Jane knew Nikolay had sworn an Oath to protect the tsar, and that when the tsar finally succumbed to his cancer, Nikolay would die for failing to 'protect' the tsar from death.

But knowing was one thing, and witnessing was another. She had not comprehended how badly Nikolay's health would deteriorate in the days leading up to his death.

Lidea put Nikolay in one of the downstairs bedrooms. She set Jane up in a room across the hall. They were small rooms, cozy, with plenty of blankets. In his room, Nikolay tossed and turned feverishly, more often asleep than awake. A couple of times, Jane thought about venturing inside, but she always thought better of it.

Instead, she watched Lidea's mirrors. The house was full of them. They seemed to occupy every spare inch of wall and had even taken over some of the doorways. Each mirror looked out into a different part of Mir. It was like watching an array of security cameras scattered across the kingdoms.

She had spent many hours glued to those mirrors when she first arrived, scouring every surface for some sign of Sandra or the dragon. The last memory she had of Sandra was her sister going limp, clutched in the dragon's claws. The dragon was unconscious now—the Dragonsleep had seen to that—but Jane couldn't shake the sinking terror that her sister was somewhere in the wilderness, confused and badly hurt.

She had asked Lidea for some means of tracking down Sandra after learning that Lidea was a mage. Lidea had regarded her gravely. "Without something of hers—a hair, for example—I cannot track her whereabouts," she said, to Jane's disappointment. "But I can tell you she's not dead or badly injured. She is an avtorka now, and when an avtorka dies, it casts ripples in the fabric of the world that are easy enough to sense, if you know what you are looking for. The best thing you can do if you want to help her is wait here and watch the mirrors. She could be anywhere on Mir, and your going out to look for her in the midst of the war would only complicate things."

So Jane, hating herself for her inaction, stayed put.

Lidea puzzled Jane, but she was so matronly, so kind, Jane could not feel afraid. Jane's Writing had deprived Lidea's charges of their powers, but the sorceress treated Jane like family. She bustled around making soup.

"If you're the nanny of the gods," Jane asked Lidea, as she helped the old woman slice what seemed like half a bushel of onions, "why aren't you a goddess yourself?"

Lidea smiled sadly. "Divna brought me here from Earth when the gods were very young. They'd just gotten their hands on the Book of Truths and were up to all sorts of mischief." She lay down her knife with a sigh. "Divna was the eldest of the three and felt responsible for the other two. She told me their parents had recently died, and she needed someone to keep Avdotya and Sidor out of trouble and clean and cook and do their laundry. I thought it very silly, them designating themselves gods when they were once humans like you and me, but I agreed to help. They set me up nicely, with plenty of magic, longevity, and access to current affairs, so to speak."

She gestured to her mirrors, then dug around for some potatoes. "I like to keep abreast of the goings-on here, and on Earth too. Including the latest news and bestsellers." She nodded at the book Jane had been perusing earlier. "I see you've discovered my bookshelf."

"Oh... yes," said Jane, a bit guiltily.

"Avdotya was always smuggling books from Earth without Divna's permission. Read as much as you like, dear. I've read them already. Except that book—what was it? With the vapid girl and the sparkly vampire. Simply couldn't get into it."

After dinner, Jane tried to read to calm her mind, but found herself unable to focus. The mirrors showed Kanach renewing its attack on Somita, and Somita was quite clearly losing. A new army marched on Dalnushka, and another battalion had stormed the no-mans-land on Somita's western border and was advancing on Sengilach, leaving a trail of burnt fields and ruined homes in their wake. Jane flinched from the violence, but her eyes were inevitably drawn back to the mirrors and the horrors they contained.

Her chest ached, and no amount of Lidea's warm tea or pitying glances would make it better. She knew who was responsible for bringing this destruction on Somita. Nikolay had played a role, but at the end of the day, the Writings to revoke the gods' powers and return to Earth had been her own.

You could have Written an end to the war between Somita and Kanach, she thought. Instead, you tried to be clever. You tried to solve all Mir's problems with a single Writing. Just like the second godstest, you didn't think things through.

You failed them, and now people are dead because of you. An outsider meddling, thinking she knew best, and then messing up because she didn't know the rules. Why didn't you stick to the Writings the tsar told you?

