by Kalyn Crowe
The other hunters still flocked around Conrad and Kat. My step took me a bit of out of the group and gave me a view of the templar duo. I kept my face forward but made my stance as natural as possible.
The man nudged the boy.
He pulled at his arming coat and inched his hand up into a restrained wave.
So he knew I watched. Was he trying to rub it in my face?
The man covered his forehead and pulled the boy backward with the other hand.
Maybe not.
They appeared to argue with half extended arms jutted my way. Then the boy pointed over the man's shoulder.
A woman, about fifty or so years old, mountain-born by her dark silver hair and copper skin approached. She wore a paisley gold shawl over a dress of muted purples and corals. Typical vicar hues, but she walked with her head held high, like an Order member.
I checked back on the templar duo, but they were gone. Four other templars on patrol passed where they once stood. These new templars didn't give me, nor the hunter group, more than a glance.
The shawled woman approached. She ignored the other hunters and gave Conrad only a short bow. "So, you have brought her." A long chain of different magnification monocles glittered around her neck. She stepped away before he answered.
"If you'll excuse me." Conrad nodded at the hunters around him and motioned for Kat and me to follow this woman.
We left the crowd and walked over to the small square where the now empty tree stood.
"This is Eda Voclain. She's an Order Vicar and your hostess until I can set up a permanent apartment. Kat's is too small, and I, well."
"He lives at the headquarters," Eda finished for him. "No place for a young lady."
Kepi shifted in the bag.
Eda glanced around and refocused on me. "It would honor me to have you consider my home as your own." At a volume shy of silent, she added, "Both of you."
I blinked. "Thank you." I bit my lip a second. So she knew. Not only that, but I felt like I should know her. "What work do you normally do for the Order?"
"I organize and catalog items of a great rarity within the Reliquary. Occasionally, I am blessed to pursue research for an Arm such as your uncle's. Even if, recently, the council disagrees with my findings."
Conrad folded his arms. "So, you think Sybil is right. The disks are the same as before?" He patted his belt pouch with the disk.
"Be that not officially. I dare not risk the council sending me off with Sybil at this time," she said.
"Or ever." He looked down at his spats. "Eda was good friends with my wife; she can tell you more if she wants." He glanced sidelong at her.
She merely bowed her head a moment.
He met my eyes. "Point is, you can trust her."
I knew before he said so. Eda seemed like a soft lining in this chiseled place.
"You need to be careful about your templar," Eda said.
Kat rubbed her brow. "I told him not to come."
Eda forced a small smile. "He had his apprentice along," she added.
Kat tightened her jaw. "It's fine. Neither of them knows anything."
Conrad's shoulders lowered, and he blew a deep breath out his nose. "Kat's place is too small," he said again.
She blushed a little.
Eda said, "Gunnar does have a good heart."
All the muscles in Conrad's cheeks seemed to twitch like he chewed the idea. "Maybe so, but he's not part of this. Certainly not his apprentice." He tightened the ribbon around his gray twists of hair. "Eda, if you would take Nancy home, I need to get these hunters back to work."
She nodded.
"And Kat?"
"Sir?"
He sighed.
She said, "You know I'm careful."
"So are other people."
She rolled one of her pendants in her fingers. "I know."
He frowned at the ground. "I'll meet with you in the morning, Eda. If that's all right?"
"Anytime the black coats plan to lose their way." She smiled and escorted me back in the direction I first saw her.
We walked half a block before I turned back.
Conrad spoke again with the mass of black jackets.
Kat stood and straightened her hat, silent, and wore a grim expression.
"Love is a simple thing," Eda said gently.
"Forgive me, but it doesn't seem like it."
She chuckled. "Ah, now I said love is simple. Not all the nonsense we create around it, Lady Nardovino."
"So Kat and that one templar are, uh, involved? The guy who hid off to the side with the apprentice?"
"A general enough word to describe it."
I pushed my hands into my pockets and hid behind my collar. My familiarity with dating was slim, and first hand, it was non-existent. People had never wanted the liability of friendship with me, let alone a relationship.
Eda said, "To answer your question more clearly, yes. The Templar's name is Gunnar. He and Kat see one another romantically, which, I am certain, makes her job that much more difficult."
"Over me."
She gave me a slight frown and observed around her. "Understand it is not over you, but over injustice. It is ugly, but we guard this secret now because we must." She touched her fingertips to my bag, and our eyes met.
They'd take Kepi, and they'd kill everyone who knew, so the less, the better. I said, "I understand."
We rounded a corner with another perfect, but bare, tree. The buildings here weren't as tall, but the same pearl-like cut stone created their walls. Even tile covered the roofs. "Eda?"
She nodded.
"Isn't there a forest in a valley not far from here?"
"There is. Why do you ask?"
"Well, everything is stone."
She smiled. "Yes, the whole city except for some furniture. It prevents wide destruction if a fire should start, and it is resilient to attacks from acid and creatures."
"You mean Abyssites?"
"Yes, yet history holds many attacks where such attacks destroyed blocks of the city."
"Can't an Apexist imbue the stone with Resistance for more protection?"
