When the day freezes below a certain point, and the signs are relayed to her, she turns, nearly overthrowing the brazier in her haste, and rushes to the windows. She throws them open, letting in a great gust of cold air which makes the coals crackle, then strikes the bell three times. It rings out, fracturing the cold. The woman, Essegui Harn, runs down the stairs to the warm depths of the tower before the echo has even died. One by one, the coals hiss into silence as the bell notes fade.
This takes place shortly before dawn, in the blue light before the sun rises. All Winterstrike can hear the bell, except for one woman, and except for one woman, all Winterstrike answers. Women throw aside their counterpanes, rush to the basins to wash, and then, still dressed in their nightclothes, run upstairs to the attics of mansions, or downstairs to the cellars of community shacks, to retrieve costumes forgotten over the course of the previous year, all six hundred and sixty-eight days of it. From chests and boxes, they pull masks depicting the creatures of the Age of Children and the Lost Epoch, the long muzzles of cenulae, or the narrow, lovely faces of demotheas and gaezelles. They try them on, laughing at one another, then falling silent as they stand, their masked faces suddenly foolish above the thick nightdresses.
By Second Hour the robes, too, have been retrieved: confections of lace and metal, leather and stiffened velvet, scarlet and ochre and amethyst, sea-green and indigo and pearl. Above these, the masks no longer appear silly or sinister, but natural and full of grace. Then the women of Winterstrike set them aside and, frantic throughout the short day, they make sweet dumplings and fire-cakes for the night ahead, impatient for the fall of twilight.
Essegui Harn is in equal haste, rushing back to the mansion of Calmaretto, which lies not far from the fortress. Essegui hurries through the streets, pounding snow into ice under her boots and churning it into powder against the swing of the hem of her heavy coat. She is thinking of the festival, of her friend Vanity, whom she is planning to seduce tonight (or be seduced by, even more hopefully). She is trying not to think about her sister.
When she reaches Calmaretto, she does not hesitate but puts her eye to the haunt-lock. The scanner glows with blacklight, an eldritch sparkle, as the lock reads her soul-engrams through the hollow of her eye. The door opens. Essegui steps through into a maelstrom of festivity.
Both her mothers are shouting at one another, at the servants, and then, without even a pause for breath, at Essegui.
'-There's not enough sugar and only a little haemomon? Why didn't you order more?'
'-Canteley's best dress has a stain, she refuses to wear it even under her robes-'
'And I cannot find the tracing-spoon anywhere!'
Essegui ignores all this. She says, 'What about Shorn?'
The silence is immediate and tense. Her mothers stare at Essegui, then at one another. 'What about her?'
'You know very well,' Essegui says. 'You have to let her out. Tonight.'
Upstairs, in the windowless heart of Calmaretto, Shorn Harn sits. Her birth name is Leretui, but she has been told that this is no longer her name: she has been shorn of it, and this is the only name she can take from now on. She does not know that it is the day of Ombre, because the sound of the bell rung by her sister has not penetrated the inner walls of Calmaretto. Nor can she witness the haste and bustle outside in the street, the skaters skimming up and down Canal-the-Less, because she has not been permitted to set foot in a room with windows. She is allowed books, but not writing materials or an antiscribe, in case she finds a way to send a message.
At this thought, Shorn's mouth gives a derisory twist. There would be little point in composing a message, since the one for whom it would be intended cannot read, cannot be taught to read, and is unlikely ever to communicate with someone who can. But Shorn's mothers will not countenance even the slightest possibility that a message might be sent, and thus Shorn is no longer allowed to see her little sister Canteley, as Canteley is young enough to view the scenario as romantic, no matter how many times her mothers have impressed upon her that Shorn is both transgressor and pervert. She is occasionally permitted to see Essegui, since Essegui is of a similar mind to the mothers.
Essegui usually only puts her head around the door once a week, though Shorn finds it difficult to estimate the days. Even so, she is surprised when the door hisses open and Essegui strides through, snow falling in flakes from her outdoor coat.
