Page 18 of The Lost Reliquary

“I get it, okay?” Anger flares again, if briefly. Those icy eyes, staring down… “I’m not used to it, that’s all. I… forgot myself briefly.”

“Make it the last time,” say Nolan. “And the comment about the tinker’s cart… do you not realize that your ignorance is as much a threat as your attitude? We need to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention, no matter how small and insignificant it seems.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were such anexpert.” I’ll give him attitude. “I guess that means you know all about Belspire? Been there before?”

“No.”

“Have you ever stayed in a guesthouse? Or spent the night drinking and playing cards and burping and whatever else it is that people do in them? Did the Dusk Cloister allow you all sorts of freedoms to travel the Devoted Lands and learn the minutiae of how to conduct oneself as a commoner?”

Silence is his only response.

“Exactly,” I snap. “You were as sheltered as I was.”

“I’m not putting my inexperience on display.”

I bristle, but it’s my turn to be speechless.

We continue on a little farther. Then:

“Once.”

“What?” I say.

“I stayed at a guesthouse once,” he replies, “when I was very young.”

I’m not sure what to say to that. Potentiates aren’t supposed to talk about their lives before their choosing. Some of us barely remember it. And as far as anyone is concerned, we were all birthed anew in the Cathedral, the moment Tempestra-Innara’s blood hit our lips. But he brought it up, so… “With your family?”

Too far. His features tighten. “The Goddess and our blood brethren are my family.”

“Yes, yes,” I say quickly, “but you had a life before we became their children.” I should be more careful with my wording, but fuck it. If he’s so concerned about the success of our cover, this is relevant. Which is probably the only reason Nolan is tolerating my near blasphemy.

He doesn’t answer quickly, but eventually, it trickles out. “I… stayed in an inn once with the man who… who cared for me before I came to the Goddess. He was a bookbinder. We were delivering commissions to a client.”

A bookbinder. Nolan was plucked from a town then, maybe even a city.

“No, it was a library,” he corrects. “Belspire’s castle is supposed to have a fine library.”

He doesn’t specify whether that tidbit of information came with him to the Cathedral or was picked up after. And as curious as I am, I don’t press. “Good. One of us has experience with the world outside the Cloisters, at least.”

That catches his interest. “Because you haven’t?”

Fair is fair. He answered my question, so I’ll answer his. “I’d never experienced a lot of things until the Goddess’s forces came to my village, though if we find ourselves surrounded by a plethora of pine trees and snow, I’m your girl.”

“You came from the northern mountains.”

A statement, not a question, or an accusation. Our lives before the Goddess may be forbidden territory, but there are some things that can’t be hidden. Jeziah’s tattoos. Or the faint ways Morgan forms certain words that betray she came from somewhere in the east. But Nolan figures me out with scraps.

“How did you know?”

“Pine trees and snow? No guesthouses or peddlers’ carts? You’re clearly nervous about an unfamiliar city, which means you likely haven’t seen any besides Lumeris. Which makes the far north your likeliest place of origin, in the wilds of what used to be the Storm Goddess’s territory.”

Used to be. And probably still is. But that’s not a line of discussion I feel like following.

“The first time I saw the Cathedral, I think I blacked out a little. I didn’t know anything built by people could be sobig.”

“I shook.” Thankfully, Nolan doesn’t press for more about my old life. “But with awe. Somehow, I knew it was where I was supposed to be.”

He speaks reverently, as if ending a prayer. I don’t ask Nolan what happened to his father—a word he couldn’t even say—any more than I’d ask him what happened to the other children he was undoubtedly presented with. I’ve already trod unwelcome territory enough.