Roshar stared moodily into the library fireplace. No fire had been lit there for months, but the smell of cinders remained. He played with his ring, a thick band that looked as though set with a dull black stone. It was unusual for an easterner to wear a ring; they liked to keep their hands free of any ornamentation. This ring, Arin knew, had a particular purpose: what appeared to be a stone was in fact a vial that contained a numbing serum. He’d never asked, but he suspected that the serum could also kill. Roshar wiggled the ring. “Arin,” he said quietly, “you’re really pushing things.”

“I know,” Arin said again. “I’m sorry.”

“So. Your Moth is not my sister.”

“Yes.”

“She’s Herrani.”

“Yes.”

“A dead Herrani.”

Arin shook his head. “She was sent to the tundra’s prison camp.”

“As good as dead,” Roshar amended.

“It’s a work camp. You can’t make a dead body work. This was only a month ago. She could be alive.”

Roshar swiftly met Arin’s eyes. “No. Oh no. Don’t even think what I think you’re thinking.”

“I could lead a small force north—”

“Stop right there.”

“She could have valuable information.”

“Not worth it.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be there.”

“She knew what she was getting into. All our spies know the risk.” Gently, Roshar added, “You can’t save every one.”

Arin let out a slow breath. He pressed palms to his eyes. His hands were cold. Kestrel’s hands were always cold, at first, to the touch. He used to like to feel how they would slowly warm . . .

Arin pulled himself up short. He was suspicious of the way his mind worked, how it leaped for no reason to Kestrel, how this reminded him of so many times before, the way his thoughts would turn to her and bank home, like he was a hunting bird and she was the spinning lure.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” Roshar said. “We’ve had enough of that. I’m simply going to ask you—you, who I will admit have some preternatural gift for strategy—if you think it’s smart to send soldiers north, away from the war here, to attempt to rescue one woman from prison when you don’t know how many lives this rescue would cost, or even the identity of the person you’re looking for. Well, Arin? Is it smart?”

“No.”

“Are you going to do it anyway?”

“No,” Arin said reluctantly. “I won’t.” And he meant it.

Chapter 5

Arin’s hand twitched against the pillow. His legs twisted the sheets.

He opened his eyes. The moon was large and yellow in the window. He wondered how the moon would look from the rooftop gardens, and he suddenly was in the gardens—both of them at the same time, even though the eastern garden and the western one were separated by a locked door. The smooth stones were cold under his bare feet. He was somewhere between sleeping and waking. Then he forgot this realization and was fully inside the dream without knowing that he was.

He heard someone’s footfalls on the other side of the garden wall. But he was on both sides, in both gardens: his and Kestrel’s. He was alone. He was still. He was not making that sound.

Again, he heard the gravel scatter. But no one else was there.

The night sky unfolded. Someone was snipping its threads. It came down on him in panels of silk. The blue of it covered his eyes, filled his mouth. His ribs spread wide. He was drowning. He was trying to drink the cloth. His throat yearned for it even as his lungs collapsed.

He startled awake. The sheets were damp. His breath came short.

The dream deteriorated. He had only images of blue silk. On his eyes. In his mouth, too.

He sat up straight. His bed was washed in moonlight.

His mind flickered with the memory of the last time he’d seen Kestrel. The spill of her blue dress over the piano bench.

He made himself go back to sleep.

In the morning, he vaguely knew that he’d had a nightmare. Then he frowned, uncertain that “nightmare” was the right word. He tried to remember it. He had flashes: the sensation of drowning, the sense that he had wanted to drown. Something blue.

Arin suddenly remembered enough to wish that he hadn’t. He shoved the dream from his mind. As is the way with fragile thoughts, the cobwebby threads spun away. They became nothing . . . or almost nothing. They became a feeling he could no longer explain as he cupped water from the basin to his mouth. The feeling drifted, not a thought or a memory anymore, just a flutter of unease.