Chapter 21
I tossed fitfully that night, my dreams tense and confusing.
Zennia’s face melded into Emment’s and back, into Kielty’s lion mask, then the Veil’s blank-faced jester.
In the early hours, I lay staring up at the ceiling, turning the brooch over and over in my fingers.
I wished more than anything that Zennia was here, in a bunk above me, as she had been for most of a decade at Arbenhaw.
I wondered, if our places were reversed, what she’d be doing. How she’d be feeling.
Zennia had always been the brave one.
An image popped into my mind unbidden: a lean-limbed girl, a full head shorter than me, with a world-weary air borne from a childhood among the Hundred. Thick black hair scrunched into buns, wrapped with cord. A round face that moved from scowl to smile in an instant.
My first week at Arbenhaw, I uttered not a word. Not even when the others called me Mouse, then Ghost. I had the bunk beneath Zennia in our first-year dormitory and the seat beside her in our history lessons.
Despite the fact that I rarely replied, she whispered to me of her mother, of her brothers, and how she’d always longed for a sister.
How her house in Tresteny was filled with glass: a dozen crown glass windows, spun glass lamps in every room.
How her mother’s customers—and some of her mother’s friends—hated people like us. Called Zennia “unfortunate.”
Another memory. Eight years later. A tedious lecture from Instructor Rhama on the alleged causes of the Great Revolt. Zennia’s tan arm snaking into the air. “Is it true we used to call ourselves Tidespeakers, sir?”
Rhama staring at her. “Where did you hear that?”
“A book at a house my family visited. If it’s true, why did they change our name, sir?”
Rhama’s eyes on her back as she left the classroom, bound for a stretch in the Confinement Locker.
I blinked at the ceiling, tears blurring my vision. It was clear I wouldn’t be getting any more sleep, so I dragged myself out of bed, pulled on my work clothes, and slipped out into the predawn chill.
The scent of tea herbs hung around the tower door.
Tigo must be up already, though I’d heard no shuffles or pots clinking in his room.
I was glad it was quiet. After my forays to the Veil and a full week of attending to the Cormorants and the Shearwaters, I was strung out, drained by the constant need to perform. All I wanted was to be alone.
I trailed down the dirt path that led to the cove, past dwarf gorse and heather and hillocks dusted with sand. Gulls skimmed by on the air currents above me. All was shadowed; the sky bloomed lilac like a bruise.
I’d half planned to scramble down to the water to practice. Archwater was a dark, heavy presence in my mind, sitting just out of sight, yet sidling ever nearer. But as I approached the boulders that marked the start of the steep path, I caught a low laugh, the murmur of voices below me.
Dropping down, I peered around the edge of a rock and saw them clearly, despite the dimness: the backs of a fiery-red head and a blond one, standing out starkly against the gray-black cliffs.
One was Rhianne; that hair was unmistakable. And the other…For a wild moment, I thought it was Kielty, my half-formed dreams still lurking in my mind. But the figure was too short, too wide-framed. It was Catua. They sat on a rock ledge, close together. Both clutched near-empty cups of tea.
Rhianne muttered something, and Catua laughed, leaning sideways, bumping the older girl with her shoulder. Their heads turned, and I saw their lips meet briefly.
A needle of static shot right through me. Heart drumming, I shrank back, pressed my spine against the boulder. I thought of Rhianne’s pink cheeks after my “test,” her rapid defense of the youngest Shearwater, denying her part in it.
After the shock came a creeping cold. Here it was already: a skeleton in the closet.
Catua Shearwater, daughter of Rexim, in a secret relationship with an Orha servant. The Hundred only married within the Hundred. Liaisons with a commoner were a very great scandal. Liaisons with an Orha were something else: unthinkable.
This was just what Kielty had asked for. But could I use it? The cold stabbed deeper. Catua and Rhianne had been nothing but kind to me. I’d even begun to think of Rhianne as a friend. Would I really betray them to fulfill my bargain? And if I did, how, exactly, could I give the Cage proof?
I glanced back down at the pair again. They’d finished their tea and set aside their empty cups. They swung their legs out over the bubbling surf. They kissed again, lightly teased each other. Catua stretched and gazed up at the circling shearwaters.
Eventually they clambered stiffly to their feet, and I tensed, ready to flee should they both come this way.
But instead, Catua headed left, taking a low track that wound north to the castle.
Rhianne began the hike up to the boulders, toward me, but rather than running, I moved ten paces or so back.
The Sparkmouth was smiling faintly to herself as she crested the ridge, her eyes on the path. When she finally glanced up—saw me standing there, arms folded—her face turned bone white, each freckle standing out.
For a few long seconds, we faced off, silent. Then her shoulders drooped, her gaze lowered, and she trudged toward me, cloak trailing in the mud.
“You won’t say anything,” she said as she reached me, her brown eyes pleading. “You can’t tell him.”
“I won’t,” I replied. It was technically true. Even if I did end up leveraging this secret, it wouldn’t be me who’d reveal all to Rexim…“But”—I searched her face—“aren’t you scared?”
It was Rhianne, of course, who would be viciously punished. Catua might be confined to her room, have her allowance cut off, but she wouldn’t be banished. Wouldn’t be sent back to the mainland in disgrace, to a workhouse or maybe a cell, if Rexim could swing it.
