Chapter 49
I freeze, searching for a plausible excuse for how I knew this was here. My friend inspects me. She knows me too well. She’ll see through any lie.
“First the food. Now this. Is the vicar giving you an advantage?” she asks, a frown tugging on her lips.
I’m caught between a convenient excuse and a desperate desire to never be seen as relying on that man—but I can’t betray Callon. “Yes.” The word is as acrid as scourge on my tongue.
“Great. Another thing you couldn’t trust me with.” Saipha leans away, regarding me with a wary expression.
A flash of pain ignites in my chest. “It’s not what you think.”
Her gaze darts to Lucan. Ignoring me, she asks him, “Did you know?”
Lucan shakes his head.
“I thought better of both you and the vicar,” she says cooly.
“Excuse me?” I say, head spinning.
“The Tribunal is sacred. The vicar has said as much himself.”
“Since when do you care about whether or not what the Creed says is sacred?” It’s like I don’t even recognize her.
“Since when are you willing to take the easy way out?” she fires back.
“The Isola I knew didn’t want to be handed anything, especially not by the Creed and the vicar.
She wanted to earn her rank and title. She was willing to lie and sneak if that’s what it took to get in the wall on her own so she could practice for Mercy.
Now you’re accepting the vicar’s help to cheat? ” Saipha looks away with a shudder.
I need to fix this. Now. “That’s exactly what I did! I got the vicar to mess up and say something he shouldn’t.”
That pauses her, and I seize my opening. I hate compounding my lies, but I’ve no other choice. I can’t bear to lose my friend.
“I probed and pushed him, Saipha. It’s no different than me sneaking into the Creed’s library. I wasn’t sure if what he told me would even be helpful—or if I read between the lines correctly. But the first thing was helpful. And I think this will be, too.”
She chews on this, and I fight holding my breath—fight looking even guiltier.
“Can we talk about this inside?” Lucan gestures toward the opening in the middle of the wall that the crossbow plaque revealed. “Before someone sees the only safe spot we have?”
Saipha gives me a hard look, and for a second I really think she’s going to refuse to enter. But, with a sigh, she steps through the opening behind the placard. Lucan meets my eyes and gestures for me to go ahead. At least he doesn’t look mad at me…
We close the trick door and make a quick inspection of the room.
It appears to be another workshop of some kind.
Four open doorways line one main room—two workshops, a bathroom, a laboratory that will serve well as a kitchen.
To my relief, I walk over and note it has a running tap.
A thick blanket of dust covers all the surfaces, casting everything in a gauzy hue.
“It looks like no one has been in here for a long time,” Lucan muses.
“That means no one else knows about it,” I say, feeling confident in this at least. “Perfect place to hole up.”
“And probably somewhere we’re not supposed to be,” Saipha murmurs. “Maybe the vicar was testing you to see if you’d cheat and this is a trap.”
“There’re lots of hidden pathways and rooms throughout the monastery that they only seem to leverage when it’s necessary. Maybe they didn’t need it this year,” I say. “I don’t think the vicar knew what I was doing.”
Saipha frowns. “Or maybe the inquisitors will come in during the middle of the night and give us hell for being here?”
“It doesn’t matter where we go. If the inquisitors want to give us hell, they will.
” I plant my feet and cross my arms. “This is where I’m staying tonight—and every night we can between now and the next test. I hope you both stay, too.
We’re stronger together, and this place is hidden—at least from other supplicants.
We can be safe here, and all get a good night’s sleep without having to take rounds of someone keeping watch. ”
“I’m in,” Lucan says without hesitation.
We both look to Saipha, who turns her attention from us to the window, sighing heavily. “You’re sure, Isola?”
“I am.”
“Then I trust you.” Her words nearly make me tear up. “It’s definitely better than sleeping in the open.”
I smile, relieved she came around, but not surprised—Saipha always has moved on from things quickly once she understands them. “It’ll all be all right.”
“I hope so.” She rubs her eyes. “Sorry for being snippy, I’m just…tired.”
I cross to her and rest a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s been a long day—many long days—for all of us.
It’s not like one good meal is going to fix it.
How about Lucan and I go and do an initial scout to see if we can find one of the supply caches left by the inquisitors?
You take stock here. Maybe clean up a bit?
” I imagine simple, mindless tasks will help her calm down.
I never realized how much Saipha was the sort of individual who needed a consistent, safe space until she didn’t have one.
I suppose we’re all learning things about others and ourselves in here.
“You’re sure you won’t need my help?” Her protest is weak. She’s never looked frailer.
“Someone should stay to stake our claim, just in case other supplicants manage to find this place.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” She doesn’t put up much of a fight. “I’ll see what I can do to clean up here.”
