Chapter 10
Outside, Maeve tried to make sense of what just happened. Tristan seemed intelligent and friendly enough to those who weren’t apprenticing at the Post under a false identity. He didn’t strike her as someone who people would despise. Even if she had calculated wrong and his peers did loathe him, she wouldn’t expect them to spit on his shoes or pour milk on his head. That went far beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior, even if he hadn’t been the son of the most powerful man at the Otherwhere Post. But it was Tristan’s reaction that confused her most of all. She’d expected him to be furious, to lash out at the brute. Not look at her as if his entire world were falling apart.
Nan interrupted her train of thought, popping up beside her with a wispy young woman trailing a step behind.
The woman twisted a strand of white-blond hair around a finger. A vein in her pale forehead stood out as she fixed her large, pale blue eyes on Maeve.
They were both staring at her. “Is something the matter?”
“I was calling your name for a full minute,” Nan said, and Maeve tensed. “Didn’t you hear me?”
At this rate, she might as well turn herself in. “Heavens, no. I didn’t hear anything. I was lost in thought.”
Nan didn’t seem convinced, but the blond woman stepped forward before Maeve could think of an excuse. “So this is your roommate, then?” she said to Nan, then smiled at Maeve. “I’m Shea Widden, Nan’s mentor.”
A Widden—Maeve took a reflexive step backward, steeling herself. The infamous Widdens owned buildings across Leyland and Barrow. Their family was as rich as the central trust, and their drama filled gossip columns. They were always in the spotlight. Maeve didn’t want anything to do with Shea Widden.
“Nan tells me that you’re interested in attending all the Post’s social functions,” Shea said.
Maeve cut a scathing look at Nan, who merely shrugged.
“I have something for you.” Shea dug through her saddlebag and handed over a flyer. It was for the annual Scriptomantic Exhibition.
The flyer boasted of a weekend of events: an opening reception, various demonstrations of scriptomantic talent, and talks by prominent scriptomancers. It was used as a platform to give the public more information about everything from repairing the Written Doors to scribing times—put on by the ministers for transparency, so protesters didn’t feel the need to storm the Post.
A knot thickened Maeve’s throat as she scanned through it. Her father used to help plan the annual exhibition when it was put on by the College of Scriptomantic Arts.
“It goes for a full week in Barrow, right after Midautumn,” Shea said. “I’m showcasing a few new types of scribing commissions later in the week. You and Nan could go together if you’re crossing worlds by then.”
That was weeks away. If she were still here then, it would be because Tristan’s father had thrown her to the bottom of the abyss.
She tucked the flyer down her saddlebag. “I’m not sure I’ll be up to snuff, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Who’s your mentor?” Shea asked.
“Tristan,” Maeve replied shortly, desperate to escape a longer conversation.
“Tristan Byrne?” Shea’s already wide eyes grew a size larger. “You’re Tristan Byrne’s apprentice?”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“Of course not,” Shea said hastily. She patted the letters in her hand. “I have to get delivering. If you two need anything, don’t hesitate to find me.”
Once Shea was out of earshot, Nan turned to Maeve. “Is this Tristan related to Postmaster Byrne?”
“It’s his son.”
Nan whistled. “And I thought I lucked out getting a Widden as my mentor. I can’t imagine the gossip the Postmaster’s son must have about this place.”
Nan looked like she wanted to press Maeve with more questions, but a clock rang out from across the grounds.
Maeve froze. “Aren’t we supposed to be in the Scriptorium now?”
“Blast it, I think you’re right. Let’s hurry,” Nan said. She took Maeve’s arm, and they rushed down the stone pathway that led south from the central courtyard. The path hooked eastward.
“Are we almost there?” Maeve asked, out of breath.
“I think that’s it.” Nan pointed through the trees, to an enormous old building set back from the path.
Maeve expected a columned mausoleum after the way her father spoke of this place, not a crumbling facade hidden under dead ivy.
They walked slowly to the main entrance. Nan pulled open the front door and held it as they went inside.
The space was chilly enough that Maeve kept her cloak on. Daylight barely seeped in; the darkened windows looked covered in layers of coagulated ink. Her steps slowed, eyes adjusting.
“It feels sinister, doesn’t it?” Nan whispered into the darkness, taking Maeve’s arm.
Maeve was too nervous to push her away. This was where centuries of scriptomancers had learned their trade—and it hadn’t always gone well. Early scriptomancers read scribings here that infected their minds. Her father told her of one man called Howling Thomas, who didn’t leave his worktable for twelve days, then removed his clothes and ran out screaming all the way to the river Liss, where he dug his own grave with his fingernails.
As they wandered past oaken scriptomancy worktables, Maeve braced herself, waiting for the familiar burst of anger when she remembered old stories of her father’s. But the scratch of quills filled her ears, and something long buried seemed to flicker to life inside of her. She took a deep inhale of the parchment-scented air, sensing the energy of an open journal, a fresh well of lampblack. Sinister lighting or no, she liked the feel of this place.
Perhaps learning scriptomancy wouldn’t be so terrible. She could compartmentalize it like she had her journals, make it something separate from the tangled feelings about her father.
