In the kitchen the next morning, Lidea puttered about, preparing potions and baking bread. She handed Jane a platter of toast and eggs, which Jane accepted with a grateful smile.

"Still no sign of your sister," said Lidea. "I have the mirrors set so they'll chime if she appears." She nodded toward Nikolay's room. "His death will be agonizing," she added soberly, as Jane slathered liberal quantities of jam over her toast. "We must hope the tsar arrives soon."

The smile slid off Jane's face, and her stomach clenched. Her sleep had been fitful, tormented with nightmares. This time, it had been Nikolay's dying face that featured prominently in her dreams.

"How will the tsar coming help Nikolay?" she asked. "Can you cure the tsar's illness?"

"No," said Lidea.

"Can you... extend his life, then?" Jane toyed with the food on her plate.

Lidea put a hand on her shoulder. "There are times," she said, "when fighting is the best option. When doing battle and facing the enemy head-on is the right answer, the only answer. But sometimes..."

Her voice trailed off.

"If the tsar was the only one affected, it wouldn't be so... I mean, the tsar's older." Jane squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed them until they hurt. "He seemed to have come to terms with the fact that he was going to die." She began to pace. "I guess Nikolay—if he lived—would rightfully spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for what he's done. Is that what you're saying? That he's done so many unforgivable things there's just no point?"

"Do you think Nikolay deserves to die?" said Lidea quietly.

Jane froze. "I—I didn't say that. I thought you..."

She trailed off.

"Sometimes," said Lidea, into the silence that ensued, "the bravest thing you can do is not to rail against what's broken, but to put your rage behind you and move on."

Jane stared at the table. Her fingers, she noticed suddenly, were so tightly clenched that her knuckles were turning white.

"He controlled my mind," she whispered. "With that potion. He could have made me do literally anything, he could have told me to kill my own brother, and I would have had no choice but to do it. So, no, I don't want to put my rage behind me. I don't think that's a fair thing to ask me."

"It is not," Lidea said soberly.

"Then why..."

"Do you know how many unfair things have been asked of me over the years?" said Lidea. "Before I came to Mir, I was a healer—a nurse. Healers are bound to save those they don't like, even those who have done despicable things, out of duty to their profession and their oath. They heal them anyway, because it is a calling, because they believe it is right." Lidea pierced her with a stare. "Hold onto your rage as you will, but have a care you are the one controlling it and not the other way around. Do not let it stop you from doing what's right."

"I haven't been—"

Jane broke off. Lidea was watching her with a knowing look, and Jane felt a stab of uncertainty.

Because now that Lidea had put the thought in her head, she couldn't help but remember how she'd felt on Mount Naridnya, with the Book of Truths in front of her and two Writings left. She'd been terrified for Phillip's life, overwhelmed by the time crunch and near panicking with uncertainty, but there had also been a sense of deep injustice driving her actions in that moment.

Part of her had wanted to see the gods suffer.

To see Nikolay suffer.

To make him feel what it was to be powerless, for once in his life.

It was this same spite that had prompted her to lie to Uncle Bauer about Eloise having only one son. She hadn't just been protecting her uncle. She had lied because she didn't think Nikolay deserved to know his family.

Because she wanted to make him pay for how he'd treated her.

Unbidden, a memory sprang to mind—Casimir putting aside his feelings about what the Kanachskiy had done to Phillip to heal the enemy soldier in the pit cell. Casimir, who kept his face blank and hands steady, even as the Kanachskiy boy lashed out at them with rage.

She missed Casimir. He had always brought out the best in her, where Nikolay brought out the worst.

Lidea was still watching her, her expression inscrutable. Jane fiddled with her hair and frowned at her breakfast, trying to ignore the lump that was building in her throat.

"Even if healing Nikolay is the morally right thing to do," she said at last, "the tsar is still going to die soon, and Nikolay will die with him. Unless you have a way to cure the tsar and keep Nikolay alive by extension."

Lidea inclined her head.

"I don't have the power to cure the tsar's illness. He is so far gone... Even if we still had access to the Book of Truths, which we do not, I am not sure I would advise you to write his cure inside it. Every magical working of magnitude has consequences, you see."

She sipped her tea, and then said, almost wistfully:

"Many undesirable circumstances cannot be changed using brute force, even with Herculean expenditures of magic. Divna tried, you know. She tried to fix every problem she came across, to cure sadness and illness and death with power, instead of approaching these problems with compassion. Doing so only replaced each problem with one that was more dire, until the world wept under the weight of it. And others also tried, never learning her lesson."

