“So what am I supposed to consider?” asked Hob.
“If the Shibbolth come again, who is going to stop them?”
Hob thought of Mina IV and Hazel, and their uncanny similarities. If Mr. Burke served the Shibbolth, his interest in Hazel took on an entirely different significance. The Coven would view her not as a threat to muir or the Fellowship but as a potential obstacle to their masters.
Again, a silent war raged within Hob. He wanted to tell Sigga everything, to confess, to be rid of secrets, no matter the consequences. But he could not translate impulse into action. It unraveled like string. All he heard were Mr. Burke’s words of caution.
Agent Fenn’s trying to spook you into switching sides and coming to her for protection. Common tactic.
It was true, Hob thought. He suddenly felt foolish and unworthy. Mr. Burke had been his father’s friend, and it was his gold supporting Hob’s mother and Anja. The man had a noble vision for Impyrium’s future and was making steady progress toward it. Sigga was trying to make it seem like Hob had been told nothing but lies. But this simply wasn’t the case. Mr. Burke had shown him photographs; his account of the Cataclysm was almost identical to Master Montague’s. The two of them stood upon a buried city! That was a plain and undeniable fact. The only facts he knew about Sigga were that she was a professional killer from the Grislands. Why would he trust her?
He looked at Sigga with suspicion. “If you’re convinced I’m taking orders from someone, why don’t you have me arrested?”
The Grislander’s face hardened into a mask, beautiful but grim. “We all have our orders, Mr. Smythe. We don’t have to like them.”
The two sat in silence while students and masters walked past. Glancing at Old Tom’s clock, Hob saw it was nearly three.
“I need to go pack,” he said.
“Are you looking forward to the trip?” Sigga asked.
“Yes and no,” Hob admitted. “I’m flattered to be invited, but I don’t like crossing ponds, much less an ocean. Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?”
“No. But here’s some advice. When we’re crossing the Lirlands, stay below deck. People who look overboard often wish they hadn’t.” She rose to her feet and stretched like a drowsy cat. “The voyage takes a week and Her Highness will be sequestered. If you’d like to continue this little chat, ask a sailor to fetch me.” Reaching down, she picked up his handbook again and brushed away bits of grass. “You don’t mind if I borrow this, do you?”
A vise closed around Hob’s chest. I’m finished. “Why would you want that?”
Sigga shrugged. “I’ll need something to read, and this can’t be as dull as it looks. After all, you can hardly put it down and you’re not even a page anymore.” She thumped the back cover. “Must be riveting.”
Hob watched helplessly as she strode away. There was nothing he could do. How could he protest her borrowing something so trivial? Closing his eyes, he touched each tattoo beneath his shirt and whispered a prayer to Fenmaruq, Vessuk, and Kayüta. He even addressed grim Morrgu, though he knew she’d never listen.
Slowly he got to his feet and crossed the grass to a walkway. Maybe Sigga wouldn’t find anything. After all, that mystic had not detected the spypaper when he’d first arrived on the Sacred Isle. Then again, Sigga Fenn was not your average mystic. Hob paused to look about Rowan, at the grand and stately buildings that housed so much of the world’s knowledge. And he realized, with a dull pang in his heart, that he would never get to work here. He’d probably never see it again.
Sigga had shaken him deeply. Her news of this Brother Jakob and the Coven was disturbing, as were the implications for himself and Hazel. But as he walked in the warm sun and listened to the twittering birds, he found it impossible to remain frightened or anxious. As Mr. Burke said, all he had to worry about was doing his job. The Fellowship would take care of everything else. By the time he’d reached the palace, Hob had forgotten Brother Jakob entirely.
Later that afternoon, Hazel sat in a little chair in the triplets’ common room. She tried to keep still as a fine sable brush tickled her eyelid. She failed, and burst into giggles. The priestess sighed, set down her brush, and dabbed away the errant line.
“Please, Your Highness. I’m nearly finished.”
“I’m sorry,” said Hazel. Keeping her eyes closed, she reached for one of the little sandwiches that had been on a tray. What she found was Dàme Rascha’s large and hairy hand. She squeezed it. “You’re not a sandwich.”
