“It’s not compulsory,” Sister Apple said. “Unless you want the Grey.”
“But Nona—”
“Will not fulfil all the requirements of the Grey if she can’t complete this task. You may enter first, Ara, and after a count of twenty Nona may enter. Your classmates and I will then climb the stairs at a modest pace. If you are not waiting for us at the top, and if Nona is not there within a count of twenty of our arrival, you or she or both of you will have failed and need no longer attend my classes.”
Ara shook her head. “Nona—”
“Go!” A barked command, all Poisoner and no Apple. “One!”
Nona stepped forward and shoved Ara into the darkness. “Don’t be in my way when I get to the window.”
“Two!”
Nona heard footsteps as Ara hurried to the central shaft.
“Three!”
She allowed herself to be shocked. Even a small error could lead to a wound that might see Ara bleed to death. The loss of a finger, or an ear, or some other important bit of a face was also a distinct possibility. When moving at speed it was a dangerous game to play, even if you could see the wires. This wasn’t a simple poisoning with retchweed or similar. Being late for class had never carried a potentially fatal punishment before.
“Ten.”
Lessons were over. The closed world of the convent was about to be broken open. The endgame had arrived.
“Fifteen.”
Nona reached for her clarity trance, picturing a dead candle and the memory of a flame flickering above it. Her clarity couldn’t pierce the shadows but it made other things clear. Clarity brought her to the realisation that Apple didn’t expect her to try the challenge. This was a goodbye. She should take the Red.
“Nineteen. Twenty.”
Nona ran into the night-dark room.
“Nona! What in the Ancestor’s name are you doing?” Sister Apple’s cry rang with genuine distress. “This is madness!”
Cold stone greeted Nona’s outstretched palms, her clarity enough to bring her to the gap between the left window and the centre one that she and Ara had trapped. Knowing that Apple hadn’t intended her to attempt the task brought both relief and dismay. It meant the nun had wished her no harm but it also meant that Apple didn’t believe anyone without basic shadow-work fit for the Grey.
Nona felt for the edge of the window shaft. On occasion she missed Keot’s acidic commentary but she’d never really missed his violation of her body until she needed to see in the dark. As unpleasant as having an ancient devil invade your eyeballs was . . . it could be very handy.
Despite the daylight outside, Sister Apple’s darkness filled the window shaft. Nona knew where the wires lay but to trust to memories made with no particular urgency could prove suicidal. A moment of inspiration settled on her. She defocused her sight. With proper illumination the thread-scape overlaid whatever she would normally see, and those visual clues helped make sense of the confusion of threads, a near infinite complexity of them springing from every surface, passing through each other and solid objects, leaving the world at strange angles. In darkness the mass of threads was normally far more bewildering. However, Nona already knew how the chamber looked. She had spent a good portion of her life in it. She knew the shape of the window, the nature of the stone, even the weave of the magic that had stolen the daylight. And, more by chance than judgment, she had examined the threads of the Ark-steel wires. This prior acquaintance, combined with a rough knowledge of their position, allowed her to pick out from a chaotic background the taut sections placed in her path.
Even so Nona moved far more slowly than she would have done had she been able to see. With daylight she could spot the telltale wedges and move her head for a glimmer along the wires’ length. She advanced on all fours, having to negotiate a second, third, and fourth wire before being able to wholly discount the first from her considerations. Novices had been badly cut before when manoeuvring to pass a new wire and forgetting the one now level with their knee or foot.
Passing the seventh wire, Nona felt a tickle along the side of her left calf. No pain, though, not until the sharp sting as she adjusted her position and moved on.
At the cliff face Sister Apple’s shadows boiled away into the day. Nona stuck her head beneath the last wire and looked up. Ara was twenty yards above her with ten more to go. She was climbing barefoot, presumably having abandoned her shoes in the cavern in anticipation.
Nona had to force herself to patience. Not until every part of her was past the last wire would she be safe. If clinging to the outside of the Rock of Faith in a Corridor wind could be considered safe.