"This would be ideal, except Apexists are in short supply." A subtle sadness peeked through her voice. "Not nearly as rare as a Weaver mind you who could also protect us. With a city this large, it is nigh impossible to maintain full protection."
I looked up at one of the spires beyond the rooftops. "But don't the towers and the High Hall receive regular recharging of their imbuements? We couldn't build like that without Resistance magic, I thought."
"Ah, but these homes are short enough that we do not." She laughed but covered her mouth. "The safety of many can not always compete with the glamour of a few, Lady Nardovino."
We walked down a small residential street, two horses wide at most.
"My niece will be home and can help you get settled in. It is a bit late for me."
"Your niece?"
She said, "Yes, my brother's daughter."
Probably the inspiration for Nancy.
"You and she have much in common. She is a few years older, and the last who knows of the mission." She paused both her words and steps.
I stopped beside her.
"We also have our secrets."
8 - First Promises
Concern and determination mixed on Eda's fine-lined face. "Will you promise to keep those secrets? I know we are strangers, but, please."
I bowed my head and looked her in the eye after. "You have my word." I patted my bag for emphasis.
At the very least, whatever she worried about, I planned to protect. If they betrayed Kepi and me, we wouldn't have made it ten feet off the Sleigh.
She squeezed my hand, "thank you," then took a key from her sleeve and ascended short stairs of the nearest house.
The stone door opened without a sound in its metal frame. Eda stepped inside. "Leyla. I'm home, and Nancy is with me." She slipped off her shoes.
I followed Eda's example. I only loos
ened one lace before I saw her — a girl with long wavy black hair and golden brown skin. She sat at a surprisingly thick wooden table in the kitchen.
One of her hands laid on an open book while the other disappeared below the tabletop. Her curious emerald eyes weren't on the pages but me.
"There are no vultures." Eda closed the door and removed her shawl.
The girl stood and set her once hidden, loaded hand bow on the table.
I gulped. "I, oh, hello."
She grinned and made a circle with her fist in front of her chest. Her thin yellow robes glided around her. Little golden sparkles in the fabric caught the candlelight.
Eda gently got my attention with a touch. "This is my niece, Leyla. She apologizes. We didn't aim to scare you." She winked.
I made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a choke. "Oh, no, it's all right."
Eda hung her shawl by the door. "Leyla?"
She lifted her thick but refined brows.
"Will you see Meredith has everything she needs? I need to get some rest. I have not done this much sneaking around in some years."
Leyla nodded and then made several handshapes I couldn't follow.
The answer from Eda came as a nod with both her head and fist. "Goodnight, girls. Do try to get some sleep and not chat all night."
"Goodnight," I said
Eda walked left, through the kitchen, past the stairs, and disappeared down the hall.
Cushion filled seats and a patterned area rug with thick fringe filled the room to my right. "This is a very nice house." I swallowed. A different kind of nervous took hold.
Leyla touched near her bottom lip with the fingertips of her flat hand and then lowered it.
I bit at the inside of my cheek. I knew no Sign Language and grew curious about Eda's 'chat all night' comment. Of the whole day, I felt the dumbest now. Leyla understood me just fine after all.
She raised one finger and then slipped a scroll from under a front fold of her robe. Her shoulders lifted and lowered as she took a big breath and stared at it.
No nicks or creases marred the perfect vellum. Just the sight made me feel odd, almost confused, but sad, too.
She brought it closer and looked at me in the way Kepi would for a sugar cube. Such honest hope.
Kepi was my one constant light.
This scroll, it wasn't to write on, Leyla regarded it the same way I did Kepi.
"Here," I said and lifted the flap on my bag. "Kepi, it's all right."
Her ears raised above the edge. She flicked them around as she scanned the room.
"This is Leyla."
Kepi cocked her head.
"We're at the Voclains' house."
She jumped from the bag to my shoulder.
Leyla held her scroll to her chest with one hand. She opened her mouth in a wide grin along with her bright eyes. She carefully reached near Kepi and looked over.
"Go ahead."
She rolled her lips together tightly, and it looked like she giggled, but without a sound. Her delicate fingers scratched Kepi right between the ears.
With a little coo, she hopped down. She paced around the edges of the rooms until she finally sat on the kitchen table.
Leyla beamed and touched near her lips then tilted her hand forward again. With another big breath, she lifted the scroll in one hand, and then extended the little finger of the other.
I saw this in the orphanage, but no one ever asked me to pinky swear anything.
It was strange Leyla seemed worried that I wouldn't approve of her. Wouldn't be her friend. I wrapped my little finger around hers and knew I never wanted to let go.
"I told Eda I wouldn't betray your secrets, but if you don't want to show me something, it's all right."
She raised the scroll and then dropped it.
I scrambled to catch it, but it never hit my hands. It hung in the air and unfurled.
Kepi sat on the table and studied the scroll, then preened her necklace.
"What in the world?" I stared. No invocation, or not one I heard.
It floated there, blank. Then a little flicker of gold appeared. Immaculate letters sparked to life on the vellum. It said, "Now we're even." Leyla gave me another silent giggle, and the words disappeared.
I let my mouth hang open for a moment or three. "I've never seen anything like this. People at least know what Apexials are."
