Page 19 of The Starving Saints

Phosyne slams the door to her tower shut and falls back against it, gasping for breath, the world spinning around her. Her

throat hurts . Her cheek merely stings from where Treila struck her, but she feels both points of assault like brands. They’re the only

thing holding her together, because every time she remembers falling through the chapel wall, she thinks she might fall through

the floor next.

She sinks to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. “Ornuo?” she manages, and holds one shaking hand out for a warm, scaled

flank.

She feels only air.

“Ornuo, rotten boy,” she calls again. “Pneio?” she tries, when there are no rustles from the mess around the room, no skittering

claws on stone. “No, no, no,” she whimpers, standing and pitching herself toward her workbench, knowing what she won’t find,

knowing she’s even more screwed than before.

They’re not below the table, or behind the stinking refuse bucket, or on top of her bookshelves, or beneath the stairs. She

climbs up to the loft on hands and knees, trying to think like them. She sees the hints of their existence (faint scratches

where they have sprinted around the room in the middle of the night, chewed chair legs, the whisper of shed scales), but nothing

indicating they’re here .

Then again, they hid for five days straight when Ser Voyne was still in residence.

Phosyne sits down heavily in the windowsill and claws at her scalp, the necklace of bruises on her throat giving an echoing ache. There are too many disasters for her mind to fix on any one of them at length. But for now, she sees Ser Voyne, the blood on her hands, the empty, confused look in her eyes. Phosyne shouldn’t care. In context, she shouldn’t care about Ornuo or Pneio, either; if they burn down the smithy, so what? That will neither drive off nor help the saints in whatever they are here to do.

The weakness in her whispers that, if it’s truly her fault these beings are here, and if they truly bring a feast tonight,

then that is her miracle accomplished, and perhaps everything will, in the end, be okay. The work is done, though she doesn’t

know how. She can rest, can’t she?

The sick pang in her stomach answers that.

Something bangs against the door.

It’s a lot softer than when the king came calling, but more firm than her door shifting in its frame that morning. Phosyne

stares. More knocking. Fear has soaked her veins clear through, and she can hardly stand, but all the same, she finds herself

before her glassed pipe, peering out into the hall, not sure what she expects to see.

It’s only Treila.

Only. Only? Phosyne groans and pulls away from the lens, needing a moment to sort out exactly how she feels seeing Treila again.

On the one hand, her cheek still smarts, and she doesn’t entirely remember what Treila asked of her out in the yard. On the

other, she still seems to be herself, not so far gone as Ser Voyne is. But ultimately, she is useless; she can offer some

fruit, maybe, but what then?

The door moves in its frame. Phosyne should have barricaded it.

“Stay out!” she calls.

The door opens anyway. Treila slips inside and closes it, and her skin is ashen. Her eyes are wide, her jaw set. She looks

young like this, young and vulnerable.

Phosyne hesitates, then approaches cautiously. “I said stay out ,” she says, for lack of any better idea.

Treila glances at her, but she doesn’t apologize.

“How do you untangle madness from reality?” she asks instead.

And isn’t that right at the heart of things? “I wish I knew,” Pho syne says. “What happened? You look...” She waves a hand, as if that will define the exact mixture of broken looking back at her.

Treila purses her lips, then shakes herself, and that vulnerability falls off like dead leaves. “You seem marginally more

coherent,” she says, thumbing at her upper lip, not meeting Phosyne’s eyes. “I still need your help. More, really.”

“Escaping.”

“Exactly.” Treila rolls her next thought around in her mouth. Phosyne waits, wringing the fabric of her robe between her fingers.

She can’t help herself; she keeps darting looks at the door. Pneio and Ornuo out on their own is bad , but so is everything else. Treila has the right idea. Running is the easiest, and maybe best, answer.

“Your candle worked,” Treila says, drawing her attention back. “I took it down to the cave I found, it lit just fine.”

So it wasn’t her blood that did it. Good to know.

“It didn’t show me anything I hadn’t seen before, though.”

Phosyne grimaces, then takes a step back, wrapping her arms around her waist defensively. It won’t do much to protect her

if Treila is angry, but Treila doesn’t seem angry.

“So you need something else,” Phosyne says. “I’m not sure I have anything left to give.” Another step back, just in case.

“It didn’t show me anything,” Treila says, getting up off the ground and dusting off her skirts. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t find anything.

You remember the crack I told you of? The one I wanted to widen?”

Phosyne nods.

“It spoke to me.”

Oh.

Now that is interesting.

Phosyne cocks her head. “What did it say?”

“ I’ve missed you ,” Treila breathes, then shudders, a whole-body thing accompanied by a look of pure disgust. “Among other things. I—it spoke

the first time I went down, as well. I assumed I’d imagined it.”

“You say it ,” Phosyne points out.