Lidea's green eyes seemed to trap Jane.

"But," said Jane. "But it's not always right to do nothing, surely."

"Of course not," said Lidea. "But one must use common sense." She shook her head. "The tsar is likely beyond our help, but I may have something that will help Nikolay. Go check on him. I will tell you more later."

~*~

Jane stood on the threshold to his doorway, shivering. Courage, she knew, started now. She had faced down sudok; she had faced down dragons; she had even faced down her own memories in the Pool of Dreams.

She could face a dying man.

Swallowing, Jane pushed open the door.

The sound of his breathing hit her, awful and shallow and rattling. It was oppressive, filling every available space. Jane almost fled then, but she stiffened her spine and stepped forward.

"I'm back," she said, after a moment's internal debate over whether she should wake him. "Do you want something to drink?"

Nikolay seemed to rouse at this. "Avtorka." With some effort, his eyes focused on her. "What do... you want?"

"I'm here to check on you."

He waved a weak hand. "Is this because... I asked you not to leave yesterday? Forget I said that. I was..." He coughed, horribly. "...not in my right mind."

Had he been ruminating over their interaction all night? Jane's frown deepened. "And I suppose you're in your right mind now?"

He stared at her, his eyes glassy. "Yes?" he said unconvincingly.

"Lidea said the pain potion she gave you should kick in soon." She stared at the ground. His breathing rasped, and Jane cast around for something, anything, to take both their minds off that deathly rattle. "Why don't I read you a book?" she said.

Nikolay did not say yes, but he didn't say no either. Perhaps he didn't have enough strength to protest. His eyes had fluttered shut once again, but Jane suspected he was still awake.

She grabbed a random book on the shelf and flipped it open. Differential equations and Linear Algebra, by Gilbert Strang.

Hmm. Perhaps not that one.

She replaced the textbook. Her hands skimmed over titles. Stopped.

"Pride and Prejudice," she read. "Chapter 1. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife..."

Jane read well into the night. Eventually, her eyes fluttered shut, and the book slid from her hands. Nikolay must have fallen asleep at some point as well, for when Jane woke, cramped and sore from her night in the armchair, Nikolay seemed to be asleep.

Jane's throat was sore, and her eyes felt scratchy. Nikolay still looked like death. Jane tried to tiptoe from the room, hoping she could escape without waking him. But at the creak of her feet on the floorboards, his eyes fluttered open.

"I'm just going to get some water," said Jane. "I'll be back soon." She felt his forehead. It was blazing.

"Is there really nothing more we can do for him?" Jane asked Lidea in the kitchen. "He's still in a lot of pain—"

Lidea looked at Jane. Something about the look in her eyes chilled Jane, although she did not know why.

"I don't like him," said Jane. "But I also don't want to watch him die."

Not like this. With agonizing slowness, one forced breath after another...

She wouldn't have wished that fate on her worst enemy. And Nikolay wasn't quite her worst enemy. She had a feeling there were others on Mir, like Zakhar or Velos, who were much worse.

Lidea still watched her, her green eyes thoughtful.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you had king's blood in you?" she said. "Just a few drops, but... well. A little goes a long way when it comes to certain magicks."

"Does king's blood confer some sort of healing power in this world?" Jane asked hopefully. "Like um, like with that plant in Lord of the Rings—"

"Not exactly, no..."

Lidea watched her, considering.

"Nikolay's Oath-spell can't be easily unmade," she said at last. "Without a fireflower potion, or a Writing in the Book of Truths, there's no way it can be broken."

"Oh."

"However, we could attempt a transfer of sorts. Oath-spells such as this one, where one person swears to obey or protect another, can sometimes be... bamboozled. The spell can be convinced to recognize a different person as the one to be protected. I've seen it done before. In this case, the trick would be to convince Nikolay's Oath-spell to recognize another person, someone who isn't the tsar—ideally someone young and not dying—by modifying that person's magical signature to match the tsar's. Nikolay's brother would have been the logical choice, since Kir is the tsar's true son and direct blood relative, but unfortunately, Kir is now a captive in Kanach, which somewhat limits our options..."

"Kir was taken captive?" Jane covered her mouth. "No..."

"Yes," Lidea said. "My mirrors showed him in one of the Kanachskiy pit cells, just last night. But that's not the point here."

Her eyes tracked Jane, and Jane had an odd feeling, like she was missing something very obvious—

And then it hit her.