“Well, yes. We’d take the book and—”
“Which book?”
“You just said the secret was written in a book. Wait, doesn’t the Ancestor tell you the title?”
“Just that it’s in a book on alchemy.”
“Well, no then, we’d be poor because there are a thousand books and scrolls promising the true alchemy.”
“And there are a thousand books promising all the secrets of the moon. But Abbess Glass, who forgot more things than you or I will ever know, and Jula, who would rather read the dustiest book than eat, and who is sharper than any Mistress Academia I’ve met, both said that this book was different. Jula said it might have something real to say. Abbess Glass promised that it did.” Nona reached in with infinite care and began to remove items from the casket, committing their positions to memory. “And if Abbess Glass said it, sick or not, that’s good enough for me.”
Ara frowned as she had frowned so often over these past weeks. “So, if the book in the forbidden library is really what the abbess said it was, how do we use it? How do we prove it? We don’t have four shiphearts. Nobody does! We don’t have access to the Ark. We don’t have anyone to tell who would believe us, Wheel least of all. It seemed like a bad plan when we were just talking about it. Now that we’re actually doing it . . .”
Nona reached for the bundled letters with a sigh. Abbess Glass had taught her many things. She had taught Nona that you can often find an angle where any right looks like a wrong, and any wrong a right. She taught her the song of the Ancestor, the power of the long game, and the need for determination. Above all Abbess Glass had taught Nona the value of lies. The one thing she had never managed to teach her was not to feel bad for telling them.
“It’s the right thing to do. The key to everything. I need you to have faith in this, Ara. I need you to make the others believe too. We’re going to be taking holy orders soon so we should be good at believing, no?”
“In the Ancestor, surely, not in any old—”
“This comes from the highest authority I know.”
Ara looked up suddenly, incredulous, eyes bright. “You’ve had a vision? From the Ancestor?” Awe and need mingled in her voice.
Nona bowed her head. “I have.”
* * *
• • •
NONA FOUND THREE books at the very bottom of the casket, wrapped together in a length of black velvet. Aquinas’s Book of Lost Cities was the smallest of the three, looking less old and less impressive than The Mystic’s Path or The Lives of Lestal Crow. It looked more like a travel journal than some weighty tome worthy of forbidding. Nona took the leather-bound volume and hid it in an inner pocket of her habit before returning the other two to their wrapping and starting to replace Sister Pan’s other treasures.
A moment of panic came as she reached for the figurine of the baby and discovered on the floor behind it an ancient daisy, dried and pressed, that must have fallen from between the pages of one of the books. She carefully extracted everything, unwrapped the books, and placed the flower behind the cover of The Lives of Lestal Crow, hoping she had guessed correctly.
At last, sweating lightly, Nona closed the lid. “Done.”
“Lock it.” Ara nodded towards the keyhole.
“Right.” Nona found and manipulated the necessary threads. An easier task this time.
Ara went to the wall and set her hands on it. “Now we find that getting in was the easy part.” Her smile was a nervous one.
“I’ll follow you,” Nona said. “You’re better at it than me.”
“But you got in first!” Ara pushed her lips into a pout.
“You wouldn’t want to go back my way. Trust me.”
* * *
• • •
NONA STUMBLED OUT onto the Path Tower stairway, catching hold of Ara’s shoulders to keep from falling.
“At last!” Jula hurried down towards them. “I thought you’d died in there! Got stuck in the wall or something!”
“Relax.” Ara smiled, holding up the lantern. “We got it.”
“We have to go!” Jula pushed past them. “Bray’s about to sound fourth bell. There’ll be little Red Classers lining up outside any minute.”
“Fourth bell?” Nona shook her head. “I didn’t think we were that long!”
“Well, you were!” Jula all but stamped her foot. “Come on.” And she set off.
“I’m surprised Pan’s not here already if it’s so close to fourth,” Ara said, grinning her disbelief.
“She is.” Jula didn’t stop, just hissed back up at them around the stairs’ twist.
That got both novices moving. They caught Jula as she hurried out into the portrait chamber.
“She’s here?”
“I was on the stairs when she started up them! I had to go up into the classroom, hide behind the trapdoor lid, and slip out while she was arranging the chairs. It’s a miracle she didn’t see me!” Jula looked pale.
Ara slapped her on the back. “The Poisoner will make a Grey Sister of you yet!”
“Then I hung around on the stairs again, expecting her next class any minute and wondering how long to leave it before declaring you both lost and confessing everything.” Jula led them to the north door, opened it with caution, then threw it wide. The three of them spilled out into the day.
After the unreality of the past hour, strange and emotional treks through memory, walking through walls, stealing from Sister Pan in a cause that was larger than any of them . . . it came as a surprise to find themselves in the cold light of the same day and subject to the same old timetable that had ruled their lives for so many years.
The friends stood a moment, shivering and blinking in the lee of the tower.
“Shade!” Nona remembered where she should be next. “Damnation!” And she veered off with Ara in hot pursuit, scattering half a dozen approaching Red Class novices.
