“Direct action then.” Sister Apple tucked a red coil into her headdress, thoughtful as if choosing the right weapon for the job. “Pelter’s just one man we could—”
Glass shook her head. “We must have faith, Apple.”
“I pray to the Ancestor at the four corners of every day.”
“Faith in me.” A smile. Glass turned from her window and put a hand to Apple’s shoulder, deepening her voice theatrically. “Grey Sister, you may pass unseen and drop poison in a cup, but my intentions are hidden deeper than any shadow goes. I can place my venom in any ear where words may echo.” She reached for Tallow’s shoulder and brought both nuns to her side. “Red Sister, you might punch through a door but when my blows are struck no castle wall will stop them, no miles will keep you safe.” Glass spoke with a confidence she didn’t feel, but she needed them strong. In any game of bets and forfeit the bluff was always of more importance than whatever might be written on the cards held tight against your chest.
“We have faith in you, abbess,” Tallow said. Tallow always had faith.
“Be cautious though.” Apple still looked worried. “Spend too long watching the long game and the short game will kill you.”
* * *
? ? ?
DAYS PASSED, THE ice-wind broke, the fields shaded from white to green. It had been the best part of a week since Nona had run. Abbess Glass watched from her study window as she did every day. Her gaze settled on Novice Zole standing in the shadows by the base of the Dome of the Ancestor. “Come on, girl, what are you waiting for?” Glass spoke to an empty room. Zole should have made her move by now.
Glass shook her head. She seemed to do more watching than Pelter’s watchers these days. It had been her first post in the Inquisition as a young woman: Shella Yammal, watcher. At first she had been tasked just to bring tales to the tower, whatever snippets of information passed across and around her father’s market stall. But Brother Devis, her handler, had seen the talent she had for the work and had made her a watcher, an official appointment, recorded in the great books.
Zole stepped from the shadow now, intent on something. Glass followed her gaze. “Brother Pelter, Sister Rail, and Novice Joeli, a holy trinity.” The three emerged from Academia Tower, heads bowed in conversation.
Three sharp knocks on the door behind her and Sister Apple came pushing through before the “come” was fully past Glass’s lips.
“Mistress Shade?” Glass raised her eyebrows. Apple looked as if she had run all the way from the undercaves, hectic red blotches across both cheekbones.
“Kettle’s gone!” Apple drew in a breath. “Something happened to Nona. Something bad.”
“She went after Sherzal?”
“What? No! I told you. She’s gone after Nona.”
“I was asking if Nona had gone after Sherzal.” Glass glanced back out of the window. Everything still looked calm. It wouldn’t last.
Apple blinked. “Nona? Why would she? And how could she imagine she could do anything to Sherzal?”
Glass drew a slow breath, willing her impatience away. She couldn’t expect Apple to think clearly where Kettle was concerned. “What kind of trouble was Nona in?”
Apple shook her head. “Kettle left a ciphered note. No details. She knew I wouldn’t let her go alone.”
“Kettle is a Grey: she doesn’t require your permission, sister.” Glass smiled. “Besides, that girl is death on two legs. Worry for whoever gets in her way.”
Apple looked down, frowning.
“Additionally,” Glass said, “it’s probably safer for her out there. Sister Rock reports Inquisition guards and seekers approaching the Vinery Stair.”
“Guards?” Apple met Glass’s gaze, her frown deepening. The seekers would be to hunt out Kettle—rumour had it she still haunted the convent, and rumour was bread and butter to the Inquisition. But the guards, that one clearly puzzled Apple. Why did the Inquisition need its shock troops for Sweet Mercy?
“Think it through, dear.” Glass pulled out her chair and sat at her desk. There were papers that would need signing. She paused, arm extended for her quill. Apple’s intelligence had never been in doubt but the woman applied it too narrowly. “Imagine Pelter is making one of those poisons of yours. He selects his ingredients. He assembles them. He adds them, in the required order and in the required amounts. Not all at once. Some watchers first. Let things simmer. Some more. Stir. Wait. Then the next.”
“But what’s he brewing?” Apple’s fingers moved as if imagining mixing ingredients of her own.
“I told you,” Glass said. “Poison.”
24
IT TOOK LESS than two hours to reach White Lake. Back in the days when her mother first left to go there Nona had always imagined it as distant a place as the moon. “It’s too far,” her mother would say when Nona wanted to go. “Much too far.” In the end though she’d taken her curious child to a handful of meetings at the Hope church and likely Nona would have been confirmed in the light soon enough. But the juggler came and everything changed.
For each mile Nona walked, her mind raced a thousand, back and forth over the same questions, the same hopes and fears. The people would have run from the village. Soldiers would have fired the buildings but it would mean more if people ran to spread the news. To lift a hand against those in the scarlet and silver meant your home would burn.
Her mother would have run. And she would have run this way, towards White Lake.
During all the days that Nona had travelled to reach the village her mind had refused questions about her mother. The old hurt had scabbed over, been sealed beneath scar tissue, and Nona refused to pick at it, not until it was time. But now there might not ever be time and Nona’s questions queued for their turn on her tongue. Accusations too. But behind all that lay the oldest memories of safe arms, warmth, love without condition. Memories that Nona treasured, however indistinct they were. A taste of something that she still sought.
The trail thickened into a track, the track into a road, and she came around the margins of the White Lake, watching the town on the far shore grow closer with each stride. Perhaps two hundred homes hugged the water, scores more stepping up the slopes behind. Quays reached out, questing fingers probing the lake’s secrets. A score of boats lay tied, half a dozen more heading in from the day’s fishing. Here and there a light burned in a window, the first of many that would rise as the night fell.
Nona spotted the Hope church on the outskirts of town, a stone-built structure that should have carried a peaked roof but instead stood open to the sky. As she drew closer she spotted rooms adjoining the back, sheltering under tiles and timber. Presumably Preacher Mickel liked to sleep in a dry bed.
The light had all but failed by the time Nona came to the church doors. They stood twice her height and were supported by scrolling iron hinges. It had always seemed odd to have doors on a place with no roof. Nona listened but heard nothing save distant cries from the quays, and laughter on the road, perhaps at the sight of a novice of the Ancestor knocking on the doors of Hope. She dismissed the thought. Few in White Lake would recognize her range-coat as part of the order, and surely not from the road. She had smeared dirt over the sign of the tree scorched into the leather across her back, and it would take close inspection to see it for what it was.
She knocked. Nothing. Above her the sky was almost dark, ribbed by the red edges of clouds. Nona climbed the wall, using her blades only twice where the stonework offered no hold. She straddled the top and looked down into the church. A slate-flagged floor supported an altarstone at the centre; otherwise the place lay bare. At the services Nona had attended the altar had sported a strange globe of brass bands, something to do with pointing to the Hope when the skies were veiled.
She eyed the door at the back. Must be where he lives.