“Are you coming?” Nan called.
Maeve realized she’d wandered to a stop and hurried after her roommate, to where a large group of apprentices gathered between worktables.
The young man with the blue ink from the writing exam was there, along with several more men and women with Maeve’s same coloring. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about standing out with her red hair. A handful had Nan’s dark hair and deep tan complexion, some darker. A few apprentices glanced her way, and she felt their eyes like knife tips dragging against her neck.
Steward Mordraig rifled through drawers at a worktable, pulling out stoppered wells, a handful of carved quills, and a large abalone inkwell.
Apprentices leaned in as he placed a letter in the center of the worktable, addressed to a Dear Miranda .
“I’m guessing you’re all here because you want to learn how to get to Barrow, right?” he asked everyone.
There were nods, excited murmuring.
“Good. I like it when apprentices are eager. Makes things speedier. Today, however, is all about the basics.” His small eyes glittered. “This is a scriptomancy worktable.” He ran fingers over gouges thick with yellowed wax. “The tabletops are treated so scribing pigment will not stain them permanently.” He tapped a dark blotch. “But blood will. So if you’re going to stab yourself, go do it somewhere else.”
An apprentice in front gave a chuckle, and Mordraig silenced him with a grunt.
“Now, most people think of a scribing as a mere sentence, but if all a scriptomancer had to do was scribble a sentence, we could strap quills to babies and hire them for the job. It would certainly get the House of Ministers off our backs.” He looked across everyone. “Can one of you strapping youths tell me how a sentence becomes a scribing?”
Maeve knew the answer from her father. It might be good to answer a question here and there, so as not to stand out.
She raised a hand, then put it down when she realized that she was the only one.
“Apprentice Hill?” Mordraig pointed to her.
All eyes trained on her.
Her neck grew hot. “A sentence becomes a scribing through the process of Arcane Infusion,” she said quietly.
Mordraig leaned on his cane, staring at her for a sharp beat that made her neck prickle. “Which upper school did you attend?”
“One in the far south. In Almsworth, sir.”
He nodded and looked away.
Maeve pressed her lips together, vowing to never speak up again.
“Apprentice Hill is correct,” he said. “Arcane Infusion is what we call the reaction that happens when you perform a scribing, and it takes—pulling in arcane magic.”
He clamped a magnifying glass with a telescoping arm to the side of the worktable, enlarging Dear Miranda ’s letter tenfold.
“The infusion is the hard part, though. It’s a combination of perfects. A scriptomancer must select the perfect words and order them in the perfect way, using the perfect combination of tools, pigments, and chirography, then seal them perfectly using the symbol corresponding with the type of scribing they’re performing. Only then will arcane magic flow into your sentence, attuning to the command you’ve written. In other words, the magic will do exactly what you’ve told it to do. Your sentence will then disappear, leaving only the original text, which can be anything from a handwritten book to a word scrawled onto a pair of knickers.”
Or a grocery list , Maeve thought, imagining her father lecturing beside Mordraig.
Mordraig sighed. “But since the House of Ministers now dictates our days, we’re only allowed to perform scribings on letters.”
“Only ever letters?” someone behind Maeve asked.
“Yes. Unless you’re one of the select few to interview with a government agency after graduating. Though I’d much rather scribe letters all day and night than carry the folios filled with bureaucratic nonsense the minister couriers are made to deliver.”
He made a disgusted face, then pulled a matted swan feather quill from a tin cup. Without any attempt to be careful, he flung the cap off a pot of silver liquid and dumped it into the abalone well.
Scents of red honey and humid earth hit Maeve’s nose, and she stiffened. The pigment—it smelled exactly like her father’s clothing.
“Are you all right?” Nan whispered beside her.
Maeve realized her fingers were clenched into fists at her sides. She shook them out. “I’m fine,” she said, then turned back to Mordraig.
He held up a vial of silver liquid.
“This is pre-mixed scribing pigment.” He dipped his quill and wrote down a flurry of tiny silver words at the bottom of the letter. Wisps of black smoke rose from them. “Now for the seal.” He drew a silver triangle that encompassed the silver sentence he’d just penned. “The Divine Triangle is the seal for all form scribings. Form is one of the five scribing types, along with traveling, tracking, memory, and the ever-wondrous sense! Most of you will only ever perform the traveling and tracking scribings, given those two are needed to deliver letters. A handful of the most talented, who aren’t snatched up by a government agency first, will be assigned to scribing more advanced commissions onto letters, where the other three types come into play.”
He drew a line, closing the last corner of the triangle.
All of the silvery writing dissolved into the paper, leaving the original letter penned to Miranda by itself on the page.
Nan leaned toward the paper.
Mordraig snatched it away. “For god’s sake, don’t read the text unless you want to trigger the enchantment.” He waved the letter in the air. “All enchantments trigger when you read the original text, and trigger to a stronger degree when you read it aloud . You may be tempted to read the letters you scribe to test how you’ve done. Don’t. Each read weakens the scribing’s effects, not to mention it’ll make you look like an inkbrained fool. Some scriptomancers even learn to blur their eyes while they work as a precaution. Try it if you want, though don’t come crying to me if you accidentally spill your ink.” He folded the letter and placed it on the table, the words hidden from view. “Now, everyone follow me!”
