Page 30 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Itissa

W hile we bundle up, I do my best impression of a woman who’s never been fucked in a cloakroom in her life.

Elodie helps me on with mine, and I generously resist the urge to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze. Brittle silence stretches between us. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to say something first.

All the while, Cordelia and Sadrie glance between us, snorting laughter and hushing each other.

Once we’re outside, Elodie takes off as usual. “This way.” Looking skyward every so often, she heads to the front of the temple grounds.

The night is clear and cold. Our enormous moon, Luxelle, is nearly full and bright enough that her silver rays cast our shadows onto the cobblestones. Elodie’s pace is so brisk that we jog to keep up.

The priestess passes the Waymark, leading us toward the Entrance Arch. We’re soon in front of the slanted plaza leading to the imposing Gallery of the Goddess.

The plaza itself angles downward, extending partially below ground.

Retaining walls on either side hold built-in benches and frame an impressive three-tiered fountain.

Beyond the fountain, wide steps lead to the Gallery itself.

A series of columns adorns its proud facade.

The banners strung between them bear Eisha’s emblem.

Cordelia and Sadrie meander to the fountain while Elodie goes to the arch. Sure enough, it’s unmanned. In fact, no Temple Guardsmen are anywhere outside for the first time since I’ve been here.

“Over here.” Elodie points to an area just above the filigree ironwork. “Look up.”

“It’s a lovely night.” I frown, surpassingly annoyed.

“You’re looking at me .”

My friends amble toward her, Sadrie murmuring something to Cordelia that ends with both of them erupting in giggles.

“Come here, please.” Making pointed eye contact, Elodie waves me over. “Stand next to me.”

My upper lip curls back. But after the swift walk, I lack the desire or conviction to argue. Like magnet to metal, I have no choice but to draw nearer.

When I’m close, she grabs me and spins me around so that we’re both facing the same direction. I gasp with something adjacent to girlish delight and immediately want to kick myself.

Snorting, Sadrie nudges Cordelia on the arm.

“Up there,” says Elodie from behind me, pointing past my shoulder. “Do you see it?”

Some part of her brushes against my hair, sending shivers cascading over me that have nothing to do with the chilly night. “See what?” I mumble.

“You’re not even looking.” She squeezes my arm. “Right there! That glimmer.”

Her excitement is contagious. She points again, and all three of us follow the line of her lanky arm to the star-studded sky. Sure enough, something squiggles in a strange, glimmering pattern high above our heads before vanishing.

Cordelia and Sadrie exclaim in surprise, and Elodie squeezes me again, which zings down between my legs in a deeply inconvenient way.

“Did you see it?” asks Cordelia, grinning wide.

“I did,” says Sadrie, a look of intense concentration etched on her face.

“I don’t know what I saw.”

“There it is again!” This time Elodie’s index finger follows the shimmering, otherworldly pattern. It pulses like an aurora before disappearing, as unmistakable as it is inexplicable.

“What is it?” asks Sadrie.

“It’s magic,” whispers Elodie. “Well, it was made using magic.”

I pull away to fix her with a skeptical look. “What do you mean magic ?”

She chuckles coolly. “I mean, it’s literally magic. I know the sisters don’t often use that word. Mother Deirdre far prefers ‘Eisha’s gift,’ but magic is what it is—a magic dome, to be precise. There isn’t any other way to describe it.”

“A magic dome ?” I ask, heart pounding.

“That’s right.”

“Goddess,” exclaims Cordelia, head tilted back.

“Huh.” Sadrie squints.

The air is perfectly still, as if holding its breath. Again, the ripples shimmer and chase one another in the inky darkness, a collective gasp going up between us.

“And why is there magic above the Gallery Plaza?” asks Cordelia.

“It’s not only here,” says the high priestess, pacing again. “The dome encloses the entire temple complex. It slopes high over the Observatory and reaches to the ground, forming a perimeter.”

“How did it get here?” asks Sadrie.

“The prioress put it up with the help of Ailen and Viv. They cast it while everyone was distracted with the party.”

“ Why ?” repeats Cordelia.

“To keep everyone here.”

“That’s absurd.” Countless questions fly through my head, not least of which is, “ How , exactly, is it supposed to do that?”

Elodie strolls away, searching for something.

“I’ll show you.” Pinning me with the kind of glare that cuts me to the core, she points to the ground at my feet.

“Stay right there, Tiss.” Her gaze shifts to my companions.

“All of you stay put. Don’t leave the cobblestones. Don’t get any closer to that arch.”

Cobbles curve beneath the arch, meeting hard-packed earth. The boundary separates the temple grounds from the footpath snaking down the mountain.

Her command brooks no argument. I tap my foot, giving my best impression of being tremendously inconvenienced. Secretly, a frightened sort of fascination buzzes through me.

Elodie picks something up off the ground near the Waymark. A long stick comes into view when she gets closer, grasped in her tapered fingers. “Watch,” she instructs before tossing it toward the arch’s center, immediately springing backward.

