“All right, all right, bugger off,” Tenhands told the beleaguered surgeon. “I’ll finish her up. I’d like a word with our Blade alone.”
“My Bishop,” Pietro nodded, slapping a bundle of gauze none too gently on Mia’s bleeding shoulder and leaving the room. Tenhands sauntered around behind Mia, pulled away the bandage, the girl wincing as the blood stuck it to her skin.
Tenhands was a figure of infamy in Red Church lore, a long-serving Blade of the Mother with near twenty sanctified kills to her name. Old Mercurio had told Mia tales about the woman when she was younger, and Mia had grown up as something of an admirer.* Serving in the Cityport of Churches, she’d learned its bishop wasn’t much for civility. Or frivolity. But she liked results, so fortunately, Tenhands liked her.
“This looks like it hurts,” Tenhands muttered, eyeing the horrid wound across Mia’s back and shoulder.
“It’s far from ticklish.”
The bishop took up the bone needle, began sewing Mia’s wound with steady fingers. “I trust the pain was worth it?”
Mia winced, taking a long drag of her clove cigarillo. “Senator Aurelius’s son is being fitted for his death masque as we speak.”
“You used the lament?”
Mia nodded. “On the lips, just as you suggested.”
“I shan’t ask how you got access to the young don’s mouth, then.”
“Never kiss and tell.”
“And where’s young Dove?”
“Sadly,” Mia sighed, “my young Hand won’t be back for supper. Ever.”
“Shame, that.”
“He was never the sharpest blade on the racks, Bishop.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Tenhands dug the needle in for another stitch. “Since the J?rnheims gutted us, quality around here is in short supply. Present company excepted, of course.”
Mia chewed her lip and sighed. Bishop Tenhands spoke truth—good Hands and Blades were hard to find in the Red Church these turns. Galante was never a glamorous appointment, and most of the servants of Niah posted here dreamed of grander things. But matters were worse than ever since the Luminatii attack.
Eight months on, Our Lady of Blessed Murder’s congregation was still bleeding from the blow Ashlinn J?rnheim and her brother had inflicted at the behest of their father. It wasn’t simply Lord Cassius’s murder that had the Church reeling, although the loss of the Black Prince would have been grievous enough. But Torvar J?rnheim hadn’t merely had his children serve up the Ministry to the Luminatii—the old assassin had also revealed the location of every Red Church chapel in the Republic.
And so, while Justicus Remus was invading the Quiet Mountain, the Luminatii had launched simultaneous assaults across greater Itreya. The chapels in Dweym and Galante remained unscathed.* But every other chapel had been destroyed.
Worse, Torvar had supplied names. Aliases. Last known residences. Between Torvar’s treachery and the Luminatii attacks, Our Lady of Blessed Murder had lost near three-quarters of her assassins in a single nevernight.
As the bishop said, the Red Church had been gutted; that was probably the only reason a Blade as young as Mia was even entrusted with offerings like the one on Gaius Aurelius. In the eight months since her posting to Galante, she’d ended three men and one woman in the Black Mother’s name. Most Blades her age would be lucky to have been sent on their first kill.
Mia was thankful for the chance to show her worth. But problem was, her list of throats to slit was growing longer, not shorter. She’d killed Justicus Remus, but Consul Scaeva and Grand Cardinal Duomo still lived. Her familia were still unavenged. And with Tric’s murder at Ashlinn’s hands during the Luminatii attack, she now had one more windpipe to open before her vengeance was done.
And stuck here in Galante, she was no closer to any of them.
Mia clenched her jaw as the bishop continued to stitch her, thinking about … that … thing that had accosted her in the necropolis. Truth was, it had saved her life. Her near-death should have left her shaken, but as ever, her passengers ate any sense of fear inside her, twice as swift now as when she carried Mister Kindly alone. She felt nothing close to afraid. And so, she was only left with questions.
What was it?
What did it want with her?
“The Crown of the Moon”?
She’d seen that particular phrase before, buried in the pages of—
“Heard about some trouble with Aurelius’s guards,” Tenhands remarked, ceasing her needlework long enough to take a pull of the medicinal goldwine.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Mia replied.
“You normally operate with a little more discretion.”
“Beg pardon, Bishop, but you didn’t ask for discretion,” Mia said, faint annoyance in her voice. “You asked for a dead senator’s son.”
“One doesn’t necessarily preclude the other.”
“But given the choice, which would you rather?”
Mia hissed as the bishop poured more alcohol onto her now-closed wound, bound it in long strips of gauze.
“I like you, Corvere,” Tenhands said. “You remind me of me in my younger turns. More balls than most men I’ve ever met. And you get your killing done, so you’ve earned a little ego. But word to the wise: you’d best leave that lip of yours behind when you head back to the Mountain. The Ministry aren’t as fond of you as I.”
“And why would I head back to the Mountain? I’m posted to—”
“Speaker Adonai sent a blood missive just now,” Tenhands interjected. “You’ve been recalled by the Ministry.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Goosebumps on her skin.
“… Why?” she asked.
Tenhands shrugged. “All I know is they’re leaving me a killer down, and a pile of throats that need slitting. If I could use Blades on more than one offering at a time, that’d be something. But that’d breach the Promise.* So when you see that bastard Solis, be a love and knee him in the codpiece for me, will you?”
Mia’s mind was turning, suspicion and excitement entwined in her belly. Being recalled by the Ministry could mean anything. Reassignment. Rebuke. Retribution. She’d served the Black Mother well in the past eight months, but every Shahiid in the Mountain knew she’d failed her final trial, refusing to kill an innocent. The only reason she became a Blade at all was because Lord Cassius had baptized her as he lay dying on the sands of Last Hope. Perhaps the good grace his endorsement had given her had finally run out …
Who knew what awaited her when she arrived?
“When do I leave?” Mia asked.
Tenhands lifted her bone needle, looked meaningfully at Mia’s backside.
“As soon as you can walk.”
Mia sighed. No sense fretting on what she couldn’t change. And getting back to the Mountain, she could speak to Chronicler Aelius again, see Naev. Maybe find some of the answers she sought.
“Bend over,” the bishop ordered. “I’ll try to be gentle.”
Mia took the bottle of medicinal goldwine and took a long, deep pull.
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”
*