'Essegui?' Shorn turns her head away and does not rise. 'What is it?'
'Ombre falls today. I've told our mothers that you are to be allowed out, when the gongs ring for dusk.'
Shorn's mouth falls open and she stares at her sister.
'Out? And they agreed?'
'They hate it. I hate it. But it is your last remaining legal right, ancient custom, and we have no choice.'
Shorn says, slow and disbelieving, 'I am to be allowed out? In the mask-and-gown?'
Essegui leans forward, hands on either arm of the chair, and speaks clearly. 'Understand this. If you use the mask-and-gown as a cover to flee the city, our mothers will go to the Matriarchy and ask for a squadron of scissor-women to hunt you down. The city will, of course, be closed from dusk onward, and they will know if anyone tries to leave. Or if anything tries to get in.'
'I will not try to leave,' Shorn whispers. 'Where would I go?'
'To that which brought you to this plight?'
Shorn gives a small, hard laugh like a bark.
'To the mountains, in winter?' Essegui goes on. 'You would die of cold before you got halfway across the Demnotian Plain. And the mountains, what then? Men-remnants would tear you to pieces and devour you before you had a chance to find it.' Essegui grimaces. 'Perhaps it would even be one of them. I've heard that all women look alike to them.'
Shorn lowers her gaze. There is a moment's silence. 'I have told you that I will not try.'
'There is a mask waiting for you,' Essegui says. She turns on her heel and is gone through the door, leaving it open behind her.
Shorn does not leave the chamber immediately, but stares at the open door. She has been dreaming about this day ever since the evening of her imprisonment, six hundred and sixty-eight days ago. Ombre then was like every other festival, a chance for fun and celebration, supposedly. She had thought no further than a possible assignation with Celvani Morel, an old college friend, recently detached. She wonders now whether she hoped that it would fill the emptiness within. She did not expect to meet what stepped from under the bridge of the Curve.
The open door seems as dark, but Shorn, once more, hesitates for only a moment before stepping through.
The mask is one that she remembers from her childhood: the round, bland face of a crater cat. It is a child's mask; for the last few years, Canteley has been wearing it. Now, however, it is the only one left in the box. Shorn pulls the gown-a muted red-and-black brocade-over her head and then, slowly, puts the mask on. The cat beams at her from the mirror; she looks like a too-tall child, no longer the woman they call the Malcontent. She twitches aside the fold of a sash, but the box is empty. There is no sign of the other mask: the long, narrow head, the colour of polished bone, mosaicked with cracks and fractures. She searches through the draperies, but there is no sign of it. She tells herself that she feels nothing.
As she turns to go downstairs, a gaezelle dances in through the door. 'Tui, is that you? Is it?' The gaezelle flings her arms around Shorn and holds on tight.
'It's me. But don't call me Tui.' It sounds as though she's spitting. 'That's not my name any more.' Canteley has grown over the last months; she is almost as tall as her sister now. Shorn has nearly forgotten the piercing quality of her voice, shrill as a water-whistle. She feels as though an icy mass has lodged deep in her own throat.
'Are you coming? Essegui said our mothers are letting you out for the Wintervale. Is it true? You should run away, Tui. You should try to find it.'
'I won't be going away, Canteley,' Shorn says, but as she says this she feels as though the walls are falling in on her and she knows that she lies.
'Is it true what they say, that the vulpen steal your soul? That they entrance you so that you can't think of anything else?'
'No, that isn't true,' Shorn says, but she is not really sure any more. She takes her sister's hand and leads her through the door.
I won't be going away. But better the devouring mountains than the windowless room. Better the quick, clean cold. She should never have let them shut her in, but she had been too dazed, with grief and bewilderment and incomprehension. Now, she has had time to think, to become as clear as ice. 'Canteley, I'll talk to you later.' She gives her sister a swift hug. 'Go downstairs. I'll join you in a minute.' Once her sister has gone, she takes a pair of