“No,” said Rascha. “I am not. And you’re not taking this seriously.”
“Yes, I am,” said Hazel. “I can’t help if it tickles to have little brushes painting things on my face. And I’ve been sitting here for hours. I’m famished.”
“You’ve had three sandwiches,” said the vye. “Two peaches. And couscous.”
“I don’t care,” said Hazel. “In two hours I start fasting for a week. A week! I get to eat as much as I want.”
From across the room, Isabel groaned. She was also being subjected to decorative torture. “Shut it, Hazel. You’re making me hungry.” A pause. “Pamplemousse?”
A preoccupied voice answered from the rafters. “What?”
“Cut up a sandwich and feed me,” said Isabel. “I can’t move my arms.”
“You cannot possibly be serious.”
“Deadly serious.”
“I’m busy.”
“You are not. You’re painting your toenails.”
An indignant snort. “How did you . . . ?”
Isabel gave a sudden shriek. “I can see! I can see through your eyes, Pamplemousse!”
Hazel felt a rush of air as the homunculus whooshed past. “Oh, my lamb chop,” he exclaimed. “This is a happy day!”
While the two cooed and gushed over each other, Hazel felt Merlin turn about in her lap like a puppy disturbed from a dream. His tiny hands gripped her skirt convulsively and then relaxed. Poor Merlin. Pamplemousse already lorded over him something fierce; now he’d be insufferable. Hazel felt a pang of jealousy herself. She’d never been able to see through Merlin’s eyes, not even a hazy glimmer.
“What’s it like?” she asked.
“It’s wild,” said Isabel. “I still see normally, but if I concentrate, I see whatever he’s looking—”
“Enough!”
It was the first thing Violet had said all day. All afternoon she’d sat with her back to them, perfectly rigid as the priestesses and their acolytes attended to her.
“Can you two sit quietly for five minutes?” she said coldly. “Or are you going to giggle and make jokes all the way to Man?”
“Not all the way,” said Isabel. “I’ll need a nap.”
Violet exhaled slowly. “This is our first pilgrimage. You may not care, but I do. Sit still and let these people finish their work. Or would you rather keep Grandmother waiting?”
No one wanted to keep the Spider waiting. It was going to be bad enough being cooped up with her for a week, much less starting off on the wrong foot. The woman might eat them.
Hazel and Isabel sat in chastened silence while the Ninespire priestesses completed their duties. When the henna had dried, the girls rose and gazed at themselves in a gilded mirror. Each was barefoot and wore a sleeveless gown of plain white cloth. Crowns of twisted rowan sat atop their braided hair. Intricate symbols and runes glistened darkly on their skin.
At first, Hazel thought they looked like witches, for many witch clans were fond of skinscrolling. But she quickly changed her mind. They did not look like witches.
They looked like sacrifices.
The head priestess did little to allay these misgivings. As the girls left the tower, she daubed their foreheads with ashes and lamb’s blood and intoned a prayer in Old Impyrian.
“Ayama sundiri un yvas don Ember thùl embrazza.”
May Ember’s sons and daughters accept you.
They descended the tower in silence, followed by the priestesses, tutors, and bodyguards. Hazel walk
ed behind Isabel, counting the steps as they took a hidden stair that led from the Faeregine wing down through the cliffs and to the beach. The palace had many hidden rooms and passages. Some were still in use, others had been walled off long ago and were popular references in ghost stories. According to legend, no fewer than eighty-seven malicious spirits haunted the palace. Thankfully, Hazel had yet to see one.
Then again, maybe the Spider counted. Their grandmother was waiting for them at the bottom of the stair, her palanquin resting on the grotto’s pitted limestone. She also wore henna inscriptions, but her skin shone in the dark, as if moonlight illuminated her. The effect was not magic, Hazel knew, but an ointment made from phosphoroil and powdered lunestones. It looked wonderful in pictures, and there would be hordes of photographers clicking away as they proceeded to the empress’s flagship.
The Spider gestured for her granddaughters to take their places. They did so, Violet in the center. Torches were lit, and from up ahead a deep drumming made the rock hum and vibrate. Eight tall priests raised the palanquin and walked forward. Hazel and her sisters fell in step behind them.
