Godsgrave

“Maw’s teeth, I’ ll never get used to this,” she croaked.

“Stop whining, Corvere. It beats the britches off traveling by ship.”

Mia’s stomach flipped as she recognized the voice. Turning to the head of the pool, she found a slender redhead staring back at her. The girl was around her age, but taller, sharper. Her eyes were green, twinkling with a feral, hunter’s cunning. Her face was lightly freckled, arms folded inside the voluminous sleeves of a long black robe.

A Hand’s robe.

Mia would recognize her anywhere—the girl who’d been a thorn in her side all throughout her training at the Quiet Mountain. The girl who blamed Mia’s father for the death of her own. The girl who’d vowed to kill her.

“Jessamine,” Mia breathed, climbing out of the pool on unsteady legs.

The redhead inclined her head. “Welcome to the City of Bridges and Bones.”

“You were posted to Godsgrave?” Mia asked. “After initiation?”

“Brilliant observation, Corvere,” the redhead replied. “What gave it away?”

Mia simply stared, the shadows beneath her seething. Jessamine looked her up and down, threw a bundle of linen at Mia’s chest.

“Baths are this way.”

The bundled fabric was a robe, and Mia dragged it around her blood-sodden body, leaving sticky red footprints as she followed Jessamine down a twisting hallway. The temperature was stifling, the stench of iron and gore almost overpowering.

Mia saw the walls and ceiling were made of thousands upon thousands of human bones. Femurs and ribs, spines and skulls, forming a dark maze run thick with shadows—whoever thought to construct the new chapel to Our Lady of Blessed Murder inside Godsgrave’s vast necropolis obviously had a deep appreciation of the value of ambience. Dim light was provided by arkemical globes, held in skeletal hands on the walls. But despite being surrounded by the remains of untold thousands, Mia’s eyes were fixed on the girl in front of her. Spitting the greasy blood off her tongue, she watched Jessamine as if the girl were about to sprout a second head.

After initiation, Mia knew Jessamine had been anointed as a Hand, but she’ d been so caught up in her work in Galante that she’ d never found out where. It seemed of all cities in the Republic, her old nemesis had been sent to work in Gods-grave.

Fucking typical …

The hallway ended at a door made entirely of spines, which Jessamine opened with a gentle touch. Mia saw three baths beyond, the air hung faint with ashwood smoke and honeysuckle perfume. Mia scratched at the drying blood on her face, eyes never leaving the redhead’s. Adonai’s cryptic warning echoing in her head. The gravebone blade she kept ever strapped to her forearm was just a flick of the wrist away.

“I’ ll be out here.” Jessamine nodded to the baths. “Don’t take too long. The bishop is waiting, and he’s of a darker mood than usual.”

Mia stood her ground, staring into the redhead’s eyes.

“You’re wondering if I’m going to try to drown you, aye?” Jessamine’s lips twisted in a smile. “Put a knife in you as soon as your back is turned?”

“What makes you think I’m going to turn my back, Red?”

Jessamine shook her head, her voice hard and cold.

“There’s still blood between you and me. But the turn I come for you, you won’t be naked in a tub with soap in your eyes. You’ll be wide awake, blade in hand. I promise you that.” Jessamine smiled, ear to ear. “So never fear, Corvere.”

Mia looked to the steaming baths. Down to the shadow at her feet. And then she smiled back.

“I never do.”

An hour later, Mia was standing outside the chambers of the bishop of the Godsgrave Chapel. She was dressed in knee-high boots and black leathers, a doublet of crushed black velvet, hair neatly combed. Her father’s gravebone longsword hung at her side, her mother’s stiletto sheathed inside her ruffled sleeve.

The bishop’s chambers were hidden away in a twist of bone tunnels—the chapel’s innards were a labyrinth, and Mia had lost her bearings quickly. If not for Jessamine, she doubted she’ d be able to find her way back to the blood pool again, which made her all the warier about being in the girl’s presence.

The chamber door opened silently, and a slender young man stepped out into the shadows of the hall, dressed in dark velvet. His face had been woven since last Mia saw him, but he was still too thin, and Mia would recognize those piercing blue eyes anywhere. Dark hair, ghost-pale, lips slightly pursed against his toothless gums.

“Hush,” Mia smiled.

The boy stopped, looked Mia up and down as if surprised to see her. A small smile curled his lips as he signed to her in Tongueless.

hello

She signed back, hands moving quickly.

you serve here? in godsgrave?

Hush nodded.

eight months

it’s good to see you

is it

we should have a drink

The boy looked at Jessamine, then gave a noncommittal shrug.

“Listen, I hate to break up this heartwarming reunion,” Jess said. “But honestly, I’m about to start weeping at the emotion, and the bishop is waiting.”

Hush nodded, looked to Mia.

mother watch over you

With a small bow, the boy pressed his fingertips together and walked away down the hall, silent as a shadow. Mia watched him go, a touch saddened. She’ d been an acolyte with Hush. He’d helped her in her final trials, and in turn, she’ d saved his life during the Luminatii attack. But as ever, the strange boy held himself distant.

A killer first, and always.

Jess knocked on the door three times.

“Fucksakes, what?” demanded a haggard voice from within.

Jessamine opened the door, motioned Mia inside. The girl entered the bishop’s chamber, looked about the room. Bone walls were lined with bookshelves, laden with haphazardly stacked paperwork. Sheaves of vellum and scrolls in boxes or simply piled atop one another, hundreds of books stacked without care or scattered across the floor—it looked like a globe of wyrdglass had exploded inside a drunkard’s library. Along one wall was a row of weaponry from all corners of the Republic: a Luminatii sunsteel blade; a Vaanian battleaxe; a double-edged gladius from some gladiatii arena; a rapier of Liisian steel. All gleaming in the low arkemical light.

Seated at a broad wooden desk, almost hidden behind a tottering pile of paperwork, Mia saw the bishop of Godsgrave, a quill held between his liver-spotted fingers.

“Maw’s teeth,” she breathed. “… Mercurio?”

The old man looked up from his paperwork, pushed his spectacles up his nose. His shock of thick gray hair seemed to have gotten unrulier since she last saw him, ice-blue eyes framed by his perpetual scowl. He obviously hadn’t slept well in months.

“Well, well,” Mercurio smirked. “I thought you were the Quiet One, come back to complain some more. How do, little Crow?”