She drew herself clear as swiftly as she could while still remaining sure that she knew where each limb was relative to each wire. A few moments later she hung above the drop to the plains some three hundred yards below.
The delay in the window shaft had left Nona lagging Ara by a considerable distance. More than Sister Apple’s count of twenty could account for. Unless she closed the gap there would be no way she could make it in time. In moments Ara would disappear over the edge to the left of the treacherous section between Blade and Heart Hall. Seconds later she would be running around the back of Heart Hall. Finally a sprint along the length of the winery and across some open space would bring her to the gate that sealed the Shade steps.
Nona launched herself upwards, disdaining any attempt at finding handholds and footholds. She drove her flaw-blades into the Rock itself and hauled herself up by the strength of her arms. Each lunge risked a chunk of the limestone fracturing away and taking her with it, but the blood was boiling in her veins, a sense of being wronged drove her, and she fought her way towards the heights, screaming with effort at first, then grunting as she saved her breath.
She climbed much faster than Ara, who had to rely on fingers and toes, but would it be enough to close the gap? Rather than crab across the cliff aiming for the edge where Ara had pulled herself over at the back of Heart Hall, Nona made a direct ascent. This brought her to the sheer southern wall of Blade Hall at a point where it stood flush with the edge of the Rock. Farther to her left a ledge started that would allow her to track around the building, ducking and climbing a series of buttresses. This obstacle course was what had forced Ara across the rock-face towards Heart Hall. Nona just kept going up, plunging her blades into the stone blocks as she climbed Blade Hall. She hoped Sister Tallow never saw the damage.
On reaching the roof, Nona flipped herself up onto the sloping tiles using her core strength and ran. She vaulted the roof ridge, then slid down the far side. A leap from a height of twenty feet brought her to the ground amid a small barrage of dislodged tiles. She tucked into a roll to share the force of impact on feet and legs with shoulder, hip, and back. The roll brought her to her toes and she was sprinting as only a hunska can, straight across the plaza to where Sister Apple would emerge.
Nona could see the steps, the iron gate set farther back, but no sign of Sister Apple or of Ara. Then she saw the nun, one hand reaching for the bars, the other thrusting a key at the lock. Ara came tearing around the corner, bare feet slipping from under her on flagstones still wet from the last rain. She rolled rather than try to right herself, and as Sister Apple pulled open the gate to ascend the last half-dozen steps, Ara reached the uppermost one on all fours.
The Poisoner reached the top step a few moments later, novices behind her, all heads turned the way that Ara had come, looking for Nona’s arrival in her wake. “One,” the nun called out.
Nona rushed in from the other side, nearly knocking Ara down as she got to her feet.
“Two . . .” Nona heaved in a lungful of air. “Two novices . . . reporting as ordered.”
“She must have cut the wire,” Leenie said. Ketti and Alata, just behind Sister Apple, stared openmouthed. The nun herself, though, fell to her knees, her hands reaching for Nona’s leg with a
roll of bandage. “You’re bleeding, girl.”
Nona looked down at her crimson leg and the red footprints leading back behind her. A sudden vertigo, wholly absent when she clung above a drop of hundreds of yards, seized her and without a cry she fell into a darkness all her own.
10
HOLY CLASS
Present Day
TWO DAYS IN the sanatorium proved sufficient for the patience trance to justify all the effort Nona had put into mastering it over so many years. The wire had sliced her shallowly but managed to open some large veins in her calf. Sister Rose sewed the wound closed and said that Nona would need a week of bed rest to recover from the loss of so much blood. After two days of staring from the depths of her trance out at the small garden cloistered beyond the sanatorium windows Nona felt herself ready to leave.
“I should try walking.” Nona sat up.
“You’re a patient. The clue’s in the name.” Ruli pushed her back down.
“I’m an impatient patient.” Nona wriggled up again.
Ruli tried to distract her with gossip. She had come to visit on her own and now looked as if she wished she had Ara to back her up should restraint prove necessary to keep Nona in bed. “Kettle’s home! They say she assassinated three Durn war-chiefs.”
