Page 57 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Elodie

M usic fills the first night of the new year when I finally step outside.

Brigit stands by one of the raging bonfires dotting the courtyard, playing a lively tune on her flute. She’s accompanied by Ana’s fiddle and Maeve’s bodhrán.

Maida’s gaze is too knowing, as usual. She takes one look at me, and it’s obvious she’s guessed what I’ve been up to. I sidle up, avoiding her probing look.

“Good of you to join us.” She nudges a shoulder into me, gray eyes flashing in the dark.

“Not a damn word.”

“Oh, I never ask questions I don’t want answers to.” She tilts her head toward the revelers. “Everyone’s been having a lovely time.”

Hand-in-hand, the girls skip and jog in a snaking line around the courtyard, weaving around the Waymark and between the many sputtering fires.

A breathless Delia is leading them while the other nuns and Deirdre stand around the largest fire near the arch.

Imogen and Kiera bring up the rear of the whipping serpentine line, stumbling and holding on for dear life.

Most dancers have lost their masks at this point. The handmaidens’ masks are a thing of ancient memory.

“Tell me it won’t work and I’ll drop it.” I pull my cloak tighter around me. “I only need to hear you say it.”

Startled, Maida regards me. “I know you don’t mean that. What’s bothering you, dear?”

Deirdre’s entourage throw their heads back. Hang onto one another, weak with wine and laughter. Back on duty, guardsmen line the periphery, spines straight and eyes sharp.

“I’m overwhelmed, I think. It’s too big. Too much to pull off between the two of us."

“Perhaps we need help.”

“From? Who can we trust with something like this?”

“Sadrie or Cordelia would be my strong suggestions.”

I can’t stifle my groan. “I won’t involve them in this. Not just yet.”

“You trust them, right?”

I frown, studying the many lanterns hanging from the Waymark’s gnarled branches.

“Cordelia more than Sadrie. But push comes to shove? Yes.” The lanterns bob in the chill breeze, their flames guttering inside glass housings.

“They’re both also highly capable, full of potential, and…

blameless. I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible. ”

Maida gives a testy grunt. Plucks at her cloak’s silver clasp. “So you have a problem with the problem and a problem with the solution. Does that about summarize your predicament?”

I shrug, scowling. Watch while Brigit swaps her flute for a piccolo.

The high, clear notes pierce the bitter night. She smiles at Ana and Maeve over the mouthpiece, leading the small band in a merry jig.

We stand a long time watching the dancing and the sparks bursting in clouds above the bonfires.

A familiar, throaty squawk comes from overhead.

“Ah!” cries Maida, face turned skyward as my raven swoops.

I whistle for her to land. With a great clattering whoosh, she alights on Maida’s outstretched arm.

Bibi clicks and bobs her head at me. A length of red ribbon dangles from her beak.

“Is that for me?” I laugh, taking the ribbon and scratching her fluffy beard feathers.

“Good bird, Bibi.” My friend strokes her glossy back.

“Good bird!” Bibi replies, doing her silly dance on Maida’s arm, to my friend’s delight.

“Are your finches still coming?”

“Never miss a day,” I grumble. The birds’ continued presence on my balcony has gone from baffling to frustrating to maddening. “Actually, I think there’s more now.”

Over two dozen of them queue up on the railing day in and day out, waiting for me to open my balcony curtains every morning. All they do is stare, tilting their little heads this way and that, black eyes fixed on me.

“Still no insights, I take it?”

“The goddess remains infuriatingly silent.” My shoulders drop. “It’s humbling, to say the least.”

She waits, knowing there’s more.

“It’s been four years , Maida. When will my Second Sight awaken?”

With a soft kraa-kraa , Bibi flutters from Maida’s arm to the ground. She bonks my lower leg with her head as if to offer comfort. Despite my frustration, I can’t help smiling.

“It’s not your job to make sense of it,” Maida points out. “‘Mistakes are never’—”

“—‘concealed within the subtle perfection of her plans,’” I finish the platitude, taken directly from a volume of the Hidden Codices secreted away in the vast library inside the Sanctum of the True Goddess. “I know , Maida . ”

“Then act like it. Trust the goddess,” she sniffs. Then relents, peering at me with something like sympathy. “Do we need to take you to Nehel? I could petition the prioress to arrange an audience at Heliotrope House.”

That catches me by surprise. “To do what, exactly?”

“Pay a visit to the Red Mage, Seer of Clan Owin.” The full and proper title is enunciated crisply, as if I’m being willfully dim-witted. “They say she possesses the ability to awaken, even amplify, latent abilities.”

“So I’ve heard. But I always assumed that was tall tales.”

“Elodie,” clucks Maida. “You know better.”

