Page 38

The door does not move again.

She goes to her spyglass and peeks through to the hall. Nobody is visible in the limited scope. Just empty stone.

It makes no sense. But this is an opportunity: her workbench is long enough to span the doorway, and Phosyne can block it all up once more. For the first time since Ser Voyne was assigned as herminder, she can have real privacy again. There’s a threat outside, and she can truly take shelter, and give herself the time to think and remember.

But why would somebody knock, and then leave so quickly? Phosyne’s teeth chew at her lower lip, and then she opens the door a crack, just to get a better look. A wider vantage.

There’s nobody there.

Phosyne looks back into her room, sees the rot and filth, smells it anew. She shudders, feeling disgust for the first time. The ownerless knock hangs in the air around her, a temptation, a question. Search for the answer, or retreat back into her moldering hovel, trying to unravel why her invocations would be worth listening to?

She steps out onto the stairs. She closes the door tight behind her. She rests her head against the wood.

Soft footsteps pad down the stairs.

Phosyne follows.

It’s very similar to how she chases down her ideas. They come out of nowhere, in sudden flashes, and she is helpless to do anythingbut pursue them. Something similar, she thinks, happened before Ornuo and Pneio arrived. She had been stringing up her corkindrill, face-to-face with the beast’s sharp teeth, and she had leaned in, put her head inside the jaws, and—

“Sefridis!”

Phosyne staggers to a halt, and realizes she’s gone all the way down to the ground floor, where the garrison should be stationed.

Like last night, it’s empty, except for the person who called her name.

Her old name.

It’s one of the nuns, thin-faced and desperate. She lookshunted, and Phosyne instinctively looks past her for a threat. She sees none. The room is empty. The woman tugs on her sleeve, and Phosyne looks at her again, mouth open with a question.

“You must come with me,” the nun demands. “You must help.”

“Prioress Jacynde?” Phosyne ventures, though this feels wrong. Her old name, and a direct plea for help? Jacynde would never do either. And this nun, she is young, younger than Phosyne by at least five or ten years. Little more than a child.

Phosyne doesn’t recognize her face.

The little nun nods. “Yes, the Prioress, she’s—but you must see for yourself.”

She should say no. She owes the Priory, if not Jacynde, for so much of her education, her life until just recently. And yet if she is responsible for the impossible food the night before, the coming feast, the appearance of the Constant Lady...

“Where is she?” Phosyne asks. “Is she—is she with the visitors?”

The little nun wrings her hands. She is the very image of pathos. “She was,” the nun says. And then terror seems to clot her throat, if the whites of her eyes are anything to go by.

“Of course, I’ll help as I can,” she says, blood turning to ice.

The nun nods, relief making her tongue her lips a moment, and then she turns and is off, racing for the chapel.

Phosyne follows.

The yard is still full of people, though Phosyne cannot see the king, nor the saints, nor Ser Voyne. They have to weave throughthe crowd, and Phosyne hears them weeping, praying, cheering. The crush of hopeful bodies is almost too much, and twice, Phosyne nearly loses track of the little nun.

But when they reach the chapel tower, the crowd doesn’t thin; it abruptly stops.

It makes no sense. There should be a crush of parishioners here, too; if the faithful can’t touch the hem of the saints’ robes, they should be on their knees inside, thanking the icons instead. And yet there is nobody.

Her guide is the only sister she sees as they slip into the chapel, though Phosyne cannot see the whole wide room. Now, at midday, the open walls only let in sharp shafts of light and a dim glow; otherwise, the rest of the room is cool and shadowed. But at this time of day, there should be at least ten women here, engaged in various devotional tasks, or sitting with the faithful. Tending the timekeeping candles that burn despite the availability of the sun for measuring each hour, the better to calibrate each measurement. Instead, Phosyne can only make out the shadowed form of somebody standing at the far end of the hall, their posture too martial to be praying.

She doesn’t have time to look closer. The girl’s hand tugs on her sleeve again, and Phosyne turns to follow.