know." Kitsa swallowed. "I don't want him to be right. I want him to come and sit with me and weep for his sister the way he should. He cannot. He is doing something else. With his grief. Building something out of it."

Idonea didn't answer at once. She thought of Edik in the hall earlier, pale to the point of being unwell, the hollowed cheeks. Of how she'd not spoken to him. Of how no one had, since his sister's death.

"I'll watch for him."

"Don't ask him questions." Kitsa met her eyes. "He won't answer. He'll only know I told you. Just watch. If he is going to do something stupid, you will see it before I do."

"All right."

Kitsa nodded once and stood. “Happy to bring you back here again.”

When they climbed into the open, the cold slapped her cheeks. The sky remained pitch-dark, polar night’s unbroken shroud. She found herself wishing, fiercely, for sunlight.

Her gaze swept the gloom until she spotted a hint of movement overhead. Lance, circling like a silvered shadow.

Across the square, Templars watched her openly. Their pentoculars whirred and clicked as lenses focused, adjusted, tracked. But none moved to apprehend her.

Idonea turned towards her cottage, cloak pulled close, the sting of the lesson still thrumming beneath her skin.

Lysander followed, silent and steady at her back. Back inside the cottage, Lysander pushed the dining table aside.

“It is not yet night,” Idonea said.

He raised the hatch. “No, but I have an idea.”

She arched an eyebrow and followed him down the narrow steps. The basement air greeted them, chill and metallic. Lysander lit the sconces one by one.

Then he crossed to what she’d assumed was solid masonry. He slid a brass key into a near-invisible seam.

She wondered whether he meant to reveal a hidden passage. Instead, he stepped back.

A ceiling-to-floor sheet of Lodamante metal slipped down with a muted, decisive hiss. Then a second one followed, sealing the surrounding space. They now stood in a narrow chamber of polished silver-blue walls.

“Lysander…”

“Never fear, witchling,” he said. “This reverses the Lodamante dampening. Try it.”