Rhianne shrugged unhappily. “What are we supposed to do? Live side by side here and just ignore how we feel?” She began to traipse back to the Orha’s tower. “We tried that at first. It…didn’t work out.”
I paused, a new thought nagging at me.
“I know Catua’s interested in Orha rights,” I ventured, jogging after her. “Is there more to it than that?”
Rhianne frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” My skin tingled; I was skirting too close. “She challenges the others. Says we should follow Breova. Do you think she’s in contact with…anyone radical?”
Rhianne looked shocked. “If you mean who I think you mean…Moons, no. She would have told me. I know she wants some of the same things they do. So do I, I suppose.” She shot me a nervous glance.
“But she always says big change has to happen slowly.
Through the Chamber. Through sympathetic Regents like Finch.
“And the Cage…well,” Rhianne continued, “they want things to happen far more quickly than that. And the only way to do that”—her face twisted—“is to hurt people. Catua would never want anyone to get hurt.”
I blinked, staring intently at the path, hoping my features gave nothing away.
“So if you’re Catua’s secret,” I said as we walked, “what are the others’? Emment’s? Llir’s?”
She threw me a wild look. “What do you mean?”
I glanced around. It was early; we were utterly alone.
I’d be taking a risk, confiding in Rhianne, but something told me she harbored suspicions of her own—I still remembered her flashed glances at Tigo, the odd look she’d given me when I’d talked about Zennia.
And from the way she’d spoken about Orha traditions, I didn’t get the impression she shared Tigo’s loyalty…
“Listen,” I said. “I know what Emment’s been up to. But I’m starting to think there might be more.”
I told her about the trip. The fights at the Veil. The crossing back and the sinking sands. Emment’s story, relayed in choked sobs. The extra regals he’d slipped me later.
By the end, Rhianne’s mouth was hanging open.
“The valets were gossiping about that night,” she said, “but they only said he’d come back sozzled again.
I didn’t realize he’d nearly died. That you—you saved him.
” She stared at me. She had that same look on her face that Llir had.
Like she was suddenly seeing me. My face felt hot.
“Did you know about the fights?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Tigo told me. He found out from Llir. It’s all just…horrible.”
She paused, something kindling in her eyes.
“His story, though, about what happened with Zennia. The crossing, the waves…that’s what he told all of us.
But these last few weeks, I’ve been thinking back.
I was burning old timber up near the pinewood that day.
It was pallwater—did you know that? Calm as could be.
Not a storm cloud in sight. Nothing stronger than a breeze. ”
I gazed at her, hearing the sea shush nearby. “Of course it was pallwater,” I murmured, realizing. I’d been picturing the angry swells of archwater, but Emment had said they’d crossed by boat, which didn’t make sense if it wasn’t pallwater, when the causeway was always part-covered by the sea.
“Sometimes the sands, they can change their shape, and that makes the water swirl in differently…but that only really happens at archwater. And then, when you arrived and told us about Zennia…about how she was top of your class…” She broke off.
“It doesn’t add up,” I finished for her, looking out at the distant bay.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said intently. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Tigo. But he believes Llir, and Llir believes his brother…I don’t think any of them thought very deeply about it.”
“What do you think happened?” My voice had turned hoarse. Something dark crouched in the pit of my stomach.
She looked at me, guarded and sad all at once. The quiet, the far-off rushing of the waves, stretched on until I could hardly bear it. Then she folded her arms and said, “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe there was a squall.” But I could see she didn’t really believe it.
What was Emment Shearwater capable of?
We parted ways then, and I headed for the castle. I’d be starting my chores early—very early—but I hoped that meant I could finish a little sooner. Retreat to my room and dwell on what I’d learned. Try to work out how I was going to tackle my new tasks.
For Kielty was telling the truth, I was sure now, and I was even more determined to find out what he knew. If that meant aiding dangerous rebels…so be it. And in the meantime, I’d uncover what I could.
The sun was just rising, speckling the gatehouse in bronze as I walked under its archway and into the outer ward. I’d expected to see no one at this ungodly hour, which was why, when I spotted a hunched figure ahead of me, I hesitated, shrinking back into the shadows.
I was soon glad I’d hidden. The figure was Llir, his mantle hanging loose over what looked like nightclothes.
His boots scraped on the stone as he crossed to a tower, one of many that made up the curtain wall, round and choked with an autumn-red creeper.
My pulse picked up. What was he doing out this early?
And, for that matter, what was he doing here? As far as I knew, this tower was abandoned.
As Llir took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, glancing left and right before entering, I remembered with a jolt: Zennia’s letter.
The one I’d found in the crevice in my room, with the mysterious dates scrawled on the back.
“Sometimes I make out lights in odd places.” Maybe it had been this tower she’d seen the lights in.
And maybe the dates were the times she’d seen them.
The thunk and click of the lock echoed toward me. Then—silence. Llir didn’t reemerge.
When I was sure I was alone, I left the gatehouse and picked my way over the scrubby grass. I headed for the keep, where my duties waited, but as I walked my eyes crawled up to the tower’s arrow slits.
I knew one of Emment’s secrets. I knew Catua’s now, too. Rexim and Vercha might have secrets; they might not.
But I still wasn’t much closer to learning Llir’s.