I make a show of thinking just to irk her a little. “I suppose ‘legend’ and ‘myth’ are always rooted in the soil of truth.”

She gives a smug nod. “Of course the prioress has the final say. But I can talk her into it. I’ll see her first thing tomorrow. I’d like to leave within a fortnight, I think. The sooner the better.”

Now I’m staring at her like she’s dim-witted. “Aren’t you forgetting that’s not possible until after Fire Festival?” I make a sweeping gesture. “When we can leave this godsforsaken prison?”

Bibi growls. We look down to her trying to pluck a seed pod from a crack in the cobblestones with her beak. Missing it. Trying to grasp it with her foot.

Giving up to peck instead.

“Says who?” says Maida.

“Says who?” mimics Bibi.

“Deirdre and her barbaric dome, Maida. That’s who.”

Bibi growls at her seed. I squat, arm outstretched. Whistle an invitation. My raven hops on while I pinch the tiny pod between my fingers.

“I’m surprised you haven’t figured out the prioress has the ability to usher us through the barrier.”

“It’s not so much I thought she couldn’t as I was pretty well convinced she wouldn’t .”

Maida lifts her chin. “She’ll do so for an errand of such caliber—I’ll make sure of it.

I might even convince her to let us bring the girls.

” One look confirms Maida’s not being remotely ironic.

She actually believes in whatever scheme she’s hatching over there.

“To expand upon their very important education, of course . ”

Closing my eyes, I rise to my full height, praying this won’t become a blind alley. Please, Eisha. I need you now.

I slip the seed to Bibi, who clicks happily and nuzzles under my chin. “Yeah? Did you like that, sweet bird?” I coo and stroke her wings how she likes.

“ Like that.” She gives her best impression of finches cheeping. “ Like that.”

Chuckling, I glance up from fussing over my bird to find Maida’s eyebrows nearly snarled in her hairline.

“I know your gift feels more like a curse at the moment. But have hope , dear.”

I sigh and shrug. Give myself over to the idea of accepting help—both from her and this Red Mage. “Fine. So be it. I could kiss you, you know.”

Bibi makes kissing sounds, prompting me to stroke her sleek head.

My very patient friend snorts. “Save the kissing for that one over there.”

Unable to suppress my grin, I follow Maida’s sight line to the dancers.

Pairs of them swing each other round to the tune of a new jig. Tiss, Cordelia, and Sadrie are spinning dizzily together. One of them loses her grip, sending Tiss flying.

With a yelp, she careens into Ghisele and Enid. The three of them collapse into a pile, which looks awkward for all parties involved. Until Imogen.

Maida and I guffaw while that little girl hustles over and flings her tiny body on top of the tangle.

Joyful shrieks go up, prompting another snort from Maida. This one wetter than the last. “Caught them by surprise, didn’t she?”

“That. And she’s little. The little ones hurt when they hit you.”

Cordelia and Sadrie nearly topple over from pulling a tipsy Ghisele and a very flustered Enid to their feet. Tiss and Imogen remain on the ground, tickling each other to howling bits.

Their antics bring another smile to my face. Not so lighthearted, Enid huffs and stalks away from the group, brushing courtyard grime from her cloak. Ghisele gives a pitchy laugh behind her.

“She hasn’t caught on yet, has she?” Maida juts her chin at my apprentice.

“What? Me and Tiss? I told you she found us in the greenhouse—”

“Not that. Tiss’s aura .” Maida gives a peevish toss of her head. “We’ve been coasting by, but our luck won’t hold forever, you know.”

“Nah. She’s still struggling. Confided in me just last week about it. And by confided, I mean threw a tantrum as if I’m blunting her abilities. And withholding the cure just to spite her.”

That earns a third snort. “She’s consistent, isn’t she?”

“Nearly told her my theory that Deirdre’s First Sight is nonexistent just to get her off my back. She can detect extremely strong emotions within a limited range,” I add. “But she’s still a long way off from—”

Maida elbows me to silence. At once I clock Cordelia extracting herself from the dancing to cross the courtyard toward us.

My raven squawks and fans her restless wings. I lift my arm. Whistle her away just as Cordelia approaches, her aura a little bit scared and a touch excited.

“Excuse me, priestesses. Sorry to interrupt, but there’s something strange going on with the betrothed girls.” Brow furrowed, she clutches the Signet Silver flashing at her wrist. “I really can’t ignore it any longer.”

Maida puts on her Concerned Professor Voice. “Ignore what, dear?”

“The betrothed… Their auras are different from Sadrie’s and Ghisele's. Both of yours, too. Even the sisters’ and Mother Deirdre’s.”

I school my features, every muscle and tendon strung taut. Maida’s glance at me is brief. Vaguely startled. Her face is smooth as marble when she turns back to Cordelia. “Different how?”