Heather had crossed between her sisters' houses six times before noon. Bella's crystal halls in the morning, Cyndi's black towers by midday, then back again, carrying half-truths in both directions. She was the youngest of three Gianna sisters, pink-haired, blue-eyed, hundreds of years old and tired of every one of them. She wanted only two things: her sisters back to what they were as children, and her three small ones kept far from any of this. Today she would settle for walking out of Cyndi's fortress before dark. She stood in a narrow stone room off the main hall, turning the feathered orb between her palms. It was her focusing charm, crystal wrapped in soft plumes, the tool she used when a vision would not come clear. She pressed her thumbs to the glass and asked it the same question she had asked all week. Should she speak to Cyndi honestly, or keep pretending she had not seen the dark chamber beneath the fortress? The orb showed her Cyndi weeping. Then Cyndi laughing. Then Cyndi turning her back. Three futures, none of them steady. Heather lowered the orb. The vision was muddled because Cyndi herself was not yet decided. The door opened. Cyndi stepped in wearing her dark robes, blonde hair cut blunt at the jaw. She looked at the orb, then at Heather. "You've been at that all afternoon," Cyndi said. "Put it away. You're not leaving." "Bella expects me for dinner." "Then Bella will be disappointed. You saw the chamber, Heather. You know where it is. If you walk out of here today, my fortress is on a map inside your head, and inside hers by nightfall." Cyndi folded her arms. "Stay a week. Until I move it." Heather set the orb on the table. She had come here hoping muddled visions meant her sister was still reachable. Now she understood the muddle differently. Cyndi was not choosing between paths. Cyndi had already chosen one and was deciding what to do with the sister who had seen it. Heather made her choice in that small quiet. "I won't tell Bella where the fortress is," Heather said. "I won't tell her about the chamber either. I'm not your enemy, Cyndi. But I am not your prisoner. My children are waiting at the homestead and I am going to them tonight." She picked up the orb. "If you keep me here, you make me the thing you're afraid of. Let me go, and you still have a sister who lies for you." Cyndi was quiet a long moment. Then she stepped aside from the door. "Go. But if a single guard of Bella's touches these walls, I'll know who told her." Heather walked past her without looking back. Outside, the sky was already turning. She had bought her freedom and her silence in the same breath, and she had just become the secret keeper for a war she had wanted to prevent.

Heather rode home from Cyndi's fortress before dawn and slept only two hours before Bella's messenger came. Her sister wanted her at the crystal palace by breakfast. Heather kissed her three sleeping children on the forehead, told the nurse to keep them at the homestead until sundown, and left. The trust spell sat in her chest like a small cold stone. She could feel its edges every time she thought Cyndi's name. Bella met her in the long hall with the map table between them. "You look tired," Bella said. "Where were you yesterday?" Heather opened her mouth to answer and a vision hit her sideways. Black stone walls. A pulsing floor. Cyndi at a table stacked with dark books, her hand on a crown that did not yet exist. Heather saw her sister on Bella's throne, saw the palace guards kneel, saw the west field burning. She swallowed and the spell locked her tongue. "Visiting Cyndi," she said. That much she could give. "She is well." Bella watched her too long. "And?" Heather felt the second vision coming and turned away before it took her face. "I need a moment," she said, and walked out. She crossed the courtyard to the small crystal shrine at the garden's edge, a spire of pale blue facets ringed with white feather-shaped leaves. It was where she went when prophecy broke through in public. She stepped inside and shut the door. The vision finished behind her eyes. Cyndi crowned. Bella dead on the floor. Her own children scattered. Heather pressed her forehead to the cold crystal and cried once, quietly, then stopped. She drew the iridescent feather from her sleeve, the one she used to steady her voice, and turned it slow between her fingers until her breathing matched its edge. She had promised silence about the fortress and the chamber. She had not promised silence about the future. The spell bound facts, not warnings. When she stepped back into the hall she went straight to Bella. "I can't tell you where I was," she said. "I can't tell you what I saw there. Don't ask. But listen. Cyndi means to take your throne, and she is closer than you think. Watch the west field. Watch your own floors. Set Silver a guard tonight." Bella did not blink. "You're sure." "I've seen it three times since yesterday." Bella nodded once and called for her captain. Heather walked out through the garden without waiting to hear the orders. She had kept her word to Cyndi in the letter and broken it in the spirit, and her sister would know by nightfall. The homestead was two hours away. She meant to reach her children before Cyndi's answer reached her.