Mia blinked. Gobsmacked. “What?”
“You said yourself she was close to solving Shahiid Spiderkiller’s quandary. If Carlotta did concoct the antidote, your best chance to finish top of hall would be lost, neh? You certainly have a sunsbeam’s chance in the ’byss of standing victorious in the Hall of Songs.”
“You miserable …”
“Mia,” Tric warned, putting a hand on her arm.
“… black-hearted …”
“Corvere,” Ash muttered.
“… fucking …”
“… mia …”
“PRICK!” Mia roared. “She was my friend! Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Solis brought his fist down on the workbench and bellowed. “I am a Shahiid of the Red Church! The Mother’s Blade on this earth, thirty-six sanctified kills wrought in her name! And I swear you will be the thirty-seventh if you dare speak to me so again!”
Mia took one step forward, rage burning in her chest. She knew better than anyone what it meant to cross Solis. But she was still heedless, ever fearless, Mister Kindly swallowing caution whole. Tric and Ash grabbed her arms, pulled her into check. But it was the Revered Mother’s voice that finally brought still to the room.
“Where were you yestereve, Acolyte?”
Drusilla tilted her head, peered at Carlotta’s body.
“Sometime around three bells?”
Spittle on Mia’s lips. Eyes narrowed. Jaw clenched. “Abed, of course.”
“No one to account for your whereabouts, then.”
“… No.”
The Revered Mother fixed her in a cool blue stare. “Interesting.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“I’ve ventilated a few throats in my years.” Drusilla motioned to Carlotta’s corpse. “From the wound’s look, I would judge the killer to be left-handed.”
Silence descended on the room. Ashlinn and Tric exchanged uneasy glances, the sweat on Mia’s skin beginning to cool. The Mother was looking right at her.
“Jessamine is ambidextrous,” Mia said. “She fights just as well with either hand.”
“And which hand do you favor, Acolyte?”
“… My left, Mother Drusilla.”
The old woman motioned to the desk. Mia noticed a faint outline in the blood spatter, as if a rectangular object had been sitting in front of Lotti as her throat was opened, shielding the bench from some of the spray.
“Carlotta was obviously working on something as she was murdered. It would seem to be around the shape of a book. A journal perhaps. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Acolyte?”
“Carlotta kept her notes on Spiderkiller’s antidote in there. Everyone knew that.”
The Revered Mother tilted her head. “Interesting.”
Mia met the Mother’s stare without blinking. Spiderkiller’s voice broke the still.
“We have work to do, Acolytes. You should be about your mornmeal. I will see you back here for Truths at lesson time.”
Ash took Mia’s hand, dragged her from the hall. The trio ate a lifeless meal at the Sky Altar, Mia’s glare fixed on Diamo. The big Itreyan watched her with cool, dead eyes, daring her to make a play. Jessamine was nowhere to be seen.
Mia grit her teeth. Food like dust and death in her mouth. Ash’s whispers unheard. Blood pounding in her ears. Tric insisted he step forward, testify that he’d spent the night in Mia’s bed. That she couldn’t have killed Carlotta. But Tric’s session with the weaver had finished well after ninebells—he’d had dispensation only to return to his room, certainly not to go wandering into Mia’s. So in the end she pleaded with him to keep silent. There was no sense in Tric risking torture until she knew how hot the water she swam in was.
During lessons in the Hall of Truths, Mia couldn’t tear her eyes from Carlotta’s empty chair. The faint bloodstain that even Spiderkiller’s arkemy couldn’t quite bleach from the ironwood bench. She pictured the girl’s final moments. Hunched over her notebook. Head pulled back by a quick hand. The brief seconds of terror between the time she felt the blade and the time the blackness took her.
Mia stared at Jessamine, who’d joined the class only seconds before it began. A silent vow echoing in her head.
This will be the end of you, bitch …
“Mia Corvere.”
Mia blinked. Looked up from Jessamine’s face to find Revered Mother Drusilla at the front of the hall, surrounded by a half-dozen Hands.
“… Yes, Mother Drusilla?”
“You are to come with us immediately.”
Two black-robed Hands took hold of Mia’s arms, one apiece. The girl hissed protest as they dragged her from her stool and none-too-gently marched her toward the door. She heard Tric’s protest, a scuffle, the Revered Mother’s shouted command. Craning her neck, she saw the old woman stalking behind, surrounded by ominous, black figures. Her stare was a cool, ice blue.
“Mother Drusilla, where are you taking me?”
“My chambers.”
“Why?”
“An inquisition.”
“Into what?”
“The murder of Carlotta Valdi.”
Drusilla placed a crumpled sheet of linen in Mia’s lap and folded her arms.
“Explain this.”
The Mother’s chambers were nestled high in the Mountain, atop a seemingly endless flight of stairs. It was dimly lit by a sculpture of arkemical glass suspended from the ceiling. An ornate desk stacked high with parchment dominated the room, white furs on the floor, white paint on the walls. Overflowing bookshelves lined the chamber left and right, but behind the desk, the wall was carved with hundreds of recesses. Inside these alcoves, Mia saw all manner of oddities. A centurion’s dagger. An ornate rose of beaten gold. A bloodstained copy of the Gospel of Aa. A sapphire ring.
Mixed among the trophies, Mia saw hundreds and hundreds of silver phials, sealed with stoppers of dark wax. They were the same kind Naev had worn about her neck in the Whisperwastes. And in their center, an obsidian door was set in the rock, marked with strange, shifting glyphs.
Sat in an ornate, high-backed chair, Mia blinked at the linen Drusilla had presented.
“Explain what, Revered Mother?”
“This.”
Drusilla gathered up the sheet, held it before Mia’s face. There, soaked through the fabric’s weave, the girl saw a tiny smudge of dried scarlet.
“It looks like blood.”
“Carlotta’s blood, Acolyte. Speaker Adonai confirms it.”
Mia looked to the albino, who stood admiring the Mother’s collection of curios. He was barefoot as always, smooth, pale chest showing through the open neck of his silken robe. As ever, the speaker seemed singularly bored.
“It be the vitus of the slain one,” Adonai nodded, running his fingertips down one of the multitude of silver phials. “Undoubtedly.”
“I don’t understand,” Mia said. “It’s Carlotta’s blood. What’s this to do with me?”
Drusilla folded the sheet neatly, placed it back in Mia’s lap.
“This linen was stripped from your bed this morning.”
Mia frowned. Mind racing. Heartbeat quickening. “That makes no sense.”
“Can you explain how Carlotta’s blood got into your bed, Acolyte?”
Mia’s jaw flapped, eyes searching the room. She sucked a breath through gritted teeth. Remembering Diamo sitting alone at mornmeal. The image of Jessamine arriving only just in time for Spiderkiller’s lesson.
“Jessamine,” Mia spat. “She wasn’t at mornmeal. She must’ve put it there.”
“Jessamine was here in my chambers this morn, Acolyte,” Drusilla sighed. “Being questioned by me on this very matter.”
“Revered Mother, I had nothing to do with Lotti’s death. She was my friend!”
“There are no friends here, Acolyte. The wolf does not pity the lamb. The storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned. We are killers one, killers all.” Mia glanced up as the old woman echoed Lord Cassius’s warning. “And though we’ve made it clear that the murder of fellow acolytes is a crime, if you admit involvement in Carlotta’s ending now, the Ministry will judge you lighter for it.”