“They?” Nona had already sensed Kettle’s approach through their thread-bond.
“You know.” Ruli waved the question away. Nona had never got to the bottom of who exactly the mysterious “they” were. “I heard she went aboard a battle-barge to get the last one. Killed him out at sea. I hope it hurt.” Ruli put her head down for a moment, the long, fair veil of her hair closing around her face. The Durns had killed two of Ruli’s uncles and sunk a good number of her father’s fishing boats. She’d had no news of her family for months.
“I’m sure she made the Durns regret crossing the sea.” Kettle had been on the Marn coast weeks ago and some of her experience had haunted Nona’s dreams along their thread-bond. Nona doubted that the Durn commanders had suffered. Kettle was clinical in her kills. But it seemed that Ruli needed to hear something more satisfying.
Ruli nodded and sniffed.
“Anyway, if Kettle is back that makes it the perfect time to get what I need from Apple’s stores.” Nona kicked off her covers.
Ruli’s eyes widened on discovering the patient fully dressed. “Perfect? The Poisoner has eyes in the back of her head as it is. If Kettle’s there it will just be harder still. You don’t—” Ruli stood as Nona swung both booted feet over the edge of the bed. “Get back in there!”
“Yes, the perfect time. I’ve been wanting Kettle back!” Abbess Wheel had been sending Kettle away at every opportunity, and war on two fronts provided plenty of opportunities. The fact was, though, that she would have sent her on nearly as many missions during peacetime. The old woman had never approved of Apple and Kettle’s relationship but even as abbess she couldn’t forbid it. The Church rules on celibacy within the sisterhood concerned only relations that might add branches to the tree of the Ancestor. Denial of such opportunity was considered a sufficient marriage sacrifice for the Brides of the Ancestor to make. “It’s been ages since Kettle was here. And who better to keep Sister Apple occupied?”
“Well.” Ruli hid a grin behind her hand. “You do have a point. They are very loud.” She blushed. “At least that’s what they say. From what I’ve heard, if you pick your time you could batter down the stores’ door with a sledgehammer and neither of them would hear you. In fact, they’d drown you out.”
“Ruli!” Nona shook her head. “It’s settled then. We’ve got Sister Pan’s book to return to the vault. Jula’s made the order, complete with the abbess’s seal—”
“Which you need to get back without Wheel noticing.”
“Markus is ready to help compel any officials or guards who doubt us. And all I need now are Apple’s magic drops so that if there’s an investigation the only thing the guards have to say isn’t: ‘Well, I can’t remember much about them but I do recall the girl had completely black eyes . . .’”
“They’re not magic drops.”
“Everything’s magic, Ruli. If you’d seen the thread-scape you’d know that. Everything’s magic, or nothing is.” Nona slipped from the bed, sliding beneath her friend’s reaching arms to rise between them, smiling. “I’m fine. And I should do this while everyone thinks I’m still in bed.”
Ruli stepped back, exasperated. “How will you even get in? The main gate and the stores’ door both have sigil-locks now.”
“I’ll find a way.” Nona went to the window. “See if you can’t put a few me-shaped lumps in that bed in case anyone looks in to check.” With that she slipped into the sheltered garden and clambered up Sister Rose’s prize cherry tree to reach the roof.
Despite her brave words Nona was shocked by how weak her arms were once called on to do any real work. Her calf muscle burned where the wire had cut it. She gritted her teeth and edged towards the roof ridge to survey her path.
Sigil-locks were a problem. Abbess Glass had approved the expense after Hessa’s death in the undercaves and the Poisoner’s discovery of theft from her stores. Nona had branded herself as the thief by darkening her eyes with a self-brewed dose of the black cure, but the fact that a day before taking the cure Nona had saved Kettle’s life had meant that a better lock was the only action taken.
As tempting as it was to cross the convent Noi-Guin style from rooftop to rooftop, the best practice, taught by Sister Apple herself, was far less flamboyant. Nona left the sanatorium by the door once an opportunity arose to do so unobserved. Under her habit she carried a lantern from the sanatorium, now lit and trimmed to its lowest. Already it was uncomfortably hot.
