Page 80 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

Itissa

I ’m tending the potatoes when Kiera rushes toward me. Crossing the courtyard in brisk strides, her deep brown eyes are fixed on me.

“Come on, Tiss, we have to go.” She grabs my gloved hand, tugging me along.

“What’s happening? I need to finish my—”

She stops and turns so abruptly that I nearly knock her over. Rising to her tiptoes, she hisses in my ear: “No, you don’t. You need to come with me, right now, to the bathhouse. If you still want that favor you asked for yesterday.”

“Is something wrong?” I look around, confirming we’re alone other than the racket issuing from the smithy. “I thought that wasn’t until tomorrow morning.”

“They moved it up. I guess she got into something stinky. They came to fetch Brigit from dinner prep, and I barely convinced her to trade me duties without Ghisele involving the whole kitchen in finding out why.”

My throat momentarily closes. “What… what did you say?”

“Ultimately nothing. Cook told her to shut her gob and gave her five more chickens to pluck. That settled her down real fast. But I can’t stand here all day. I need to prep that bath you’re making me give, remember ?”

“Damn it.” I glance toward our residence, where my satchel is sitting in my rooms with all of my writing supplies. “I need to grab something first. Meet you there.”

I whirl around, tossing my gloves on the ground, and jog toward the building entrance. Once inside, I slow to a rapid walk, not wanting to draw attention.

The Learning Annex is closer and therefore the default choice. I navigate to the empty classroom, my heart lashing against my ribs.

“ Shit ,” I hiss to nobody three minutes later. I’m pawing through Maida’s lectern cabinet like a maniac.

There’s a stack of spare paper, a box of chalk, some textbooks, and a novel she must be reading. She always keeps an extra pen here, but it’s nowhere to be found! I turn and dart back in the direction I came.

My feet are slapping the slate steps by the time I reach the fourth floor, but the altitude isn’t affecting me at all today. I’m not even short of breath when I reach my rooms. Dashing to my desk, I swipe the pen case and two sheets of paper before starting the trek back down.

The walk across the courtyard is made rapidly and with my hood up. My hand mindlessly pats my cloak, confirming and reconfirming the items are safe inside my interior pocket.

Once inside the bathhouse, a wall of humidity hits me so intensely I begin to sweat. My lungs constrict in the thick heat, the tip of my nose tingling with the stench of too many fragrances in one place.

The smothering sensations climb to my eyeballs, and I unfasten my cloak. It isn’t long before footsteps echo off the stone tiles, headed my way.

Please, for the love of everything holy, don’t be a sister. This isn’t exactly the low-traffic hour of 6:00 I’d been counting on after my conversation with Kiera yesterday.

Thankfully, it’s only her. “ Tiss ,” she hisses, waving me over and turning on her heel.

I’m all hammering heart and jangled nerves following her through the familiar hallways. Every footfall on the stone tile seems to crash in my ears. Gods help me, I resort to my controlled breathing. Damned if it doesn’t help, though.

“Wait in here,” she whispers, depositing me into an immaculate changing room. She turns to leave again, stopping with her fingers on the doorknob. “Give me a few moments. I’ll fetch you when it’s safe.”

She slips out and shuts the door before I can reply.

Sitting at the vanity, I lower my hood and peek into the polished mirror. I flinch at the sight of myself. “Well, I look a fright.”

A wide-tooth, silver and bone comb sits on the vanity top. I run it through my unruly locks simply to occupy my trembling hands. The door flies open with a racket that sends the comb clattering.

“Let’s go,” says Kiera. “She’s just down the hall.” Glancing furtively in both directions, she opens the door wider for me.

Lydia looks at me strangely when I enter the bathing room.

Still fully dressed, she’s perched on the edge of a bathtub filled with sweetly scented water and mounds of bubbles. The fragrance doesn’t quite cover the stench of sulfur wafting from her.

Excitement ripples through me along with a tinge of disbelief at what I’m about to do. Given what I am, I suppose it’s one thing to break the prioress’s misconduct rules. But this is an entirely new type of breach.

“You don’t have long.” Kiera looks between us. “She needs to actually bathe at some point, and her escort is coming to collect her in an hour. I’ll be back in ten minutes. You have until then.” She leaves us alone together, the door closing softly behind her.

I reach into my cloak’s interior pocket, producing the paper and fountain pen in its case. When Lydia sees them, she takes a breath and massages her right hand.

Strange . “I’m sorry to pounce on you like this. I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity so soon, but I need to know some things. It’s… somewhat urgent.”