9
HOLY CLASS
Present Day
NONA AND ARA ran for Shade class, leaving Jula to make her way to advanced Spirit class under the Ancestor’s Dome with Abbess Wheel.
Sometime soon all of Holy Class would take their orders or return to their homes. If they still had homes. Under normal circumstances the newer members of the class like Nona might have expected to wait as long as two more years before being allowed to take the nun’s headdress. With the world closing in on every side, sharp in tooth and claw, the time of choosing would be hard upon them. Jula had her sights set on the black habit of the Holy Sister, a Bride of the Ancestor, hers the life of prayer and contemplation resting on the foundations of her faith. Beyond her devotions the simple tasks of the convent would occupy her time. She might even aspire to teach the novices. The Black was open to any girl graduating the convent without stain upon her character. To take the Red, Grey, or Blue of the Martial Sister, Sister of Discretion, or Mystic Sister, tests must be passed to demonstrate sufficient aptitude. Ara had said she would return to her family if she wasn’t offered the Red or the Grey. She needed the excitement and the challenge, not days of humility measured out by the tolling of bells.
Although Nona’s free choice would always be the Red, she knew that both the Grey and the Blue offered sufficient danger and variety to fulfil her too. In the end, though, she would serve in whatever capacity the Church demanded. All the sisters would have to fight before this was over. Fight or die. Probably both, judging by the streams of incoming refugees clogging the roads both east and west.
* * *
• • •
LESS THAN A minute after fleeing Path Tower, Nona and Ara clattered down the steps to the cave where Sister Apple had just taken her customary place behind her preparation table. Alata, Leeni, Ketti, Ruli, and Sharlot all looked around to witness Nona’s entrance, Ara at her shoulder. Late arrivals were always a good spectator sport, and the fact that
Nona had once saved someone very dear to the Poisoner from certain death never seemed to soften any punishments handed out for misdemeanours in class.
Nona stood, pinned by Sister Apple’s glance, and awaited her sentence. A seven-day spent cleaning the main cauldron had been a favourite lately. A trickle of sweat ran across Nona’s ribs beneath her habit, parallel to the spine of Aquinas’s Book of Lost Cities. If the book were to be discovered, then all the punishments ever handed out in Shade class would pale by comparison to the retribution that would rain upon her.
The Poisoner set down her notes. “Sister Mantle has been called away on other duties so further instruction in Shade-fist will have to await her return.” The nun gestured for Nona and Ara to take their seats. “Thus we are at leisure to decide on today’s topic of study. A session on rending would be a wise choice given the parlous state of this class’s shadow-work.”
Nona hung her head. Without her shadow even the simplest manipulation of the dark lay beyond her. When the lights went out she was as blind and helpless as someone without a drop of marjal blood in their veins. Knowing where her shadow lay softened the loss, but not by much. A minor compensation was that because her shadow was still bound to the Sweet Mercy shipheart she received a small but steady contact with the heart’s power. Even now she could feel it pulsing along the shadow-thread that bound them. The shipheart remained in Sherzal’s keeping, part of the terms of the uneasy truce with her brother. But Nona kept to the hope that the years ahead held an opportunity both to recover her shadow and to exact justice for Sherzal’s crimes. Hessa and Darla had both died because of the woman’s machinations, and Nona would see Sherzal bleed for it.
“Or,” Sister Apple continued, “we could practise your wire skills, which are equally in need of attention.”
Nona looked up. Wire-work included garrotting, which was always a messy business, and the setting of various unpleasant traps, but at least it was something she could do.
“Any preferences?”
Nona and Ara knew better than to speak. Apple had an instinct for the truth even without her little pills, and she would choose the option neither of them wanted. Nona considered bluffing and asking for the option she least liked, but kept quiet, sure Apple would see through it.
“Wire-work?” Leeni held up a hand.
“Wire-work it is.” Sister Apple allowed herself a narrow smile and bent to unlock the drawer where she kept the equipment. She rummaged for a while, then removed seven kits, each a small box of polished wood containing a set of wires cut to various standard lengths. Holding the stack of cases against her body, the nun moved around the class, distributing them.
“Thank you, Mistress Shade.” Nona didn’t reach for hers, instead letting Sister Apple set it down in front of her.
Before opening the box Nona slipped her hands inside her sleeves. Contact poison was a favourite punishment for tardy novices. Inside, the wires rested tight-coiled in small compartments. A set of iron thimbles and finger-sleeves fashioned from very fine chain mail were included to help avoid lacerations. Beside the finger-guards a wide variety of hooks, wedges, and blocks were set into a narrow line of depressions shaped to accommodate them. Grey Sisters might be entrusted with sigil-locks to secure wire-work at speed, but only the best were trusted with such expensive tools and every Sister of Discretion needed to be able to fall back on more basic methods.
“Work in pairs. I want the windows wired. Sharlot, you’re to do the door. Lock it first, dear.” Sister Apple waved them to their tasks and returned to her desk.
Ara and Nona hurried to claim the centre window. Each of the windows was a rectangular tunnel about three yards long cut through the limestone. They exited the Rock of Faith via the cliffs that towered over Verity’s garden land. The windows were wide enough to move along crouched or on all fours, so wires could be set at intervals from one end to the other.