They proceeded through a series of dim caves before they exited an archway cut into the cliffs. Thousands cheered as they emerged. Many residents came to see the empress off on her annual pilgrimages, but even more than usual lined the beaches this sunset. Hazel wasn’t surprised. The Spider’s popularity increased once tension with the Lirlanders had slackened, but the real attraction was Violet.
For the first time since Hazel’s mother had died, a future empress was making a pilgrimage to one of the dragons that guarded the Otherland Gates. Many believed the dragons not only protected Impyrium from forces beyond this world but that their presence conferred peace and prosperity within it. It would never do to offend such godlike creatures, and thus it was the empress’s duty to pay proper tribute. Now that the triplets were making the journey, people could breathe easier knowing that another crop of Faeregines was in place to continue the hallowed tradition. Other houses craved the Faeregines’ wealth and power, but none envied this particular responsibility. Hazel couldn’t blame them. For all the excitement, she was terribly anxious. She had witnessed firsthand the Spider’s condition after making these journeys. Pilgrimage took a terrible toll on the mind and body.
It took fifteen minutes to make their way to the deepwater pier where Rowana, the empress’s golden flagship, was moored. A Lirlander Seal shone brightly on its prow, a reminder that the seas were safe once again. Drums were booming as dancers wearing elaborate dragon costumes snaked through the crowds. Hazel found it impossible not to get swept up in the moment. There was such an electric, festive atmosphere. People were singing, throwing rowan petals, and wishing the Faeregines safe passage across the Prusian Sea. Hazel felt like some kind of hero.
The feeling continued as they marched up the flagship’s broad gangplank. Everyone aboard was arrayed in crisp lines to receive them. They stood behind the captain, his officers, and the trio of weatherworkers who would conjure winds and calm the seas before them. Hazel spied Hob off to the side, next to his roommate, Viktor. He looked very smart in a new linen suit he’d bought with Sigga’s money. Their eyes met and she offered the tiniest of smiles. He returned it before turning his gaze back on the empress.
By now, Hazel attached an almost superstitious faith in Hob’s company. The Muirlander was a good luck charm. She would see precious little of him during the actual voyage, but knowing he was aboard gave her confidence that she could handle the upcoming fast and her fear of meeting a dragon. As Hazel was discovering, confidence was half the battle.
The drums ceased as the priests set down the palanquin. Violet helped the empress up from her cushion. Anyone hoping for inspirational remarks from Her Radiance would have been sorely disappointed. Clutching Violet’s hand, the Spider hobbled toward a hatchway and promptly disappeared down its steps. Rascha bent close to take Merlin from Hazel.
“Quickly, child. The sun has nearly set.”
Hazel turned and saw only a hint of red in the western sky. Purification had to begin at sunset. There wasn’t a moment to lose. Hazel hurried into the hatchway after Isabel. Once they were inside, the priests shut the doors and locked them in.
Slowly, Hazel and Isabel crept down into Rowana’s belly. All noise from outside had vanished. The air was very still and smelled faintly of tar and incense. As they descended the narrow steps, Hazel sensed the ancient spells about them, spells that had been worked into surrounding timbers like linseed oil. Neither girl spoke. The laughter from earlier that afternoon seemed a distant memory.
How far had they descended? Eighty steps? One hundred? Farther than Hazel would have thought possible, even in a ship of this size. Old Magic was at work here. But the steps were coming to an end. An orange flickering shone below. It spilled from a low doorway to illuminate the strange being on the threshold.
At first glance, the creature looked trollish—gray and gnarled, with glassy green eyes and a bramble beard—but it was no larger than a child of four or five. Although it was short and its goatish legs bowed, its arms were long and corded with muscle. When they came closer, Hazel saw that ram’s horns were beginning to grow from its temples. Although its size gave an impression of youth, Hazel felt like she’d never encountered anything older in her entire life. The creature did not speak, but bowed and stood aside so they could enter.