Nan hung beside Maeve as Mordraig led them down a narrow stone stair to an underground chamber lit by archaic torches.
An incongruous wooden sculpture stood in the center of the room. It looked like a piece of furniture had bent in on itself, then twisted at impossible angles through the air. Four large spindles shot from one side like jagged spears, while human rib bones protruded from the front in a grotesque arc.
“Morbid,” Nan whispered.
The crowd of apprentices moved cautiously around it. On the back side, a corroded magnifying glass and the remains of a large quill were embedded deep in the wood, along with a handful of little white stones. No, not stones—teeth.
“A scriptomancy worktable,” Mordraig said, then pointed to the protruding ribs. “And the scriptomancer it was assigned to.”
Everyone grew silent.
Mordraig held up an iron box engraved with the same five symbols from Molly Blackcaster’s statue, including the Divine Triangle. They all had to be scribing seals.
The steward gave the box a firm shake, and dust leaked out.
“This table is proof of what can happen if you finish a scribing without applying the contents of this box to the reverse side of the letter first.”
He set the box on the ground and pulled out fistfuls of tiny gray satchels. Each apprentice was given one to string around their neck. Maeve opened hers to a thumbnail’s worth of dust that smelled of winter’s frost.
“It’s crematory ash,” Mordraig said.
Maeve choked and shut the satchel.
Other apprentices coughed.
“Ash from bodies?” Someone asked.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Mordraig chuckled. “No, no. It’s made from rare white elm trees that have matured and died, then slightly decayed. The trees are native to Leyland. We’ve tried to grow them elsewhere, but they never do as well. We think it’s why Molly chose to establish the College of Scriptomantic Arts here in Leyland. Once we locate downed trees, we gather the wood, then fire it in the old crematorium below the Hall of Routes. The process gives the ash a miraculous chemical composition.”
“What does it do?” Nan asked.
Mordraig dipped his finger inside a satchel. “The ash repels arcane magic. If you’re in a pinch, dusting a letter will instantly null most scribings.” He held up the letter for Dear Miranda, then dusted some ash over the top. The sentence he’d penned in scribing pigment reappeared, along with the triangle.
Maeve hadn’t known that was possible.
She brushed her hand over the letters tucked away at her hip. There might be something in the courier’s scribing that could give her a clue to her old friend ’s identity.
Mordraig lifted a satchel into a shaft of torchlight. “I won’t give you another satchel until a month and a day from now, so don’t lose it. The ash is used to coat the back of each letter before you scribe it. Unless you’ve been given permission, your scribings are only to be done on letters backed with a coat of crematory ash. To scribe on any other surface without it”—he knocked on a protruding rib—“can have ill effects. It’s the result of the arcane magic sinking deeper without the ash barrier. You’ll use it on everything you do except for the traveling scribing, and that’s because the traveling scribing is not done on paper.”
“What is it done on?” someone asked.
“Your wrist,” Mordraig said with a grim twist to his mouth. “It’s the only skin scribing we allow. If you try scribing anything else on your body, and it doesn’t kill you, you’ll get a swift kick out the front gate. Understand?”
Everyone nodded, and that was that.
Maeve’s brows knit together. Her father would write on his arms on occasion. She watched him do it the night before the Written Doors burned, and a number of times before that. But if skin scribing was as dangerous as Mordraig made it out to be, her father must have been merely writing, not scribing. As it was, she wrote on herself all the time at the inksmithy when she couldn’t find paper.
She nudged the thought away to focus on the lecture. After a lengthy speech on the importance of inkwells, Mordraig dismissed them. Before Nan could say a word to her, Maeve raced up the stairs and locked herself inside a lavatory, then took out the letter from her old friend , dusting it with crematory ash. A small sentence appeared below the text in dark blue pigment.
This letter will find its way to Maeve.
That was it? She grazed fingertips along the scribing seal in the shape of an eye—another symbol from Molly’s cloak.
This sentence must be a tracking scribing, considering a traveling scribing was written on a courier’s skin. A generic tracking scribing given that it didn’t tell her anything new. She slipped the letter in her pocket then bent to grab her saddlebag.
The pale edge of an envelope stuck out from the flap.
Maeve hesitated only a moment before tugging it free. She ripped it open, and a crisp letter slipped out.
After what Mordraig had shown them, there was no way she would read a mysteriously placed letter without crematory ash. She pinched some between her fingers and unfolded the paper.
Four words were penned in a deep red ink that glimmered with an inner fire. She’d never seen the shade before.
I’m watching you, Maeve.
As she stared in horror, the inked words grew glossy. Wet. Ink beaded against the tail of the g and dripped down the paper, splashing against the floor. More ink dripped down, until a river bled from the words, obscuring them. Maeve dusted crematory ash, but the ink had already claimed the entirety of the page. It covered her fingers like a slick of blood.
It’s just ink , she tried telling herself, sucking in ragged mouthfuls of air.
But it was so much more than ink; someone knew who she was. Her worst fear had come true, and on her second day here, no less.
She threw the letter into the sink and flipped the faucet on high.