She took a step. Took three more. Another.
And fell. She thought she might waft like a feather, but she plummeted as fast as ever. The only difference was that she didn’t mind so much.
Clera fell off before Nona had even reached the lever to time her run. She bounced and flipped over the edge of the net, landing on her feet. ‘Too eager. Always happens after I complete.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, I have to rush, Flinty’s taking me to town.’ Her smile dropped away. ‘Father’s back in Rutter – that’s the jail they put him in when all this started, the worst one.’
‘I thought they were about to clear him?’ Nona would never understand the details of the case. It wasn’t debt as she understood it – the debts of friendship and duty – Clera’s father seemed to be caught in a shifting miasma of paper debts, penalty clauses, interest, dividends, and fines.
‘It’s all politics.’ Clera shook her head, her victory on the blade-path washed away. ‘I’m scared he’ll die in there. It’s not a good place. Rats and disease. And his main creditor has filed for twenty lashes and more fines …’
‘I hope he’s all right.’ Nona reached out to touch Clera’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you.’
Clera managed a grin, eyes bright. She stuck her tongue out, turned on a heel, and hurried off to meet with Sister Flint and the other novices allowed into Verity with an escort.
Nona kept at her blade-path practice until lunch, with others coming and going. She had ten tries and got no further than a third of the way. The pipes swung wrong, the sections revolved wrong, the whole thing was just wrong. No matter how slowly she took it, how carefully … the ground just kept reaching up to claim her.
She joined the others at the Grey table, last to lunch, which had never happened before. Clera sat alone at the far end of the table staring at nothing over a bowl of soup. Nona went to join her.
‘How did it go?’ Nona reached for bread and started to ladle soup from the great glazed bowl between them.
‘Family’s important, isn’t it?’ Clera’s gaze didn’t move from the nothing that had trapped it.
‘Well.’ Nona thought back to her mother and felt the muscles of her jaw bunching. ‘It should be.’
‘My mother’s not a strong woman,’ Clera said. ‘You’d think she would be. But she really isn’t.’
‘Oh.’ Nona wasn’t sure how long this conversation had been going on without her.
‘There was a time when she was my world. When I was a little girl I used to lie in bed crying because I thought she might die and I didn’t know how I would exist without her. It sounds stupid, but I did.’
‘Have …’ Nona put her spoon down unused. ‘Has something happened to your father?’
‘They’re going to let him go,’ Clera said. She walked her penny across the back of her knuckles. ‘All debts written off.’
‘Well … That’s brilliant!’ Nona said. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘It is.’ Clera smiled but only her mouth made the effort. She walked the penny back again.
‘That—’ Nona saw that it wasn’t a penny, not Clera’s old copper penny nor the silver crown that replaced it. ‘That’s gold!’
‘Yes.’ Clera vanished the sovereign into her habit. ‘I took a penny and I bred it into a multitude.’
‘Well …’ Nona met Clera’s gaze. ‘That’s great news!’
‘Yes.’ Clera looked away and picked up her spoon. ‘I wonder how far Yisht has got to go before she reaches the coast.’
After lunch Nona returned to Blade Hall and the site of her most repeated failure. She joined the others practising and carried on failing.
Later in the afternoon Sister Kettle came to watch them. She stood at the bottom and worked the timing lever for them, watching twenty novices fall in a row before Sessa from Holy Class came and completed a run on her first try.
‘A hundred and eighty,’ Sister Kettle read from the dial.
Nona tried next and fell off after a count of thirty. She’d barely made it to the spiral before a counter-weight swung and the pipe lifted beneath her. ‘Sixty-nine!’ she gasped as she dropped from the net to land beside Sister Kettle. ‘How did you do it?’
Sister Kettle shrugged and grinned. ‘I ran.’
‘Not helpful!’ Nona scowled. ‘And Sister Owl … twenty-six … that must be a lie?’
‘Or she ran faster …’
Nona trudged up the stairs. Other novices came and went but towards evening the press began to slacken off. An hour later only Ruli and Nona were left. The others, perhaps driven off by the foulness of her temper, had gone to the bathhouse before bed to soak off their efforts on the blade-path.
Nona stood scowling at the twisted pipe. ‘It’s ridiculous. It’s just metal and wires. Why do we spend so long at this stupid game? It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Isn’t that what games are for? Wasting time?’ Ruli shrugged. ‘Besides, Sister Kettle says it’s more than a game. So does Sister Pan. Perhaps if you think of it as a game that’s why you’re not winning?’
‘You think I should make it life and death?’ Nona asked. ‘Stop it being a game? I could cut the net down …’ That would make it matter. Fall and die. There hadn’t been a safety net when she had gone up against Yisht in the tunnels or Raymel in his chambers. ‘I should cut the net.’
‘Ha! Ha!’ Ruli laughed without humour. ‘We should go.’
‘You should go,’ Nona replied.
‘Come with me?’ Ruli looked worried.
‘I’ll be fine.’ Fast, furious, and without reservation. That was how battle was. That was how the most crucial struggles of Nona’s life had been. ‘Let me try a few more times on my own.’
Ruli glanced at the door, ducked her head, and started towards it.
‘Wait,’ Nona said before Ruli left the platform. ‘Give me that grease of yours …’
Ruli frowned but reached into her habit and handed over the small earthenware tub. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
Nona waited for Ruli’s footsteps on the stairs to fade away. ‘Fast.’ She stared at the tarry soles of her feet. ‘Without reservation.’ That was how she had arrived at the Path, swift with anger, and she always tried to slow, and always fell. But perhaps she didn’t fit the convent’s measure. Perhaps she couldn’t bend to fit their mould.
She began to pick the tar and resin from the sole of her left foot. When she came to the blade-path wrapped in serenity she fell serenely. She put more care in, went slower, fell. Sister Kettle had completed the blade-path in sixty-nine counts. She must have run. Sister Owl in twenty-six, the legend said. She must have flown. Nona started to clean her other foot.
Ten minutes later she set the pendulum swinging and stood at the edge of the platform, staring at the pipe an inch before her toes.
‘No.’ She backed away, backed some more, backed another step and her shoulders met the door. ‘No.’ She opened the door and retreated down the steps. ‘Fast. Without reservation.’
Nona came up the steps at speed, toes curled for grip. She came through the doorway, accelerating into a sprint. She leapt and hit the pipe with both greased insteps. She slid, gravity seizing her, accelerating her with terrifying swiftness. And now, at last, she dived into the moment, letting the pendulum crawl between its ticks.
Nona shot towards the corkscrew turns. There are some things that must be done quickly or not at all. If someone asks you if you love them you cannot hesitate. There are some paths that must be taken at speed.
Nona began to rise with the curve, her feet running before her, and for the first time, although it felt very far from safe … it felt right!