The space they entered felt like a shrine or sanctum, about twenty feet across with a bed of burning coals at its center. The curving walls were made of fragrant sandalwood, darkly stained, and carved into mythological scenes. Gazing round, Hazel saw great wolves chasing the moon and sun, fierce thunderbirds whipping seas into storm, battles between gods and giants, the Hound impaling Astaroth with his spear. . . .
“Sit.”
The Spider’s voice resonated in the chamber. She and Violet were seated a few feet apart on two of the nine mats spaced round the bed of coals. Isabel sat on the empress’s left. Hazel took the mat farthest from her grandmother. She gazed across the burning coals at the frail woman whose limbs were folded about her person. Hazel knew she would always be afraid of her.
The little creature shut the door and brought the empress a mortar, pestle, and several bowls filled with dried flowers, herbs, and berries. The Spider shook some petals into the mortar and began to grind them.
“You bear the Faeregine name, but you are not yet Faeregines,” she said quietly. “None of the pampered fools who share your last name are true Faeregines. They think it is an inheritance, a birthright to wealth and power. But they are mistaken. It is a responsibility, a burden too dreadful and heavy for others to bear. So it has been for three thousand years. You are not a Faeregine until you have stood before a dragon and born its scrutiny. . . .”
Sweat beaded on Hazel’s forehead and trickled down her back. The room was growing hot as an oven.
“It has been nearly thirteen years since I’ve had company on pilgrimage,” the Spider reflected. “Your mother used to sit there.” She nodded at a mat between Hazel and Violet. “Elana made twenty-three journeys with me. The last took her life. She died on Samhain giving birth to you before the Nether Gate.” She added rowanberries in the bowl. “Violet arrived first, then Isabel. I took you girls away, for your mother was too weak to hold you and Graazh was restless. That dragon is the least predictable, and I dared not linger.”
The Spider’s sharp black eyes locked on Hazel.
“I did not know there was a third child until you cried out. When I came, I saw that Elana was dead. She was gone, and you were here. Unexpected and uninvited.”
The empress returned her attention to the bowl, grinding the ingredients with grim determination.
“You did not look like something that should live,” she muttered. “I thought a curse had befallen our family, that some evil out of time had crept forth from the Nether Gate. You had killed my Elana; I would kill you. If I’d had my way, you would have died that minute.�
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More rowanberries went into the bowl.
“Fortunately,” she continued. “A guardsman restrained me and then Graazh intervened. The dragon licked you clean and nursed you with milk from her body. And then she devoured my Elana.”
Hazel was stunned. As girls they were told their mother died in childbirth aboard this very ship. There was no mention of Graazh eating her, much less playing nursemaid to Hazel. And certainly no indication the empress tried to murder her own granddaughter.
“Mother’s tomb . . . ,” said Isabel. The girls visited it twice yearly: once on Elana Faeregine’s birthday and the other on their own.
“Empty,” said the empress. “My Elana is with Graazh.”
Violet said nothing, but gazed at Hazel with an expression of repulsion and enmity. The Spider had just confirmed all of her doubts and misgivings that Hazel was different, that she didn’t truly belong with Isabel or herself. Hazel was an outsider—she was the reason Violet had no mother. . . .
“Why are you telling me this?” said Hazel.
Their grandmother sprinkled herbs into the mixture. “In my bones, I know this is my last Midsummer. There can be no more secrets between us, or between the three of you. You have a right to know the circumstances of your birth and why I have always hated you. But the one who must truly understand this story is Violet.”
Violet tore her gaze from Hazel. “Why me, Grandmother?”
“Because you will be empress, and I learned much about ruling that night. The world has its own wisdom and it often lies beneath veils we cannot pierce. Mortals are poor judges of whether our actions will prove good or ill over time. In my rage, I nearly committed an act of unspeakable evil. Not against a child but against Impyrium. We had received a very great gift that night, and in my folly I nearly threw it away. When you are empress, you must not make decisions in haste, happiness, or anger. Do you understand?”
Violet shot a dark look at Hazel. “Yes, Grandmother.”
“Soon, the responsibilities of Impyrium and our house shall fall to you. If you are to fulfill your duties as Daughters of Mina, there is lore you must know.”
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