Sherzal clapped her hands, suddenly serious. “Enough. Inquisitor Pelter, take the prisoner away and let your jury know they sit at midnight.”
Glass found herself being bustled back through the press of Sherzal’s guests. She had no eye towards their faces this time, and no care for any jibes. Thuran Tacsis had come to them in haste from wherever Nona was being held. Glass knew the smell he carried. Mud and shit. But more than that. It was a scent she knew from her time beneath Sweet Mercy on the night before another trial. The smell of deep places. Of a recluse or cell in caves far below the ground. Had the Noi-Guin delivered Nona to Sherzal’s dungeons? Glass had known the emperor’s sister was reckless but not so reckless as to allow Thuran Tacsis to flout the emperor’s ruling in her own palace. Crucical had forbidden the Tacsis from pursuing Nona for revenge or justice. He had made it a capital command after Raymel broke the first declaration. Everyone involved in any further contravention could be summarily executed.
Glass had been sure the Noi-Guin would take Nona to the Tetragode and that if Thuran were to gloat over his prize it would be there. There was perhaps no place in the empire so far from the emperor’s eye. Crucical probably didn’t even know where the Tetragode currently lay. It seldom remained in one place for long: the assassins never stayed more than four years and took almost nothing with them, erasing all evidence that the Tetragode had ever existed. They took only their wealth, rumoured to be in diamonds of exceptional quality, their shipheart, and the Book of Shadows, the list of clients and targets dating back over six hundred years. The Noi-Guin and the Lightless would melt away one by one, regathering at some new location with the most extravagant care.
“Hurry!” Pelter snapped, and Sera gave a push to encourage Glass along.
The abbess raised her head. They were far from the great halls now, in a long corridor lined with quarters for the servants of guests. She paused. The others walked a couple of paces before Pelter spun around. “What are you waiting for?” The tone a mistress might use for a tardy novice.
Glass frowned. “There’s a feeling . . . when you know something is there. You absolutely know it, and yet whilst you have all manner of evidence that implies it is there, you’ve nothing that absolutely demands that it is. Like a case built on circumstance. Or the next stair in a dark cellar after you’ve passed the point that you can see where you’re placing your feet. There’s a feeling you get sometimes in those situations, a crisis of doubt and faith. You step down, feeling for the next stair, you pass the point where you might pull back and still not stumble, and you keep going, with just faith and guesswork to keep you from breaking your neck in a black place beneath the ground.” Glass lifted her foot for her next step. “I just had that feeling. That’s why I was waiting.”
38
NONA PLUMMETED THROUGH empty darkness. She wasn’t sure how long she had been falling for or where she had fallen from. All she knew was the terrible certainty that soon she would hit something hard and at a speed that would spread her across it.
The impact, when at last it came, jolted open eyes she had thought already open. She found herself staring at a wall just inches before her face, all her plunging speed arrested with just enough momentum remaining to jerk her forward and bang her head against the stonework.
“Bleed me!” The curse came weakly from a raw throat. Her eyes hurt and the world looked to be on fire.
Keot?
You’re back. He sounded unsurprised. She left you a message.
Nona levered herself from the wall and rubbed her forehead, fingers coming away sticky with blood. Scratches covered the surface of the stone block immediately before her. Slowly her eyes found focus and the scratches gathered into letters, the letters into words.
They’re breaking in. You’ve taken red cure. You’re still sick. I’m coming.
Nona became aware of distant pounding. Actually, not so distant. Hammers or axes being applied to the door at the end of the corridor.
Why don’t they just—
The nun jammed the lock to stop them coming back in. There are many of them out there.
Nona tried to get up and failed, her muscles too weak and too full of hurt to lift her from the ground. She fell back, one of Clera’s worst curse-words escaping through clenched teeth.
The manacles on her ankles and right wrist remained in place, the collar still locked around her neck. She appeared to be just inside her cell. Rolling, she saw the Noi-Guin’s sprawled remains. She dragged herself painfully to the cell door and looked towards the far end of the corridor. The first splinters were beginning to break away from the wood around the lock. The door wouldn’t hold much longer.
Nona considered the door to her own cell, the timber two inches thick. She forced flaw-blades into being around the fingers of her freed hand. With one stroke she shaved off a curling sliver of wood. Then three more. Gathering her strength, she struck down at a steeper angle, muscles screaming, and sliced off a narrow triangle several feet in length, then a second chunk. Panting with effort, she bundled the shaving and chunks of wood