She walked to the edge of the Rock, head down, staring at a section of parchment as if memorizing it for an exam. She came to Blade Hall and waited for a cluster of Grey Class novices to pass inside before she slid quickly over the cliff edge. With her toes on a ledge she extracted the lantern, turned it up, and tied it to her belt.
Bray’s next toll was near. Old Sister Grass would already be creaking up the wooden stair to sound it. Nona reached the windows to the Shade chamber and hung by her flaw-blades, wishing her arms weren’t already trembling with the effort. If there had been a lesson ongoing, then the bell would have ushered the class out and offered an opportunity to enter. But no sounds emerged, and the quickest of peeps confirmed that the room wasn’t filled with shadow-work or novices pressed to the walls practising the watchful patience that Nona herself should be exercising.
Nona made to swing through. At the last moment she caught herself awkwardly and hung, muscles aching, as she confirmed that the window shaft hadn’t been left with a criss-crossing of wire-work. Relaxing, she dropped in and crawled through. She rose amid the familiar benches and chairs, all stained and seared with a score of chemical spills. How many punishments had been handed out to the unfortunate authors of those accidents? she wondered. How many novices saved from making the same mistakes at some later point in their lives with consequences more dire than any of Apple’s punishments?
Nona reached for the door to the corridor. Even through the thick planking she could hear distant sounds from the cave where Sister Apple kept a bed. Officially the subterranean quarters were for when she was brewing mixtures that required regular supervision over a long period. Unofficially it served for times when the bed in her nun’s cell off the Ancestor’s Dome was too narrow and too public.
Nona and Kettle had learned to manage their thread-bond so that in general neither could sense anything of the other beyond a vague idea of direction and proximity when they checked. To gain more intimate levels of connection now required agreement on both sides. Even so, this close, and with the cries reaching down the empty tunnels, Nona started to feel distracting echoes of the nuns’ happy reunion. Thoughts of Regol flooded her and if she let the influence co
ntinue she knew she might find herself running the five miles to Verity to find him, bad leg or not. Nona bit her lip, leaning against the wall as another wave of the lovers’ passion threatened to swamp her. Any more of this and Verity would be too far. She might not even make it past Ara’s study.
In the end Nona called on her serenity trance to insulate her from such intrusion and set about her business. The stores cave lay closer to Sister Apple’s living quarters. Nona hurried there, having no worries that she might be overheard. She needed her lantern now, but if Apple or Kettle should emerge the light would give her away immediately.
Despite Ruli’s suggestion Nona doubted that the sturdy door to the stores chamber would yield to a sledgehammer particularly quickly. It had that obdurate look about it that oak gets after a century or two of seasoning. Besides, the aim here was not merely to steal, but to steal without later discovery. Based on historical evidence, Nona would be the prime suspect in any new theft so she planned to leave no signs that anyone had been there.
The sigil had been set above the lock in silver, inlaid into the wood. Nona studied the thread-scape. Like all sigils this one was a knot, drawing in and binding scores of threads. The shape of the sigil etched into the visible world echoed its more complex structure and function in the deeper world that lies beyond vision. Each sigil might be thought of as the shadow of an intricate structure cast upon a flat surface.
“Tricky.” Nona put her hand to the wall and focused her will.
Slowly the bedrock began to flow. Within a minute a groove had formed, allowing the door catch space to move as Nona opened the door. The lock remained locked.
Nona stepped through, alert for any further alarms, and drew the door closed behind her. The chamber beyond remained just as she remembered it from her previous theft more than five years earlier. Dried ingredients lay in neat bunches on row after row of shelves. One set of shelves was given over to a hundred or more earthenware jars, each crammed with seed pods from a different plant. Elsewhere stood glass jars filled with distillations, tinctures, and brews; a dozen kinds of snake scales in leather pouches; bones, tiny and large, whole and ground; minerals in all shades of the rainbow, some powdered, some in single crystals longer than fingers.
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