“I have no mother,” Zole said. “And I wish to remain here.” She stood by her bed now, a solid six-foot of killing machine, hard-eyed and ready.
“You stay there then.” Kettle reached for Nona’s hand and began to pull her towards the door.
“Wait.” Darla stepped forward. “Where are you going?”
“Away.” Kettle swept the room with dark eyes and shadows swirled. “I wasn’t here.” She set a finger to her lips. Her gaze settled on Crocey and Elani beside Joeli’s empty bed. “There are worse things, novices, than the Inquisition. Consider that.” A tug of her hand and she had Nona stumbling towards the door.
Together they hurried down the stairs. Nona dug her heels in as they drew level with the door to Grey Class. “What’s going on? I don’t want to leave!”
“We can talk about it outside.” Kettle started towards the main door.
“Can’t I say goodbye?” Nona jerked her arm free. She couldn’t just go. “What about Ara and the others?”
“Ara and the others aren’t in trouble.” Kettle cocked her head as if hearing something. “Quick, come here!” She backed into the corner behind the main door, gathering shadows to her.
“Trouble?” Nona went to join Kettle and the nun drew her close, both arms tight around her as the darkness clotted.
“You were in the undercaves,” Kettle whispered. “Joeli had trip-threads there.”
“But . . .” A cold realization reached into Nona. “The shipheart wasn’t thread-guarded . . . It washes those magics away.”
“The shipheart isn’t there any more.”
Kettle put her hand to Nona’s mouth as the door opened. Four watchers marched in, boots loud on the stone floor, a freezing wind whipping around them. They carried on up the stairs, not bothering to close the door.
“Stay close.” Kettle tossed something out through the doorway. Nona heard it clatter on the flagstones off to the left. “Now.” Kettle moved with hunska swiftness, wearing darkness like a robe. They slipped from the doorway, veering to the right, then pressed themselves to the wall. With the sun having set and night having fallen most of the way the two of them presented little target. “Over by the scriptorium,” Kettle murmured. Nona saw a fifth watcher there, tight against the corner of the building. Her head turned towards the spot where Kettle’s noise-maker had landed.
That one at least you should kill. Keot rose with the pounding of her heart.
“Move slowly. Keep close,” Kettle instructed. “If I tell you to run then run. Get off the Rock. Don’t come back.”
“Don’t come back?” Nona felt lost. “I need to say goodbye . . . to Ara.”
Kettle pursed her lips in sympathy but shook her head. “They mean to kill you, Nona.”
Let them try! Keot attempted to force her blades into being.
“Can’t the abbess—”
“The abbess isn’t in charge here any more, Nona. You have to go. Hide. Make a life somewhere else. Change your name.” Kettle started to edge along the wall.
“Change my eyes?” Nona kept her place.
“If you stay here you will die.”
Kettle moved off, the shadows flowing with her. Nona followed.
They reached the pillar forest before Bitel began to ring atop the Ancestor’s dome, its voice harsh with accusation. Kettle led through the towering stonework, Nona close behind, eyes slitted against the wind-borne grit. The Corridor wind was re-establishing itself after the longest ice-wind Nona had ever known.
Neither spoke as they descended the long back and forth of the Seren Way, treacherous by day, foolish by dark. Nona slipped at the last turn, scattering loose rock over the fall. Kettle caught her hand. “Got you.”
Nona regained her feet and shook free. “And now you’re kicking me out?” The trail before them led down to level ground where field and forest stretched away from the Rock of Faith. The rising moon tinged it all with blood.
“They’re after me too, Nona. Everything is falling apart. The abbess can’t help us.”
“We can fight them!” Nona rounded on Kettle. “They’re just nine against us. I’ve killed more men than that by myself.”
“And I wish you hadn’t had to.” Kettle looked down. “We can’t fight them. They’re the Church.”
“We’re the Church!” Nona shouted. “The Inquisition is nothing.”
Kettle shook her head. “It’s all one. All joined. What do you think Abbess Glass did before she came to Sweet Mercy? She ran the Inquisition. High Inquisitor Shella Yammal. That was before her son died . . .”
“No! I don’t believe that.” Nona backed away.
“We can’t fight the Church.” Kettle followed her. “What else would we have left?”
“Each other?” Nona said, eyes hot and prickling.
“Nona. You will always be my sister.” Kettle reached out and caught Nona’s shoulder. “The convent could fall from the Rock. Every holy book could burn. That wouldn’t change.” She put her other hand to the side of Nona’s face, angling her eyes towards her. They were almost of a height now. “I’m going to try to make a shadow-bond between us.”
“It won’t work.” Nona had seen Kettle call to Apple through her bond. The Noi-Guin used them too. “I lost my shadow.”
“I’m going to try. And if you need me . . . you could call.”
“Let’s try.” Nona attempted a smile. She couldn’t twist her face right though.
Kettle took Nona’s hand and interlaced their fingers into a tight grip, dark eyes determined. She frowned with concentration. The night thickened around them, blackening away the sky, swallowing the stars, leaving only the red eye of the moon. Kettle squeezed, hard enough to make the bones creak in Nona’s hand. The darkness became a physical thing, masking even the moon. Nona felt it washing over her but sensed no deeper connection.
“It’s not working,” Kettle moaned.
“Try!” Nona stared at the place she knew their hands were joined. She stared until her eyes burned and the Path sliced through the blackness, everywhere at once, infinite, complex, filling the space, defining the surfaces, shaping Kettle from nothing with a multitude of glowing veins, a light that no darkness could touch. Nona stared harder still, seeing past the Path’s brightness to the shining shroud of threads whispering through everything, strands freed from the unity of the Path.
“It’s not working . . .” Kettle tried to release Nona’s hand but Nona gripped back with all her strength.
A warmth rose around her. The focus approaching. They must have been locked in this embrace for hours! Anyone could find them. Inquisitors must be on their trail by now? Nona pushed away the sudden panic. The focus moon swept away Kettle’s shadows and the Grey Sister cried out as if scalded. Nona wouldn’t let her pull free. She remembered another focus, the heat bathing her and Hessa on the scriptorium steps on the night Hessa had thread-bound them both.
“It will work.” Nona seized the threads around her wrist and Kettle’s, without delicacy, taking all of them together, bundled in her left hand. She made a fist, and squeezed as hard as she could. And in that moment the focus moon blazed so bright it took the world away.
* * *
? ? ?
“WHAT HAVE YOU done?”
Nona opened her eyes to see Kettle kneeling over her, her face hidden in darkness.
“I . . . don’t know.” Nona struggled to sit. “I thread-bound us.”
“Only two quantals can thread-bind. You have to share the blood.” Kettle helped Nona to stand.
Nona put a hand to the cliff where the Rock rose from the plains. She felt too tall, as if her feet were twenty yards below her. “We do share a blood. We’re both hunska.”
Somewhere above them a scattering of rocks rattled down the slope.
“They’re coming! Go!” Kettle shoved Nona towards the Verity Road.
“Come with me!” Nona heard the pleading in her voice and hated herself for it.
“I can’t. Appy and the abbess need me. The convent needs me.” Kettle bit her knuckle, hard. “I just can’t.”
Nona started to run into the night.