10. Kit
Kit
The next two weeks were more of the same. I spent my days in the caverns working with Philippa to craft the head of the Vessel, and finished out the afternoons with a report to Klaus in my office. Across the hall, Merrick’s door was perpetually shut.
Meanwhile, Penny toiled at the forge, wilting under the criticism of the new smith.
My attempt to talk the man around after the second day Penny came home in tears was met with as much disdain as I was used to getting from Merrick and his ilk.
Cedric blamed me for Penny’s ineptitude and disparaged my teaching methods.
He wasn’t wrong about any of it, but it also confirmed my suspicions that my position as Shroud Warden was all but meaningless to everyone but the resistance. Anyone who backed our new Right Hand ranked me somewhere below themselves in the hierarchy. I may as well have been powerless.
That afternoon, it was almost an hour before the end of the work day when Klaus came to fetch me.
“Merrick sent for you,” he said before turning back the way he came, expecting me to follow.
I bid Philippa goodbye and trotted after him, snagging my empty lunch pail on my way through the entry chamber.
He walked ahead of me down the tunnel this time. I was almost used to the crushing darkness and tight quarters, but not being the one holding the torch was disconcerting. What little light spilled past Klaus’s silhouette was barely enough for me to see the floor beneath my feet.
When we emerged into the empty ritual chamber, Klaus placed the torch in its sconce on the back wall, then gestured toward the door.
“Go. The Right Hand is waiting.”
I trudged up the stairs to the top floor where, for the first time since the Ascension, Merrick’s door was open.
He was lounging behind his desk, feet up on edge of it and stump of his arm resting across his thighs.
It was bandaged, though not as heavily as the last time I’d seen it.
Merrick looked like he was mostly back to normal, too, no longer pale and sickly.
His green eyes flicked to me when I stepped inside, and to his credit, he managed not to sneer.
“Ah, Kitingor.” He dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward to prop his elbows on the desktop. “How are you finding your work?”
I wanted to complain that it wasn’t work I should have been doing, but telling him what he already knew wouldn’t help anything. So, I bit back those words and said instead, “I’m sure that’s not why you called me here.”
The hint of a smile—not at all kind—lifted one corner of his lips. “Of course. I wanted to advise you that I’ve sent out messengers to announce the sixth Oath. The initiates will be leaving in the morning. All together.”
Somehow, in the chaos of Levitt’s murder and my rise to Shroud Warden and the shock of how near completion the Vessel was, I’d forgotten that we still had two Oaths left.
I didn’t know what either of them were. Merrick’s look of near glee at the mention of the sixth was enough to clue me in that it was something cruel.
“I should be getting home then,” I said. “I’ll need time to pack.”
“Oh, no, you misunderstand.” He gestured to my office across the hall with the stump of his right wrist. “You’ll be staying here. As the Shroud Warden, there’s no point to you finishing your Oaths.”
Penny and I were already spending more time apart than I was comfortable with, and I would be damned if I let Merrick send him away without me, too.
Just the idea of Penny on the road with only Rosie and Isla as a buffer between him and Otis was enough to make my stomach twist. I reminded myself that he was capable of defending himself if the need arose, but still, it was an unnecessary risk.
Luckily, Merrick had unwittingly given me the perfect argument against him half a year ago when he’d insisted I redo my first Oath.
“I must disagree,” I replied. “If anything, I think it’s the opposite: finishing my Oaths is vital to my being in this position, as proof of my dedication to Eeus.
If exceptions are made to one part of the law”—I fought a grin when his face pinched with recognition—“what will stop others from claiming they’re due exceptions to it, too?
It sets a dangerous precedent, Your Eminence.
It would be unwise to allow two last Oaths to jeopardize all we’ve built here. ”
He narrowed his eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to shirk your responsibilities so soon after taking them on.”
“You know as well as I do that the work in the caverns will continue just fine without me. They don’t need my supervision to carry on the work they’ve been doing for decades.
” He still looked unconvinced, so I pressed a little harder.
“But best we all follow the rules so that your leadership isn’t called into question by your granting concessions to those on the Tribunal. We shouldn’t get special treatment.”
