“What straggler?”
“I don’t know, braids, pinafore. Looked the same as the rest of you.”
“What are you talking about? We’re all very tired and—”
“Line up for a head count.”
“Is that strictly necessary?”
“Line up.”
Nina did not wait to hear the rest. She set off at a sprint, back down the hall toward the eastern wing, trying to keep her footsteps light. The main entrance wasn’t an option anymore. If the guards discovered an extra Springmaiden had—
A bell began to sound, different from the last, high and shrill. An alarm.
Lights came on all around her, the sudden glare blinding.
She wasn’t going to make it back through the dormitory to the eastern gate.
Nina slid behind a dusty hunk of machinery as two guards stormed past, guns at the ready.
She looked up. Several of the windows here were broken, but how to reach them? And what was on the other side?
No time to debate the issue. By now the guards and the Wellmother knew that a rogue Springmaiden or someone dressed in a convent pinafore had infiltrated the factory. Nina had to get down the mountain and back to the convent before anybody found her bed empty. She scrambled atop the old piece of equipment and reached for the window ledge, struggling to haul herself up. She managed to wedge her foot between two bricks and shove her body onto the stone ledge.
Through the broken glass, she could see the twinkling lights of the town in the distance, patches of snow on the forest floor far below.
She heard footsteps and saw another squad of armed soldiers charging through the eastern wing on heavy boots.
“Lock down the perimeter,” one was saying. “We’ll search in a grid and work our way back toward the central hall.”
“How do we even know someone is here?” another complained.
If they looked up—
But they continued on, conversation fading.
Nina took one last glance out the window.
“No mourners,” she whispered, and launched herself through the broken glass.
She fell fast and hit the ground hard. Her shoulder and hip screamed at the force of the impact, but Nina stifled any sound as she rolled down the slope, unable to stop her momentum. She tumbled into the tree line, struck the base of a pine, and forced herself to shove to her feet.
She made herself take a moment to get oriented, then ran, dodging through the trees, keeping her hands up to try to stave off the slicing branches, trying to ignore the pain in her side. She had to get back to the convent and inside before the Wellmother returned. If she didn’t, Leoni and Adrik would be taken unawares, and all their covers would be blown.
She came to a stream and charged through, shoes squelching in the shallows, then plunged down the next hill.
There, the convent—its windows still dark, though she could see lanterns in the stables, the chapel yard, the dish of scraps she had left out for Trassel.
Nina ran, lost her footing, righted herself, half falling now, trying to get down the mountain. When she reached the edge of the trees, she slowed, angling to the south so she could avoid the stables.
She heard the sound of hoofbeats and peered along the road. She saw the wagon, the driver whipping his horses hard. The Wellmother was returning from the factory, and Nina knew they would be searching the rooms within minutes.
Nina pulled off her muddy shoes, slid inside the kitchen, locked the door, and shoved the key beneath the flour tin. She hurried to her bedroom, already dragging her ruined clothes over her head.
“What’s going on?” Leoni asked groggily as Nina stumbled into the room and hurriedly shut the door behind her.
“Nothing,” whispered Nina. “Pretend to be asleep.”
“Why?”
Nina heard doors slamming and voices in the convent entry. She yanked off her clothes, wiped her face and hands clean with the inside of her blouse, and stuffed the whole sodden mess into the trunk at the foot of her bed. “I was here all night.”
“Oh, Nina,” groaned Leoni. “Please tell me you were just getting a midnight snack.”
“Yes,” said Nina, wiggling into a night rail. “A very muddy one.”
Nina threw herself under the covers just as the door sprang open and light from the hall flooded the room. Nina made a pretense of startling awake. “What is it?” Two Springmaidens stormed inside, pinafores rustling. Nina could hear voices in the dormitories above them, the clatter of doors opening and girls being woken from their sleep. At least we’re not the only ones under suspicion, thought Nina. Maybe they think a student snuck out to visit a soldier in the factory barracks.
“What’s going on?” asked Leoni.
“Be silent,” snapped one of the Springmaidens. She held up her lantern, casting her gaze around the room.
Nina saw it in the same moment the Springmaiden did—a smudge of mud on the floor near the base of her bed.
The Springmaiden handed her companion her lantern and threw open the trunk, rummaging inside. She pulled out the filthy pinafore and blouse.
“Why do you have a novitiate’s uniform?” the Springmaiden demanded. “And why is it covered in mud? I’m going to get the Wellmother.”
“There’s no need.” The Wellmother stood in the doorway, round face stern, hands folded over the dark blue wool of her pinafore. “Explain yourself, Enke Jandersdat.”
Nina opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, Hanne appeared behind the Wellmother. “The clothes are mine.”
“What?”
“They’re mine,” repeated Hanne, looking ashen and lost, her hair flowing in thick, ruddy waves over her shoulders. “I went riding when I was not supposed to and took a fall from my horse.”
The Wellmother narrowed her eyes. “Why would you hide them here?”
“I knew my dirty clothes would be discovered in my room, so I planned to wash them myself.”
“And somehow the widow Jandersdat didn’t notice a heap of muddy clothing in her trunk?”
“Mila said she would hide them for me until I could see to them.”
The Wellmother eyed the soiled pinafore. “The mud seems fresh.”
“I went riding only this morning. You’ll see the clothes are my size, far too long for Mila. It is my fault, not hers.”
“Is this true?” the Wellmother asked Nina.
Nina looked at Hanne.
“Is it?” the Wellmother demanded.
Nina nodded.
The Wellmother huffed a frustrated breath. “Finish the search,” she instructed the Springmaidens. “Hanne, I cannot begin to express my disappointment. I will have to write to your father immediately.”
“I understand, Wellmother,” Hanne said, her misery clear. It was no performance. She had risked her future at the convent to save Nina.
“And you, Enke Jandersdat,” said the Wellmother. “Your role here is to instruct Hanne in the Zemeni language, not to enable her disruptive behaviors. I will have to reconsider this whole arrangement.”
“Yes, Wellmother,” said Nina contritely, and watched as the woman shuffled Hanne down the hallway, closing the door behind her.