Holy Sister

‘Which book?’

‘You just said the secret was written in a book. Wait, doesn’t the Ancestor tell you the title?’

‘Just that it’s in a book on alchemy.’

‘Well, no then, we’d be poor because there are a thousand books and scrolls promising the true alchemy.’

‘And there are a thousand books promising all the secrets of the moon. But Abbess Glass, who forgot more things than you or I will ever know, and Jula, who would rather read the dustiest book than eat, and who is sharper than any Mistress Academia I’ve met, both said that this book was different. Jula said it might have something real to say. Abbess Glass promised that it did.’ Nona reached in with infinite care and began to remove items from the casket, committing their positions to memory. ‘And if Abbess Glass said it, sick or not, that’s good enough for me.’

Ara frowned as she had frowned so often over these past weeks. ‘So, if the book in the forbidden library is really what the abbess said it was, how do we use it? How do we prove it? We don’t have four shiphearts. Nobody does! We don’t have access to the Ark. We don’t have anyone to tell who would believe us, Wheel least of all. It seemed like a bad plan when we were just talking about it. Now that we’re actually doing it …’

Nona reached for the bundled letters with a sigh. Abbess Glass had taught her many things. She had taught Nona that you can often find an angle where any right looks like a wrong, and any wrong a right. She taught her the song of the Ancestor, the power of the long game, and the need for determination. Above all Abbess Glass had taught Nona the value of lies. The one thing she had never managed to teach her was not to feel bad for telling them.

‘It’s the right thing to do. The key to everything. I need you to have faith in this, Ara. I need you make the others believe too. We’re going to be taking holy orders soon so we should be good at believing, no?’

‘In the Ancestor, surely, not in any old—’

‘This comes from the highest authority I know.’

Ara looked up suddenly, incredulous, eyes bright. ‘You’ve had a vision? From the Ancestor?’ Awe and need mingled in her voice.

Nona bowed her head. ‘I have.’

Nona found three books at the very bottom of the casket, wrapped together in a length of black velvet. Aquinas’s Book of Lost Cities was the smallest of the three, looking less old and less impressive than The Mystic’s Path or The Lives of Lestal Crow. It looked more like a travel journal than some weighty tome worthy of forbidding. Nona took the leather-bound volume and hid it in an inner pocket of her habit before returning the other two to their wrapping and starting to replace Sister Pan’s other treasures.

A moment of panic came as she reached for the figurine of the baby and discovered on the floor behind it an ancient daisy, dried and pressed, that must have fallen from between the pages of one of the books. She carefully extracted everything, unwrapped the books, and placed the flower behind the cover of The Lives of Lestal Crow, hoping she had guessed correctly.

At last, sweating lightly, Nona closed the lid. ‘Done.’

‘Lock it.’ Ara nodded towards the keyhole.

‘Right.’ Nona found and manipulated the necessary threads. An easier task this time.

Ara went to the wall and set her hands on it. ‘Now we find that getting in was the easy part.’ Her smile was a nervous one.

‘I’ll follow you,’ Nona said. ‘You’re better at it than me.’

‘But you got in first!’ Ara pushed her lips into a pout.

‘You wouldn’t want to go back my way. Trust me.’

Nona stumbled out onto the Path Tower stairway, catching hold of Ara’s shoulders to keep from falling.

‘At last!’ Jula hurried down towards them. ‘I thought you’d died in there! Got stuck in the wall or something!’

‘Relax.’ Ara smiled, holding up the lantern. ‘We got it.’

‘We have to go!’ Jula pushed past them. ‘Bray’s about to sound sixth bell. There’ll be little Red Classers lining up outside any minute.’

‘Sixth bell?’ Nona shook her head. ‘I didn’t think we were that long!’

‘Well, you were!’ Jula all but stamped her foot. ‘Come on.’ And she set off.

‘I’m surprised Pan’s not here already if it’s so close to fourth,’ Ara said, grinning her disbelief.

‘She is.’ Jula didn’t stop, just hissed back up at them around the stairs’ twist.

That got both novices moving. They caught Jula as she hurried out into the portrait chamber.

‘She’s here?’

‘I was on the stairs when she started up them! I had to go up into the classroom, hide behind the trapdoor lid, and slip out while she was arranging the chairs. It’s a miracle she didn’t see me!’ Jula looked pale.

Ara slapped her on the back. ‘The Poisoner will make a Grey Sister of you yet!’

‘Then I hung around on the stairs again, expecting her next class any minute and wondering how long to leave it before declaring you both lost and confessing everything.’ Jula led them to the north door, opened it with caution, then threw it wide. The three of them spilled out into the day.

After the unreality of the past hour, strange and emotional treks through memory, walking through walls, stealing from Sister Pan in a cause that was larger than any of them … it came as a surprise to find themselves in the cold light of the same day and subject to the same old timetable that had ruled their lives for so many years.

The friends stood a moment, shivering and blinking in the lee of the tower.