“Well, it can’t be human.”

“Can’t it?”

Treila shakes her head, curls bouncing. “It sounds like a boy,” she admits, “but the crack faces the cliff. Even if there

are other tunnels beyond it—which the candle illuminated, actually, so there is space back there, thank you—they don’t lead back to the Etrebian camp.”

“They could lead farther down,” Phosyne says. “To the base of the cliff.”

“Why would anybody climb all the way up?”

“To offer rescue?” Phosyne suggests. “There are farms down in the valley. It’s not impossible.”

“It’s not human ,” Treila snaps.

Phosyne holds up her hands, backs away again. “Why not?” she presses.

“Because what kind of human asks for a finger in return for safe passage?”

Phosyne’s gaze drops to Treila’s hands. Five fingers on each. No blood on any of them. She isn’t sure whether she’s relieved

or disappointed.

Treila sees her looking and clenches her fingers into fists. “It only spoke while the candle was extinguished. When I relit

the candle in an attempt to see its face, the gap was empty. I’ve left it burning down there, but I need tools. Answers, of

some kind. I need to get out of here.”

“And what do you think I can give you?” Phosyne asks. “I can clean water. I can light a candle. Beyond that...”

“How does it work?” Treila demands.

“What?”

“All of it. How does it work? You say you cleaned the water? How did you figure that out?”

“It’s hard to explain. How do you untangle madness from reality?”

Treila scowls at the echo.

Phosyne tries to smile. It doesn’t work. “I can show you my notes, but they won’t make sense. None of it makes sense, not

the way the Priory’s constructions do. It’s... intuition. Uncontrolled intuition. Hard to guide. Hard to explain. Hard

to understand, even for me. You need a pick, not me.”

“Horseshit,” Treila says.

Phosyne frowns. “Excuse me?”

“That’s all horse shit. That you don’t know how it happens. You’re telling me that you wander your way into miracles that

can be repeated by others , but you don’t know how they work?”

“I can tell you instructions. I can’t tell you how I know them.”

“You’re lying. That isn’t how the world works.”

“I’m Ser Leodegardis’s madwoman,” Phosyne reminds her. “I have never claimed to be anything else.”

“Well, you need to be,” Treila snaps. She begins to pace. “What do you need, to be able to focus? What little is left in this damned place,

I can get it for you.”

“It’s not a matter of resources. I’ve already been given everything, don’t you see? It either happens or it doesn’t, with barely even intent behind it,” Phosyne says angrily, too tired to think better of it. “I didn’t ask for the Constant Lady to arrive!”

Treila’s eyes widen. Her mouth falls open. Her brow draws together, and Phosyne realizes with a lurch that she has badly miscalculated.

Offering to help solve the mystery of the saints would have been one thing, but now she has taken ownership of the whole mess.

She feels a noose around her throat, or maybe Ser Voyne’s fingers.

“They’re here because of you?” Treila asks.

Phosyne squeezes her eyes shut and tries to fall through the floor or, failing that, a minute into the past. The world refuses

to move. Time, likewise.

“You say you didn’t ask for them, but—” Treila’s voice falters. Confused. Young again.

“It’s not the first time,” Phosyne confesses. “Months ago, two—creatures appeared. Arrived. I don’t know from where, but the

gates hadn’t opened, just like they didn’t open yesterday. And at the time I must have known how I’d called them here, but

now I can’t remember, so I must be going mad.” She chokes on a laugh, covers her face with her hands. “I don’t know how I do any of it! None of it makes sense, except that it does , somewhere inside of me, my thoughts go every which way and then they crystalize. Today I passed through solid stone, when Ser Voyne fell upon me, and—and—” Phosyne gasps. “And this is the first time I’ve been rightfully scared of it all!”

She’s shouting by the end of it, tearing at her hair.

Treila doesn’t look the least bit frightened, though. She steps closer, instead. Looks at the mess that is Phosyne with hunger .

“Solid stone?” she asks.

Phosyne nods, head jerking on her spine, a broken puppet.

Treila grabs her wrist. “Then you’re coming with me. Now. Because if we can get out, none of this is our problem anymore.

Do you understand me?”

“It’s all my problem,” Phosyne whispers.

“Just because something’s your fault doesn’t mean you have to fix it,” Treila counters, and tugs Phosyne after her.

“My research—my notes—the creatures , they’ve gone missing, somebody must have opened up this room while I was at the chapel, and oh, Treila, the prioress—”

Treila slaps her again. This time, Phosyne feels it, and stops talking. Stops moving. Stops thinking, just for a moment.

She just stares at the floor.

“Sometimes,” Treila says, slowly, carefully, enunciating every word, “you just have to leave it all behind and start over.”

Phosyne nods, and lets herself be dragged from her tower.