Jae opened her eyes to find sunlight dazzling across the surface of the Well. Everything was calm, unchanged, beautiful, and peaceful. Something faint pulled on her mind, something from the vision she’d had of Janna and her son, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. So she sat back and enjoyed the soothing mud on her scabbed feet, the cool breeze against her face.

They’d come this far. She was just missing one last piece. Then she’d be able to restore the Well and save Aredann—and return to the world, and find a way to break the Curse.

Jae stared in awe at the mosaic portrait of the woman. “That’s her. Her name is Janna, and she was the one who first conceived of the Well.”

Tal and Elan had been sweaty and tired from hiking back down to the Well, but after a quick lunch had insisted on climbing back to the cliff top to show Jae this strange little room. Its mosaic wall was an incredible likeness of the woman Jae had seen in her vision, Taesann and Aredann’s grandmother. In other-vision, the mosaic, the map, and the whole room still had faint traces of magic clinging to them. The room had been built and decorated by mages, and sustained by magic through the years. There must have been a binding somewhere.

Jae didn’t think the room had been a shelter. It was too small to have housed the number of mages who had made up the Wellspring Bloodlines. Instead, staring up at the magic-crafted picture of Janna, Jae was sure the room was a memorial.

“We hoped you’d be able to read the inscriptions,” Elan said, and pointed at one of the small walls that was covered in spidery, twisting lines.

“I can’t read anything,” she reminded him, and glanced at Tal.

“We were hoping you could with magic,” Tal explained. “Elan read that one.” He pointed. “But the other two…they aren’t the same, are they? I can see that. But I don’t know what they say.”

She examined the lettered walls in other-vision. Like everything else, they glowed faintly with magic. But that was all; the magic didn’t resolve into anything she could understand. Nothing spoke to her, nothing explained itself. She shook her head. “I’d like to know what that one says, though.”

Elan read it to her: “Here we founded the Well and declared ourselves Wellspring; here our blood was bound together; here we crafted the magic that will protect our descendants. Here our duty to protect our world was sealed with her life. Let us never forget.” Then he raised his eyebrows. “Does that mean anything to you? That is—I’d like to know if that means anything to you.”

“Some of it,” she murmured, and gazed again at Janna’s likeness. “They bound their blood together—that’s the binding of the Well, the magic that is supposed to make it work forever. And her life…” It tugged on her mind again, the very first magical vision she’d had. Janna had crafted the fountain—so her children and grandchildren would remember her. “I think she must have passed away during the crafting of the Well.”

But that wasn’t quite right. Janna had built the fountain because she’d known she’d need to leave a legacy behind—she’d known she was going to die.

“There’s the map, too,” Tal said. “Elan and I think maybe the Highest have abandoned other estates before. But that would only make sense if doing it actually helps the droughts—or if they’re trying to hide something.”

“Maybe both,” Jae said, thinking it through. “From what I can tell, the Well will send water to any of the reservoirs where there are enough people—particularly descendants of the Wellspring Bloodlines. So it makes sense that if a reservoir was entirely abandoned, the Well would send its water elsewhere. That would certainly make it look like the Highest have control.”

“But if they just leave the Closest there, then the Well would keep sending them water,” Elan said. “So…maybe the Closest still live at those estates.”

“Or maybe the Highest have them killed when everyone else leaves,” Jae said.

Tal looked stricken, horrified. “We thought we’d be left to die but that we’d have some time. You truly think…”

“It would be the only way to ensure those reservoirs go dry,” Jae said, grim. It shouldn’t have made any difference. The Closest would die either way, whether they were abandoned to sunsickness or killed in cold blood. But somehow this outright killing felt more brutal, even more cruel.

“But Aredann…His Highest still ordered it to be abandoned,” Tal said. “If he gives that order…”

“I warned him,” Jae said.

“But he might still…” Tal trailed off.

Jae knew he was thinking about Gali and the others. They might restore the Well but get back to Aredann and find it was too late. She bowed her head. “If he has hurt them, I’ll make him pay for it. I warned him I would.”

She expected Tal to rebuke her, but he stayed silent.

“Besides, if he harmed them, he’s sealed his own fate,” she continued. “Because each time a section of the Bloodlines has been killed, the Well’s binding has weakened. The fewer Closest there are, the less blood there is to bind the magic. Abandoning estates may help the Highest look like they have power over the Well, but sooner or later too many Bloodlines will be lost. The binding will break entirely. There’s barely any of it left now—Aredann may well be the last grain of sand on the pile.”

“Only if he really…really killed them,” Elan said. “His Highest knows what you can do—he’s not foolish enough to ignore your threat.”

“Maybe,” Jae agreed. She had no idea if Elthis would harm the Closest at Aredann or not. If he had, it was too late to help them at all, but if he’d simply taken his Avowed and left the Closest at Aredann, then the Closest needed the Well’s binding restored immediately. It would give them the water they needed to survive on their own, until Jae could break the Curse and free them.

“For now, let’s…let’s assume they’re alive,” Tal said. “And help them.”

Jae nodded her assent. “I just need to find a way to restore the binding. It must be possible. It must be.”

Again she looked up at the mosaic of Janna. Janna, who had known she was going to die, who’d crafted the Well and then a fountain to preserve her legacy. Jae reached out, placed her hand against Janna’s on the wall, and reached for the magic that had created and preserved this strange little room.