And Sandra was out there somewhere. Confused and lost and possibly suffering. Had she stumbled into one of the battles that raged throughout Somita? Was she in the middle of the wilderness, exposed to the elements and slowly starving?

Lidea came to sit beside her, interrupting her thoughts before they could spiral even deeper into terror and self-loathing. "Velos is free," the old woman sighed. "I think he is fueling some of the chaos we're seeing in the mirrors. I tried to collect Divna and Sidor and Avdotya after your Writing, but Velos got to them first."

"He killed them?" Jane asked, horrified.

"No." Lidea sighed. "They are more valuable to him alive, and he does so love to gloat."

"Tell me about Velos."

Lidea shot Jane a sidelong glance. "He's a god, too," she said, in her measured way, "although he came to Mir from Earth much later than the other three. I don't know exactly how, but he found his way into Mir on his own. He charmed Divna—she was very taken with him—and persuaded her to make him a god. Unfortunately, he wrote too big a Writing in the Book of Truths, and Divna had to revoke his godly status and banish him to the Prison under the Mountain." She shook her head. "Such a troublemaker, that one. Let me see your hand."

Hesitantly, Jane placed her hand in Lidea's old, wrinkly one. Back on Earth, the Mark of Velos had faded, until it was barely visible on the skin of her palm. Since her return to Mir, it had been darkening again, staining her skin a deep crimson.

"Hmm," said Lidea, running her wizened fingers across Jane's palm. "A clever little spell. It's a locating charm, a communication spell, and a subtle compulsion wrapped all into one. What sorts of things did he tell you?"

Jane thought back to the whispers she had heard in the darkness when she was alone. "He helped me realize Divna bespelled Kir into turning traitor for the purposes of my godstests," she said slowly. "At one point, he told me he wanted the gods to pay for their crimes. I think he gave me an extra vision in the Pool of Dreams to make me hate the gods even more. And in the temple of the Book of Truths on Mount Naridnya, he told me I should make a Writing to strip Divna of her powers."

"He couldn't directly control what you wrote in the Book of Truths," Lidea said, "so he did the next best thing, which was to try to persuade you to make a Writing that would strip the other gods of their powers and set him free. I wonder what he promised Sidor and Avdotya to get them to help him. Follow me."

"If Velos is a god, how does he still have powers?" Jane said, as Lidea bustled around the kitchen.

"The magic he's using might not be his own." Lidea tossed herbs in a pot and set it to boiling. "He's probably taking his powers from sorcerers in Kanach. He was clever with how he set up the system of worship—too clever for his own good, if you ask me. Drink this."

She whipped the steaming potion off the stove and placed it in front of Jane, cooling it with a deft flick of her wrist. With some trepidation, Jane downed it. The potion tasted bitter, but after a few seconds, the mark on her hand began to fade. A minute later, it had vanished.

"He shouldn't trouble you again," said Lidea.

"Thanks." Jane flexed her hand and frowned down at the table. She didn't feel any different. The tiny hope that had blossomed in her mind—that Velos might have been responsible for her ill-thought-out Writing to seal the gods' powers—faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. Even if Velos had subtly influenced her by feeding her truths about the gods, the choice of what to Write had still been hers.

Lidea was no longer watching her. She was staring at the nearest mirror, which showed the courtyard in Sengilach. It was raining there, and the view was partly obscured by the downpour, but Jane thought she saw two people mounting a wyvern—one of them stooped and stumbling.

"The tsar of Somita got my message." Lidea's voice was relieved. "He might get here in time."

In time to say goodbye to Nikolay? Or in time for Lidea to save him?

Jane wasn't sure how she felt about either option, and in the end she decided not to ask. "You're friends with the tsar of Somita?" she said instead, as she set the mug down in the wash-basin.

"We've talked from time to time. I was good friends with Eloise, Nikolay's mother. Sidor brought her here sometimes, back when he was infatuated with her, and I made her many soothing pots of tea. She didn't visit often after she married the tsar, but she came to me sometimes. I still remember when she asked if I could bind Nikolay's powers so he couldn't hurt Kir by accident. He was only six at the time."

Jane tried to imagine a six-year-old with Nikolay's magic. What a terror he must have been. "Did you? Bind his powers?"