Nodding, she holds out her hands for the writing implements.

A small table by the tub is filled with hygiene items. She clears a space and bends over, using it to write. I step closer to peer at the paper:

Talked to Elodie recently?

“Oh, define recently. I’ve been trying specifically not to talk to her since last night. It’s an entire debacle.” I give a dismissive wave.

Pen in hand, Lydia watches me expectantly.

“I hope this isn’t terribly rude, but why did Kerrigan attack you? And why did they sew your mouth?”

She bends over the sheet of paper.

Tried to escape.

The words pull a gasp from me as they materialize.

Was locked up. Waited for lights out check. When door opened, threw chair at her.

“Wow, Lydia.” My hand flies to my mouth, and I can’t stifle a snort. “I think you just became my inspiration.”

She exhales softly through her nose.

Tried to run. Didn’t get far.

“And you still warned me when you saw me.”

She nods.

The terror of that night—the memory of her stark, pale face and the wild horror in her eyes—rushes back in a sobering wave. A chill crawls down my spine.

Afterward — mouth sewn. Threw me underground. Separated from everyone, always.

Oh, hell . “I’m so sorry. That must be terribly painful and lonely. I can’t imagine.”

Pain mars her expression, her gaze glued to the paper. The hot, damp air is starting to curl the corners.

“The prioress gives the betrothed girls a substance of some sort, right? Something that keeps them in a delirious state?”

“Mm-hmm,” she nods.

“But it doesn’t work on you. Why not?”

She shrugs, leaning over the paper again.

Not given me.

“It isn’t?”

She pauses in the middle of the next sentence to rub her hand. When she’s finished, misery for the poor girl puts down roots in the pit of my stomach.

My punishment. Wait for death. Count down days to Festival of Eisha.

So she does know what happens to the betrothed girls. What’s going to happen to her . My heart breaks for her.

But this also means the ritual didn’t work on her, either. Or, like the sedatives, perhaps Deirdre simply didn’t bother with it. I can’t fathom how anybody could be so cruel, so calculating.

But the urge to keep digging is gripping, and there’s only one thing this could mean: “You still have your memories, don’t you?”

She gives a nod, her gaze on me intense.

Goosebumps sweep my body. “Does that mean— Do you—” I swallow my nerves, afraid of what her answer will be or that she won’t have an answer. But I’m in too deep; I’m too invested in this to balk now. “Lydia, do you know me from before? Or do you know someone who might?”

She hesitates. I hold my breath, undecided as to which would be worse: if she answers in the affirmative… or not.

Finally, her eyelids drop, and she nods slowly, making a low noise in her throat.

“You do ?”

She wavers, shifting her weight and looking between me and the paper. The sheet is smothered under her hasty scrawl. Anxiety clamps my gut like a fist, and I glance at the door, wishing there was a clock in here.

The scratch of her pen pulls my attention back. She’s turned the paper over. My neck snaps back when I scan the next words.

Mother left you at 1 month old. Bard Fiach raised you.

My lips part, my breathing going shallow. I have no insight into the first part of that, and there’s no time to ask.

Not once during the whirlwind of last night’s recovered memories did I think about the fact that I must have a mother somewhere. There was only a void in my chest and mind, stuffed full of an old, dull pain like packing material.

My father and Illiam, however, were a constant preoccupation.

Part of me is reeling as much from remembering my father, Bard Fiach, as from realizing his identity! I don’t recall him directly, but I remember having thoughts of him.

I’m still trying to reconcile these thoughts with the man in the indigo cape who attended the lottery.

I also know the green-caped man was Illiam’s father, Orum.

The remorseless way they both looked at me from beyond the Waymark, meeting my eyes as I stood on the verge of my own possible demise, chills me anew.

Lydia’s next words appear, the ink running slightly in the steamy air.

That’s his story. I know you’re not his real child.

Wait. I blink, the air collapsing from my lungs. “I’m not?” I draw back, staring at her.

She shakes her head, her pen scratching away at speed. So many rushed words materialize that I can’t keep up by reading over her shoulder. She steps back when she’s finished, watching me with somber brown eyes.

According to the Viper — my boss — Itissa is decoy. Imposter . No possible way could be BF’s child. Real daughter presumed returned to Boglands w/mother, long ago. Viper is mother’s brother . Kept this secret many years. Told only me.

My jaw hits the floor along with my stomach. There’s no doubt BF refers to Bard Fiach. The rest of it is too absurd to absorb all at once.

Decoy...

Imposter?!