It took a pair of minutes for Niccola to convince a crow to lead her in the direction Dinah had taken. The lost time nearly shredded her nerves, but she knew a guide would save time in the long run, and Dinah may well try to play a long game here. The Talaks did not leave as Niccola set out. She could feel them all around her, shadowing her steps, their hunger pressing at her senses as she moved swiftly through the undergrowth. Dinah's lantern bounced against her hip. The floor of the deep Talakova was a maze of fallen branches, drifts of decaying leaves, and plant-like organisms that grew and branched without need of light.

Now and then, a hill would appear on the forest floor ahead, running off in either direction, overgrown with fungi and dark, moss-like cover. It took until the third of these for Niccola to realize what they were: the corpses of trees so gigantic, she could walk alongside one for the better part of a quarter hour and never reach the end. It was the only clear indication of just how deep in the Talakova she was. The sky was black, grown over with so many layers of canopy that all trace of light was extinguished. But though the ground continued to slope down to where the middle of the Talakova should be—if it ended at all—the tops of the trees never sank with it. Their trunks only grew taller, competing with one another for the ever-diminishing sun.

It was through the forgotten underbelly of this forest that Niccola struggled. The crow led her through tangled thickets and swampy patches where creeks bled out across the forest floor; over the backs of long-decayed trees; and through an uncountable number of fallen branches with the girth of whole logs. At one point, she met a wall with a crater at the bottom. Only when she found its edge was its identity revealed: the great, vertical disk of a tree's uprooted root ball, taller than the Calisian palace, guarding the crater it left behind. It couldn't have fallen long ago, but despite the destruction it must have wreaked as it fell, there was still no sign of light through the canopy. Or maybe it was just nighttime in the world outside. Niccola had lost all sense of time down here, but she was sure she would keel over with exhaustion if she stopped to let her body feel it.

And then, over yet another mossy hill, she found a trail.

Niccola caught her breath. The soft ground bore the marks of what could well be human footsteps: two sets of them, one struggling and churning up the loam. Phoebe still fought her captor. Niccola crouched beside the tracks. Halfway to tracing out the outline of a footprint, her hand paused. There was something off about these that she could not put a finger on. She stood again, retracing her steps along this section of the trail. If Phoebe had been struggling, she would have attempted to slow Dinah in any way. Yet the drag marks were not long, and the bushes they passed were undamaged. Phoebe had not grabbed them on her way by. Perhaps Dinah had bound her hands, but Niccola had not seen the woman carrying rope. The footprints were also deeper than she would have expected.

That was it. They were equally deep, when Dinah was definitely a child's weight lighter than the stocky-bodied captive she was threatening along.

"Who passed this way?" she called to the trees in the crows' language. "Was it two humans?"

An indistinct murmuring became words as one bird found the courage to answer. "Talaks."

Niccola shuddered and gripped the brooch on her dress as she backed away from the trail. If Dinah had learned the Talaks' language beyond the simple incantations used to strike deals, there was no telling what she could bribe the spirits into. Laying false trails was clearly among the options. Perhaps this made sense of some legends from the deep Talakova. The realms told stories of travelers who lost their way in the forest, thinking they'd found the paths of their companions, only to end up places none had ever ventured before. Niccola had never thought those might be more than stories. That there might be a Talak or beast involved.

"Which way did the two humans go?" she called.

"Enemy."

"I will get rid of the enemy. She will no longer control the Talaks."

There was little that Talakovan crows feared more than Talaks. Like it had all along, the promise to take down Dinah mustered enough participation to net Niccola another guide. Sure enough, Dinah had forked off from this trail. She and Phoebe were still on the move. It was perhaps a half-hour later that warnings of "Human, human close," began to crackle through the trees. Niccola slung the bow off her shoulder. She nocked an arrow and held it halfway drawn: pointed down, but ready. She did not—could not—know if this was a trap or ambush, and she would not put it past Dinah to bait her with her own sister again.

"Human here, human here," crackled the crows.

Niccola stopped to listen to them. She did not dare speak lest her voice reveal her identity, though her lantern would be enough to give her away. She could not extinguish it.

"Human talk. Ask if enemy. Are you enemy?"

Niccola caught her breath. Heart in her throat, she called, "Phoebe?"

"Niccola?" returned a wavering voice in the darkness.

"Phoebe! Keep talking. I'll find you."

Instead, Phoebe began to sob. Niccola broke into a run. She rounded a tree to find her sister huddled at the base of it, tethered by the chain still cuffed to her ankle. She hugged her knees, making herself as small as possible as though forest beasts would not find her that way. There was no sign of Dinah.