“I’ll prepare, you set. Then we’ll swap.” Nona waved Ara into the tunnel. Nona would select the required wedges and lengths while Ara went about the fiddly business of fixing wire to block and winding away unwanted length.
Nona reached for a claw hook. Ara would want a claw hook. She would probably want six. The hooks worked pretty well on the edges and fissures you found in limestone. Her fingers paused an inch from the device she needed. She leaned in, squinting and sniffing. With a sigh she took a cloth from her pocket. “Poison on the kits, Ara.” Sister Apple had worked fast, probably with boneless resin, touching a few of the key components. Up ahead Ara grunted her acknowledgement.
“You have a count of five hundred!” Sister Apple called out from her desk.
Nona put on an iron thimble and took a length of wire, running it carefully through the cloth. There were no smithies that could make wire of useful quality or length. Only Ark-steel had the strength to be dangerous at a thinness that might render it invisible to the unsuspecting or hurried. Nona had felt a certain pride on discovering that the wire in the kits had been recovered from ice-tunnels by scavengers like her father, an elite breed who would dare the inky depths of the ice hunting for treasures buried beneath its advance. There were things of great worth to be found in the cities men had abandoned centuries before. Follow any tunnel out from the margins and you journeyed back in time. Find the right tunnel, put enough miles between you and the Corridor, and the ground you trod had last been green millennia before. In rare spots traces survived, sheltered from the flow of the ice behind granite ridges, or buried in caves. The true prizes, though, were not the ancient remnants of man’s work but the cities of the Missing. In such places a scavenger might find Ark-steel already formed into wire, fragments of rose crystal, quicksilver gathered in hollows, beads of nightblack, and a hundred other wonders.
Nona fixed the tiny claw hook to the wire’s end, taking great care not to slice her finger. Given only slight pressure the wire could cut her to the bone. She wondered, as she always did, what the Missing had used such stuff for and what they would think of the ends to which the Sisters of Discretion turned it in the Ancestor’s name.
Struck by a sudden thought, Nona defocused her gaze, wanting to follow the threads of the Ark-steel back as she had followed those of Sister Pan’s lock. There was the remote possibility that somewhere along the steel’s thread her father might be waiting for her. Perhaps he stood there amid visions of the exploration on which he had recovered it. But to unravel such secrets lay beyond her thread-work. Instead she saw the wire as if it were its own thread, gleaming with mystery, woven around the lives of anonymous Grey Sisters and leading back towards the darkness beneath the ice. The details of its discovery and the distant wonder of its forging were shrouded in an unsettling mist . . .
“Nona?” Ara’s voice, tinged with exasperation. “Corner bridge!”
Nona started. She blinked away her thread-sight and returned guiltily to her work. “Coming. Sorry.”
“Four hundred counts left,” Sister Apple called. Someone in the next window-tunnel let out an oath. A moment’s distraction could see you cut.
Ara set four wires, two crossing diagonally from opposite corners, one slicing off a corner where a hand might reach, another horizontal at a height level with her eyes. She retreated two feet between each placement and dusted the metal with soot to hide its gleam. A staggered placement minimized the chances of detection and meant that the victim might fall onto a second and third wire with greater force, leaving yet more, potentially both ahead and behind, to catch others.
Once Ara had crawled back out Nona went in to begin setting her own wires. The first wedge she set was a rectangular block rather like those employed by mountaineers, though far smaller.
“One hundred!” Sister Apple called.
Nona found it hard to believe so little time remained. She could hear Leeni cursing in the next tunnel. She called on her serenity and bade her fingers work faster, setting wedge and hook, stretching w
ires between them.
“Out!” Sister Apple had no tolerance for any who tried to finish off their work after the allotted time.
Nona retreated from her fourth wire.
“At home my little sister is learning how to arrange flowers,” Ara said as Nona brushed off her knees.
“Wires, flowers, it’s all good.” Nona had to force the levity into her reply. She’d seen what wire-work did to people. It wasn’t pretty.
Sister Apple inspected and dismantled Sharlot’s work at the door first.
“Passable. You should set the low ones forward, though.” After completing her inspections she turned to view the novices. “Join me in the corridor if you would.”
Sister Apple led the way and the novices clustered around her in the tunnel outside.
“Every Sister of Discretion is expected to know how to traverse any wire-work she has laid, leaving it intact. It’s often a necessity to pass through at speed in order to encourage others to pursue with a suitable lack of caution.”
Nona felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She tried to recall the pattern Ara had employed. Two crossing, one horizontal, one chord. Was it the left-to-right diagonal closest to the exit?
“Sometimes.” The Poisoner lifted her hand towards the class chamber. “In the dark.” Shadow rose in a black tide, boiling around the doorway, reaching the roof.
“Who should I pick to show us how speedy they are?” Sister Apple turned her head until her gaze rested on Nona and Ara. “Perhaps two novices who were late?”
“But, Mistress Shade. Nona won’t be able to see in there!” Ara looked worried on Nona’s behalf though she herself had only a touch of marjal blood and shadow-work was her only talent, both late developing and weak.
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