Every hair on my body stands up. As soon as it makes contact with the boundary where the cobbles end, the stick explodes in a crackling storm of sparks and flashes of electricity.

The rest of us leap back, and I let loose a shriek. The unmistakable odor of ozone mixes with the stench of burning wood.

“What on earth for ?” Is the only thing I can choke out.

“Before Deirdre got in the practice of casting the dome, there were always betrothed who ran away. Anywhere the cobblestones meet dirt is where it touches the ground. Don’t cross it unless you want to pay the consequences.”

Alarm is climbing to my eyeballs, suffocating in its scope. “Why would they run away ?”

“Why did you want to run away?” she counters. “Why were so many girls upset yesterday when we first explained betrothal to Eisha’s service? Not everyone who submits to the ritual wishes to stay afterward. And not all magic is the light kind. Unfortunately.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Given what I saw this morning, I suppose I can’t be surprised the prioress would think nothing of electrocuting someone. And I’m not the only one who’s horrified.

Mouth hanging open, Sadrie stares between the arch and the charred, flaming stick.

“What if somebody accidentally stumbles into it?” asks a wide-eyed Cordelia.

Elodie shrugs. “Many mistakes soon become regrets.”

“That isn’t funny .” My breath comes fast and shallow, clouding the air around me.

“Am I laughing?”

She’s not, which somehow makes it worse. “That would kill a girl. What about the handmaidens? Imogen’s still a baby for gods’ sakes—she’d be toast!” Even I can hear the shrillness in my tone.

“The handmaidens know not to leave without Deirdre’s express permission.”

My pulse throbbing in my frozen fingertips, I stagger to one of the plaza’s retaining walls and sink onto a built-in bench.

“Oh, Tiss,” Sadrie hovers near. Her hand lands on my shoulder, the pressure of her touch grounding.

“Will it always be there now?” asks Cordelia. “How will visitors get through?”

“It stays in place until the temple reopens on the spring equinox,” says Elodie. “Visitors know well enough not to hazard up here before then.”

“And tonight’s the shitty winter solstice,” I mumble, more to myself than anybody. That’s an awfully long time to be so isolated. To be trapped!

I tug at my cloak’s clasp in a vain attempt to relieve the tightness in my chest. Another horrible idea occurs to me, and I pull out of Sadrie’s grasp. “What about Bibi and the finches? Will they be all right?”

“If Bibi’s on the temple grounds when Deirdre starts conjuring it, she decides whether she wants in or out.

This year, she’s inside with us. I've never seen any birds hurt by it.” Elodie steps closer.

“Actually, I think they can see the barrier in a way we can’t.

Their vision is different from ours.” She lifts her chin to address the others.

“Will you two please head back inside? I need to discuss something with Tiss.”

“Sure thing.” Sadrie casts a shrewd look over the priestess.

“I’m nearly frozen anyway.” Cordelia drapes an arm over the blonde’s shoulder, steering her away.

Elodie waits until they’re gone before squatting in front of me and grasping the bench on either side of my hips.

The next time she looks at me, it’s with nauseating sympathy.

“I really am sorry, Tiss. I can see everything’s been a lot for you.

” Her breath is warm on my ice-cold hands, her shift to kindness almost as jarring as the magic murder dome revelation.

Trying to block her out along with the simmering dread, I stare at the fountain’s elegant waterspout carving through the night. Overhead, faint tendrils dance and disappear and dance again above the arch.

I can’t stop wondering what else the prioress is capable of if she can cast that thing without warning anyone. Which, I realize, is the entire reason Elodie brought us out here to begin with.

“Breathe, Tiss.” Her words startle my attention back. She’s watching me far too closely. “In through your nose and out through your mouth. Like this.” She demonstrates.

“I know how to breathe.”

She gives a slight nod, that irresistible crease pinching between her eyebrows. “I’ve been trying to tell you this is a dangerous place. I don’t want to see you hurt. Or killed. Goddess, I couldn’t bear it.” Worse than the cockiness or her emotionless mask, she seems frightened now. Sad , almost.

A strange energy hums between us. That invisible thread pulls taut again, spalling my heart and stealing my breath away. Somehow, I’m floundering in everything she isn’t saying.

Releasing the bench, she sits down beside me but further away. Cold rushes in with the loss of her nearness.

“You said you don’t trust me. You accused me of keeping secrets.

” She glances at me. “Well. I don’t know if I can trust you either, if you want the gods’ honest truth.

You have trouble regulating your emotions.

Which means the feelings you fail to understand or can’t control could be used against you one day.

“It means I have no idea if you’re going to overreact and get us both in trouble if I start explaining things.

Or taking you to bed. Or both.” She scrubs her hands over her face before huffing a quick, ironic laugh that turns to vapor on the air.

“Doesn’t mean the desire isn’t there. In either case. ”

I stare at her, as surprised by the content of her confession as by its sincerity. I wish she hadn’t said anything at all. Things are infinitely easier when she isn’t busy being ambivalent, flooding my head with forbidden ideas and my heart with dark desires.

Especially when she’s made it abundantly clear she isn’t going to let me in or take me to bed at all .