“
I stepped out into the biting air and drizzle. Cyclops loped beside me, barking a couple of times, as if to tell me something. Slaver’s got Timmy!
“Empress.” Matthew looked as bad as I felt—his face wan, his shoulders slumped with fatigue.
He gazed at me with those woebegone brown eyes. “Tredici nears.”
"Hey, aren’t you happy that we rescued Jack?”
“I couldn’t see.” He hugged his arms around his torso, batting his fists against his parka. “The Lovers!” The lowest hum came from him. He stared down at me. “The twins—inseparable. Never parted.”
“A path. You won’t like where it leads.”
“I can’t steer, can’t change. Before there were waves or eddies; now stone. Our enemies laugh.”
He raised his palm. “Hold, please.”
“Are you talking to someone else?” Matthew was the Arcana switchboard, a medium. “To . . . Aric? Is he in your eyes?” Watching me through Matthew?
”
”