I toss her a smile, and Lucan and I head out, shutting the panel behind us.
With little more conversation than a nod, we strike out.
It’s the same plan as last time—see what we can find in the obvious places and then expand our search from there.
Lucan heads for the greenhouses, still our resident expert on the plants.
I search high and low for a cache left by the inquisitors.
But my heart sinks with every corner turned, every shelf looked behind, every piece of furniture peered under.
The other supplicants I run into look just as frustrated as me as the hours drag on.
Wherever these things are, they’re well hidden.
Dragging my feet, I make my way back to our base with some meager supplies I decided to gather from the artificer workshops. Cheesecloth, a hammer, some twine… It probably won’t be very useful, but I couldn’t bear coming back empty-handed.
With a heavy sigh, I’m about to turn the crossbow when I hear the familiar scrape of boots from down the hall. I know him by the sound of his gait. And something about that has me fighting a smile.
“Lucan—” The words are instantly lost. He’s holding a drawstring bag stamped with the image of a sword with a dragon curled around it. Mercy’s seal.
My heart jumps into my throat, and I rush to him. “Where did you find that?”
“It was strung up in the rafters above the second floor of the library. I had to climb the shelves and then jump into the beams to get it.” Way over my head, and something only a really tall person might be able to get to.
“The keys on the first day were all hidden in places related to dragons… Maybe the caches are all somewhere high—to mirror Mercy Knights on the wall?” I muse aloud.
“Something to check tomorrow. We should get this inside and wait out the night,” he says, but I don’t miss the note of approval at my deduction.
We pull open the hidden door to find Saipha’s organized the shelves with items she found in the main room and adjoining areas.
“You got one!” Saipha jumps up from one of the chairs around the central table.
“Lucan did,” I say.
“Isola helped,” he lies and sets the bag on the table and sits.
I glance over at Lucan as he begins to unpack the bag, and something deep in my chest pinches as I sit next to him. Not for the first time, I’m grateful Lucan is my ally. Our ally. Just his presence really does make everything feel a bit better.
A few flat loaves of bread and bean cake wrapped in wax vellum are in the muslin bag tied with a ribbon that’s almost the same shade of red as the robes the curates wear. I doubt they’d waste real dragon’s blood on ribbon for the Tribunal.
I take in the room with our added supplies. “Not a lot of creature comforts, but it’s sheltered, warm”—just as Callon promised and Saipha wanted—“and hidden.”
“We stay here as long as we can,” Lucan agrees.
“I can go out tomorrow to look for more supplies,” Saipha offers. “I doubt they’ll be restocking the bags, so we’ll want to get as many as we can upfront.”
“Good idea,” I agree. Before I can tell her my theory on where they’ve been hidden, Saipha continues.
“And I can check in any dragon-focused areas, since Isola freezes at the sight of them, and make sure nothing is hidden in those spots—like they did with the keys,” she says and stands.
Her words land like a punch to the gut, and my theory is lost. I glance to the window at the far end of the room. Even if Saipha didn’t mean to wound me with the remark, my eyes sting. I’ve been doing better, I want to object. I stood up to that dragon on the rooftop, after all.
“Sounds good,” I murmur instead. I’ll tell her about the caches being in high places in the morning.
Saipha yawns. “Anyone object to me taking that space?” She points to the interior workshop. Lucan and I both shake our heads, and she shuffles to the room, shutting the door behind her.
Lucan and I are left alone, side by side at the table. Suddenly, the whole room feels much smaller. He’s close enough that I can hear him slowly inhale, gathering air like Etherlight. I find myself breathing in time with him.
“Don’t let what she said bother you,” Lucan says quietly. “You’re perfectly capable of hunting for resources.”
“It’s true that I’m lacking in some areas.” I drag my nail along the ridge at the table’s edge, picking out remnants of long-forgotten dust.
“Not as much as you think.”
My attention returns to his, and I settle my chin in my palm, studying him. “Careful, Lucan, or you might give me an inflated ego.”
“Inflating the ego of the woman who’s hailed as Valor Reborn? Impossible. Your ego is already as big as it gets.” His eyes flash with amusement in the evening sunbeams cutting through the slim window.
I laugh. “Now that’s how I’m sure you don’t know anything about me.” The words are hollow now. More like a playful echo of things that I once meant.
“I’d like to think I know much more than you give me credit for.” He sounds genuinely offended. Somehow it makes him even more endearing that he missed my joking.
I play along. “Oh?”
“Yes,” he insists.
“Like what?”
Lucan leans forward, and somehow, an already small room is now breathlessly tight. The joking leaves me, and in its place is nothing but coiled tension. He’s been this close to me before, but it feels…different now. He feels like a man I’ve never met.
Someone I’m not certain I can trust myself around.