Niccola stopped ten paces away, turning on her heel with arrow ready. "Where is she?"

"She left," sobbed Phoebe. "She said... she said I wasn't useful to her like this. She went to the edge, to find... to find..."

Niccola slung the bow back over her shoulder and met her sister in a hug that Phoebe melted into. "There are no people at the Talakova's edge anymore," she said. "They've been evacuated. Don't worry."

"Not people." Phoebe was scarcely coherent. Hot coals smoldered in Niccola's chest at what Dinah must have said or done to scare her like this. "She said you would have to choose who... who you decided to protect..."

Niccola's blood ran cold.

Dinah had taken a crow's form for moons, following both her and the events in the Calisian palace. She knew who Niccola would want to protect. And of all those people, unless Verde had insisted on joining the Guard coming to back her up, there was only one person Dinah could mean.

Niccola grabbed her sister's shoulders. "Did she say what she was going to do? And how did she leave? How long ago?"

"I don't know. But... but she went in crow form. She flew..."

"Phoebe, please. Can you estimate how long ago?"

"A few... a few minutes." Phoebe lurched forward and clung to her again. "Don't leave me again. Please. I'm scared."

The chain cuffed about her ankle jingled every time she moved. It was not locked—only wedged through a tall fork in the tree—but the cuff would need to come off anyway. Niccola fumbled for Dinah's key-ring. Phoebe identified the right key without her even asking. She then attempted to take the ring. Niccola gripped it tighter. "Hey."

"I can unlock it."

"Let me do it."

"I know how it works."

"Phoebe—"

"I'm not a baby!"

Niccola caught herself before she fired off a reply. This wasn't what she wanted to fight with her sister over. No more stupid fights. She'd vowed that after Phoebe went missing. Instead, she let her sister take the key-ring and unlock the ankle cuff herself, though Phoebe's hands shook so much, she could scarcely find the key-hole. Each second that elapsed grew more agonizing than the last. Dinah was headed for Isaiah. With a crow's wings, she would beat Niccola there no matter how fast they ran, but the urge to do anything only mounted. Niccola's duty was to her sister first. But it was no longer to her sister alone.

The Talaks lurked even closer now. Watching her and Phoebe both. Niccola could not hear any crows in the canopy.

"You want to follow her," said Phoebe.

Niccola startled. "I have to," she said. Though her sister was here, was safe, was no longer in Dinah's hands, the need to pursue the necromantic had not abated. There was more at stake than just Phoebe now. More even than Niccola's revenge. Whether she and Isaiah ever made up or not, she could not let Dinah roam free between their realms and dismantle every possibility of alliance. Varna needed that alliance. So did Calis. And for that, both realms needed Niccola and Isaiah on their thrones. If Dinah was after the Calisian prince now, Niccola could not let her lay a finger on him.

And for all she'd lied to Isaiah, there was a part of her, deep down, that wanted to make up with him. To apologize. To recover whatever they'd had before she broke them apart again. She didn't dare entertain that thought further. Not while Dinah was alive.

"I can call a crow," said Phoebe.

"You don't—" began Niccola, then stopped as the stupidity of insisting she do this herself descended on her. Of the two of them, only Phoebe had ever been formally trained in the family magic. She knew better than Niccola what to do.

Phoebe knew that already. Without awaiting Niccola's assent, she stood and raised her voice in a chant that carried like a crow's long-distance calls. It was in the language of the crows, but a dialect Niccola had never heard before. Perhaps a permutation that leveraged barrower magic to add a little extra: a bit more distance, a bit more range. Or perhaps a version more familiar to the deep Talakovan crows. Wings fluttered in the canopy. Phoebe had reached crows where Niccola had not thought there were any. She had underestimated her sister.

Had been doing so all along, perhaps.

Phoebe spoke the resonant crow dialect with a commanding aura Niccola had never even tried to attain. The crows swept down, their voices chattering over one another as they answered questions willingly. Phoebe handled the cacophony with aplomb. In less than a minute, she had secured them three guides and a wealth of information. Niccola had only teased out half of it from the overwhelming mental noise.

"This way," said Phoebe, then slipped her hand into Niccola's and pressed close to her side once again.

"I'll need my bow," said Niccola gently.

Phoebe turned her face into her sister's shoulder. "You won't sacrifice yourself again, will you?"

"No."

"Are you safe now?"

"Not yet. But I will be if we find Dinah."

"Can I have the lantern?"

Niccola handed it over. Their crow-guides took flight, leading the way back towards the forest's edge, and whatever trap Dinah planned to drive them into there.