"No," said Lidea. "I told Eloise she needn't be so worried about him accidentally hurting Kir with his magic. The boy doted on his little brother." She looked troubled. "Sometimes I wonder if—" she began, then broke off. "Never mind. I could ask myself a thousand 'what if's all day, but what's done is done, and all the wondering in the world won't bring back the dead."

Jane's eyes traveled back to the mirrors. The tsar and his companion had left the courtyard; the wyvern was nowhere in sight. She tried to find someone she recognized in the other mirrors, but it was raining in most of them, and she couldn't make out any faces.

"Have you seen any sign of Sandra or the dragon?" she asked hopelessly.

Lidea shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the wall. "She'll turn up sooner or later," she said. "Avtorkas always do... for better or worse."

The fire was dying. Jane bent down to add another log to the flames, then glanced back up at Lidea, who was still watching the mirrors. In the shadowy evening light, she looked very old, as though years of sorrow and regret had collected to pool in the creases on her face. Jane could see the reflections of the mirrors glimmering in her eyes. Reflections get darker each time they're reflected. Jane wondered where that thought came from.

After awhile, Lidea seemed to blink out of her trance, and she turned to Jane.

"Watching will not alter the course of events. Take some soup to your friend, and then sleep."

He's my friend, Jane thought, but it felt like a petty thing to say.

Soup bowl in hand, she eased herself into the room where Nikolay lay. He looked up as she entered, his face gray, his eyes glassy. The room was hot, with a hearthfire blazing merrily in the corner, but he still shivered. Jane did not want to walk toward him, but she forced her feet to move across the carpet until she stood beside him.

His illness was her fault, she knew. She had done this. Oh, he was certainly also to blame—but...

If she had used her second writing differently.

If she had broken his Oath-spell.

Even if she'd done nothing, simply made him a god and then gone back to Earth, it would have been better than this. He probably would've used his newfound godly powers to cure the tsar.

To end the war.

So Jane forced herself to look at Nikolay, even though his illness terrified her. His brow was damp with sweat, his eyes, fevered and distant.

"If I hadn't reversed-psychology-ed you into becoming a god," she said, "would you have done your writings in a different order? Would you have broken your Oath spell first?"

Is it my fault you're dying?

"Yes."

Jane nodded. Swallowed.

A strange expression came over his face then, and he looked away. "That's a lie," he muttered into his pillow. "The real truth is... no. I think I would still have arrived at the conclusion that becoming a god was best. And I would have still put the Writings in that order."

"Why?"

"I thought... becoming a god might break the Oath-spell."

He erupted in a fit of coughing. Jane stared at the comforter until he finished, trying not to think about the way his coughs sounded: horrible, like bits of lung were being expelled.

His answer made sense to her. If making himself a god had broken Nikolay's Oath-spell, he would have saved himself one Writing. She would have done the same thing, in his shoes. Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh.

We're both too logical, she thought, too good at optimizing—we both overthought things and tried just a little too hard to be clever, and that's what got us into this mess.

"Do you need anything?" said Jane. "Water? Another pain potion?"

Nikolay said nothing.

"All right," said Jane. She turned to leave, but a sound behind her made her stop. Nikolay was trying to say something. Jane leaned closer.

"No," he whispered through cracked lips. "Don't go."

Jane bit her lip.

The thought of staying here, watching Nikolay die a slow and agonizing death, filled her with dread. There was no pleasure in the thought, only the kind of numb horror that comes with watching another living, breathing person struggle in pain. And Jane knew, knew somewhere deep in her bones, that if she left this room now, it would be a hundred times harder to come back.

She stood, trembling in the doorway.

He didn't deserve her pity. He didn't.

But—God, did it really matter what he had done or what he deserved?

He was dying.

Her hands shook. She was out of her depth and she knew it. She was too much of a mess right now to deal with this—she was still exhausted from the events of the last month—she wanted nothing more than to curl up in her bed and fall asleep.

"I'm just going to get some water," she muttered—

And fled.

This chapter might have been a little bit filler-y. But things will pick up in the next one--I promise. Only 3 more chapters to go until the end of Book 2! And then on to Book 3...

I've also been playing around with AI art lately, so be on the lookout for more fun pictures like the one of Lidea in the coming chapters!

Finally, because apparently I have nothing better to do with my life, I decided to graph out Jane's loathing of Nikolay over time. Finished product is below. I hope it allows you to zoom on the phone version, or parts of this will be absolutely unreadable XD