The bright crescent of an axe greeted Nona’s arrival at the door. More blows fell as the weapon was levered out. Nona took a few moments to pit her blades against the pieces of timber she’d dragged with her, dividing them further. Using the wall as support, she reached up for the candle guttering above her, barely half an inch remaining to it. She lit the wood shavings and held the cloak above the flames until it caught. With the lengths of wood balanced against each other above the blazing material she retreated. More pieces splintered from the door. Those beyond would be smelling the smoke now.
It’s not enough, Keot said.
The smoke followed Nona back, swirling a pale, luminous green in the altered sight the devil granted her. She heard coughing beyond the door and bit down on a cough of her own. Some heavy piece of the door fell, hitting the ground with a metallic clunk.
The lock.
Nona could see the flames, an ethereal scarlet, through the coiling smoke. The scene had an otherworldly beauty to it. It wouldn’t keep the Lightless back for long. Maybe not at all. But it was all she could do. Shuddering and sweating as the red cure fought the blade-toxin in a battle raging all the length of her veins, Nona staggered to her feet to make her last stand.
“Hey!” A voice behind her. “Quick! Over here!” A woman’s voice.
Nona turned from the corridor’s end where choking and cursing now mixed with the splintering of timbers. A figure leaned out of the doorway of a cell on the opposite side to Nona’s and three doors further back. A spiky-haired figure with a lantern in hand. In the devil-sight’s skewed colour palette it was hard for Nona to know if she should recognize the person.
Keot drained from Nona’s eyes, leaving her blinking, stumbling forward. “Kettle?”
The woman caught Nona as she fell, her strength spent. Back along the corridor the sound of advancing feet, coughing and confusion. The newcomer dragged Nona back into the cell, pushing the door shut, locking it as she struggled with Nona’s weight. “Shit on a Scithrowl! You’ve got fat.”
Nona managed to look up at that. Only one person cursed quite as colourfully as that. “Clera?”
“Come on! Help me out, it’s like I’m dragging a whale.” Clera grinned down at her, face pale and mud smeared. Behind her a small square door in the wall stood open. The kind that every prisoner dreams about, stone-clad, perfectly disguised, leading onto a narrow tunnel that stretched away from captivity.
Nona kicked ineffectually as Clera bundled her backwards through the door, pushing her headfirst along the crawlway. While Nona lay panting on her back, the stone ceiling just a foot above her face, Clera went to get the lantern. She joined Nona on all fours moments later, and reached back to pull the secret door closed behind them, setting several bolts in place.
“Ssssh.” A finger to lips. “I’ll have to go first.”
Clera wriggled her way over Nona, a snug fit in the confines of the tunnel. When their faces drew level she paused, her nose almost touching Nona’s.
“You look awful. You’re not going to die are you?”
“P-poisoned.”
“What was it? I’ve got some antidotes . . .”
“On . . . Noi-Guin knife. Took red cure.” Nona’s ribs screamed protest against Clera’s weight and her breath came in gasps. All of her hurt but it seemed as though she’d been hurting forever and after so long alone in such dire straits it felt good to be with a friend. Even with Clera who long ago had betrayed her to the Tacsis. Just having someone there, albeit on top of her, was a wonderful thing. If there had been space she might even have put her arms around the girl.
“Red cure? That should work. Let’s just hope your eyes don’t turn red this time.” Clera grinned, licked the end of Nona’s nose, and continued to wriggle past, as if for all the world they were playing some convent game, not escaping torture and death in the bowels of the Tetragode.
“W-what are you doing here?” Nona whispered, her words largely lost as Clera’s chest scraped across her face.
Clera ignored the question. “I can’t turn around here so if you can’t follow me I’ll have to go ahead and come back before I can drag you.”
Legs slithered around Nona’s head and Clera was clear.
“I . . . I can do it.” Nona braced her heels against a lump in the tunnel floor and pushed. She inched forward, gasping.
“Too slow and too noisy,” Clera hissed. From beyond the door faint shouts could be heard. “Wait here. I’ll come back and drag you. Be quiet!”
Nona wanted to ask her not to leave but bit her tongue. She felt weak and tearful. The poison’s doing, no doubt. Clera crawled away, the sounds fading. She had left the lantern, standing beyond Nona’s feet, turned low. Nona hoped no crack of light would show around the hidden door, but she could do nothing about it even if she had the energy—the tunnel held her too tightly.
You should kill her when you reach a space wide enough that you don’t have to cut through her body to advance. It will be easy if she’s dragging you. Just reach up and cut—
I’m not going to kill Clera!
She’s the reason we’re here. If she hadn’t brought you to Raymel then I would still be enjoying his excesses and you would be doing . . . nun things. Kill her and leave her body to rot.
Clera thought the Tacsis wanted Ara, not me, and not for killing. She doesn’t deserve to die for that!
The convent would drown her if they caught her.
Nona closed her eyes. She couldn’t deny that the Ancestor, or at least the Ancestor’s Church, had some harsh rules.
• • •
THE FORCE THAT pulled Nona back into Kettle’s head allowed no alternatives, but after so many unions of their minds Nona was