The gold letters appeared again. "But Kepi is amazing and quite mysterious."
She wasn't the only one. "Are you controlling this with your mind?"
"Yes." A pause followed, like how a person would if they spoke aloud. "You must have put together that I can't speak. Eda gave me this when I was old enough not to lose it." The words formed as fast as they would out loud.
"Does it work for anyone?"
"Just me." She leaned in as someone about to whisper would. "I think Eda stole it from the Reliquary."
Kepi came over and bumped my leg.
I picked her up.
"Can the Lady Tempest read?"
I frowned. "I don't know. Kepi does understand spoken words."
"Do a little call again if you can, Lady." Leyla watched her.
She yawned.
Leyla curled one leg back and alternated between a putter of applause and wiggled hands. "She's still amazing!"
I imagined how she might sound this excited.
"Are either of you hungry?" She swept back into the kitchen. The scroll swooped behind in a buoyant arc. It turned back, and she said, "Actually, I wouldn't want to make too much noise." On bare toes, she nosed through the pantry. "We might have some snacks."
"Would you want something from the Sleigh?" I said.
Her eyes lit up. "You got to ride the Sleigh?" She flitted back into the room.
"Conrad, I mean, do you know the High Hunter?"
"Aunt Eda knows him much better than I do. She was friends with his wife."
That's right. "How did..." I didn't want to sound rude.
She consoled my nerves with a dismissive wave. "How did a vicar manage a friendship with the Nardovinos?" She lifted her hand at the end of the question.
I loved how animated she was. "Yes, I guess I'm pretty unfamiliar with how things go in Pinnacle outside an orphanage."
"After you got out, they sent you to a pretty out-of-the-way place, if I heard right."
Kepi hopped down.
"You did. The smallest town with an Order school."
"School." The quotations appeared on her scroll, and she rolled her eyes.
I giggled and reached for my hair, but it still hid in my hat. I took it off and held it instead.
"Everything here is by the books on the outside, but there are little subgroups of loyalties."
"And Eda and Conrad are in the same one."
She nodded. "My parents were, and your mom, too." She delicately twisted her hair and looked at the floor.
Too many questions sprung to life in my mind, mainly, what happened to her parents, although, I think I knew. She couldn't speak and lived with Eda. No parents and no voice meant a heretic child. The practice of Silence ended only a year or so before my birth with the advent of wards and school rehab programs.
I chose not to dwell on such darkness and said, "Well, Conrad got this Nancy person a Sleigh ticket."
A tiny smile made its way back to her face.
"Kepi and I took a bunch of candy."
She beamed again. "Wait, let me show you the guest room. I don't want to bother Eda."
"Good idea."
Leyla pointed at my feet.
I still stood in one loose and one tied boot. "Right, sorry." I turned and hung my hat on an empty rung. Then I took off my shoes and set them by the door.
Kepi jumped to my shoulder.
Leyla led me out of the kitchen the same way Eda took earlier. She pointed to a door down the hallway. "That's Eda's." Without a sound, she slid open the door to the side of us. "Here is the bathroom."
We tip-toed up the s
tairs. Two loft spaces branched off at the top.
"This one on the right is my room, and the other is the guest." Her words cast light against the A-frame ceiling and stone walls.
I stepped inside the left room.
A small bed, chair, and a matched dresser stuffed the small space. Another beautiful carpet covered the floor. The city's light twinkled through a translucent lavender curtain over a triangle-shaped window.
The scroll slid around my side. Leyla said, "It's pretty modest, and it doesn't get used much, but I made sure the sheets were fresh."
"It's great. Thank you." I set my bag near the foot of the bed, and Kepi leaped onto the pillow. I sat down on the bed's edge, undid my jacket, and pulled out the candy haul from the bag.
Leyla glided into the room and sat cross-legged on the bed opposite me.
I turned and put one leg up to face her. The candy sat between us. So did Kepi.
Leyla scanned the small heap. "Any of them?"
The question mark on the scroll caught my eye. I wondered how the punctuation worked. "Of course."
She picked up a red-ribboned piece and undid the wrapper without a single rip. It made me feel like some barbarian from the north-lands with how I ripped things apart to eat them.
In a sudden contrast, she popped the whole thing in her mouth and closed her eyes. "Apex above."
I snorted. The sight of Leyla with her cheeks puffed out while she spoke through the scroll struck me too funny.
She peeked. "Cherry. I bet the ribbons match the flavor. Do they match?"
"I didn't eat one yet. Should we test your theory? There are quite a few colors." I exaggerated the most mischievous half-grin at her.
"We can do it. I believe in us."
Being around her felt fresh and natural. Only one-word findings on flavors interrupted the comfortable quiet between us.
Kepi even played with the empty wrappers.
After another half hour or so, Leyla left for her room and some much-needed sleep. We'd stayed up into the small hours of the night.
I made a wrapper stack on the dresser top.
Fresh notes of subtle flowers wafted as I slipped under the blankets. The bed welcomed me with a little creak.
Kepi jumped up next to my head and did a circle before she laid down.
"It's been a long day." I stared up at the ceiling.