Merrick scowled, but he clearly knew he’d been outsmarted. He didn’t protest further.
I stepped back toward the open door. “If there’s nothing else, I need to get home and pack.”
Merrick waved me away, and I headed for home.
When I arrived, both cats were hunkered down on the couch and casting wary glances down the hall. I toed off my boots by the door and undid the tie of my collar as I padded toward the sounds of drawers being opened and closed in our bedroom.
Inside, it looked like there’d been a localized whirlwind.
Our bag was on the foot of the bed, a quarter packed, and there were clothes strewn about across the mattress and all over the floor.
Penny knelt in front of the dresser rooting through the bottom drawer, and his eyes were wide with panic when he finally noticed me and looked over.
“What are you doing?” I asked, baffled by the array of clothing.
Penny looked at his hands clutched around an old brown scarf—the one he’d gotten from Elise and Margot in Wendwood—that he’d dug out of the drawer. “Packing,” he said, as if that explained everything.
Looking at the mess again, I spotted the missive the messenger must have dropped off, half-buried under our bag. I tugged the parchment free and scanned the instructions.
No wonder Penny was so distraught.
“How long do you expect to be gone, Pen?”
He threw the scarf down and dropped heavily on his heels.
“Well, I don’t know, Kit,” he snapped. “However long it takes. Mostly, I don’t know what to bring.
” He threw his arms up in exasperation. “What does one wear to throw a sheep down a well? Should I cover my face like a bandit while I’m poisoning a whole town’s water supply?
And what did that sheep ever do to deserve this? It’s barbaric!”
“The entire thing is barbaric,” I muttered, “for the sheep and the people who are going to have to dig a new well.”
Penny started stuffing stray clothing back into the drawer as he grumbled, “I’ll let the others handle it because I want no part of it, and I’m glad you won’t have a part in it either.”
Were it not for the prospect of what we were going to set out to do in the morning, I might have found his petulance humorous.
But I knew it was a shield for his worry.
We’d managed to avoid ruining anyone’s livelihood with the fifth Oath, but here, he knew we wouldn’t be so lucky.
There would be others with us, and even though we might talk Rosie and Isla around to lying about completing our task, Otis would never agree.
The moment we returned, he’d tell Merrick everything.
We had no choice but to carry out what we were being sent to do.
“You know I wouldn’t let you do this alone, Pen.”
He glanced back at me, and his shoulders sagged in relief.
“Oh, thank gods. I know it’s awful of me, but I didn’t want to go without you.
And when the messenger said you’d be staying here…
” He paused, brows drawing together in confusion.
“Why aren’t you staying here? You’re not an initiate anymore. ”
“Merrick didn’t want me to go, probably because he wants me here where he can keep an eye on me, but technically, I still need to finish my Oaths in the required timeframe to keep this position.”
He nodded, then squinted at me. “…Do you want to keep this position?”
I shrugged. “No, but it’s the wise thing to do right now. It’s not what it would have been under Levitt, but it still buys us some small bit of safety since I have at least some authority.” Not that anyone respected it. But a title was a title, which was better than nothing.
I forced a smile when Penny’s confusion started to shift to concern at my less than sure tone.
“Even if I am just getting in the way in the caverns,” I finished.
“Is that where you came from just now?”
We hadn’t spoken much about my new responsibilities since that first day, and I often beat Penny home in the evenings. By the time he got in, I’d had time to wash my robes and scrub myself almost to the point of pain to get rid of the traces of bone dust on my skin.
“I’m only in my office for a few minutes at the end of the afternoon to report in on our progress.”
Penny’s eyes dipped to my robes, and his nose wrinkled. “And all that powder is…?”
“People,” I said without thinking.
He shuddered and shrank back from me. “Now I understand why you get out of the bath so pink these days.”
I chuckled. “Speaking of, I should go take one now and wash these robes, but I need to pack, too.”
“I’ll pack for both of us,” Penny said in a rush. “You go scrub the… people off.”
“Thanks,” I said through a grin. “I’d kiss you, but I don’t want this on you, too.” I turned for the door, but paused on my way through it to look back at him. “And Pen? Why don’t you throw a couple of bandit masks in there just to be safe?”