"You've done it wrong."
"Where?"
Nova pointed. It wasn't an awful mistake, but she was getting annoyed with how easily Grace was picking up the Nictavian script, petty as she knew it was. Growing up in Caelum, she and her siblings had had the best tutors the city could muster and none of them had picked it up this quickly.
Grace pulled their last smuggled sheet of paper towards her and began the alphabet again. Her lines were far from confident, but when Nova snatched it out from under her hand a few minutes later she couldn't find any faults. She shoved it back harder than necessary.
"That'll do, I suppose," she said. She faltered as Grace glowed.
"I got it right?"
"Yes," she said, grudgingly. Her face was hot and she didn't know why; she put it down to embarrassment, since a moment later Grace hissed 'Yes!' and punched the air like a child. A few faces from around the kitchens turned their way, but no one had come to bother them in Nova's habitual corner. She didn't think she was imagining that the staff weren't quite as hostile as she was used to; when Grace was with her, their looks were of mild curiosity, sometimes even doting, rather than open dislike.
Nova stared at the otherworld girl's head as she bent over her work. There was something about her that brought people's barriers down; innocence, maybe. Though the girl had her serious moments, she approached the world with a wonder that Nova hadn't known since she was a child, all those years ago. No matter what she saw or what was done to her, Grace managed to find a smile for the little things.
"Are you alright, Nova?"
Nova blinked. Her face heated. She blurted, "Why are you so happy all the time?"
Grace frowned. "I'm not." She shrugged. "I'm actually pretty miserable most of the time. I miss the light. I miss home. I miss Jordan all the time, even worse because I know he's within reach." She tilted her head to one side and considered Nova with a gleam in her eye. "But you take some pleasure where you can get it, don't you? Jordan always says if we didn't laugh, we'd fucking cry."
Nova was suddenly aware of how close they were. She didn't remember when the work sitting between them had moved into the corner, so that their knees were almost touching. She battled an urge to scramble backwards, out of reach. The last time she had found herself in this situation, with someone else, when she was someone else, it had all gone wrong days later. Sometimes she liked to kid herself that that was nothing to do with it, but she tried to imagine those days as they played out without that betrayal, and knew that it had made it so much worse.
"I knew someone once," she said, unsure where she was heading with it, "a very long time ago, before I was here. I thought he was perfect. I think he thought he was perfect. Invincible, even. The world was joyful, nothing could hurt us, as long as we lived the right way. It ended very badly." She toyed with her chain, savouring the pain as it grated against the blisters around her neck. "I'm glad you don't think like that."
Grace shuffled closer. Nova stiffened, but held still as Grace's fingers lightly touched her cheek, the pads feverish-warm from holding her pen for so long, and Nova's skin erupted with pins and needles. She felt almost disappointed when Grace moved away, but then she realised someone was standing behind them.
Grace scrambled to her feet, wiping her hands on her skirts and smearing ink over her apron as Brillan cleared his throat. Nova was in no hurry to get up. She could still feel Grace's touch on her face, though it felt cold now, and strange.
"Your presence is required in the lord's study," the butler intoned, though his eyes were flicking between her and Grace as he spoke.
Nova held out her hands for her chains, making sure not to break eye contact with him as she did so. He tried equally hard to pretend it didn't bother him, but Nova could see the truth in his aura.
"You seem to be close with that maid," the butler said, as they crossed the foyer to the stairs.
"She talks to me," Nova replied. "And if you so much as breathe a word about it to his Lordship, I will curse you into an early grave."
Brillan chuckled. "Whatever grave you cursed me into, girl, it would not be early."
Nova pressed her lips together to stop herself smiling. She never had got on well with Brillan, but the old man had his moments. She also knew he wouldn't tell; there wasn't a soul in the castle who didn't have something they wanted kept quiet. One snitch risked setting off a whole chain of staff dishing dirt on each other, and so it was universally understood that short of killing someone, your secrets stayed your own.
It was especially useful that most of the staff seemed to be under the impression that Nova could get into their thoughts, a notion she hadn't done much to dispel.
An almost imperceptible sigh escaped Brillan as they reached the top of the stairs, where the shouting from the study at the end of the hall became audible.
"They're still going," he said dully. Nova frowned. She recognised Faellian's voice – the quieter of the two – and the other she was sure was Ethred, though she had never heard him so discomposed.
"...if you think I'm going to stand for this, Faellian..."
"You don't have a choice, Ethred, and night take me, stop swinging that thing around..."
Brillan cleared his throat outside the study door and knocked. The noise inside ceased immediately.
"Come in," Faellian said, two heartbeats later.
They entered. Faellian was seated behind his desk as if he had been there the entire time, but the baron was standing in the middle of the study with a pike in his hand. Nova looked to the wall behind him and saw the empty brackets where the weapon had been, and then at the baron, who fidgeted as if he only then realised the stupidity of stealing a weapon off the Nictavian ruler's study wall and brandishing it at him.
"Ah," Faellian said, getting up. "Finally."
He came around the desk, looking down his nose at her. She stiffened, leaning away as he paused and looked closer at her.
"Is that ink on your face?"
It was an effort not to show her dismay at this. Beside her Brillan sniffed.
"Some of the potboys were taking their lessons in letters," the butler said, without looking at Nova, "Kiel knows how they manage to spread it around so thoroughly."
Faellian wrinkled his nose. "Well, make sure it's cleaned up. I won't have my guests finding ink in their food this evening." He scowled at Nova, as if she'd got ink on her face just to upset him. "We haven't got time to clean you up. Brillan, make sure the maid comes with a washcloth. We can at least make an attempt." He turned away, scowling at the baron. "Put that bloody pike back, you look a dark-damned fool."
Ethred sneered, but faint colour rose in his cheeks and he put the pike back on the wall. Brillan bowed and left.
"Not only are you accusing me of breaking him out, then," the baron hissed, "but you're seriously taking it to Eril to verify the truth of my words? The insult is grievous, Faellian."
Nova frowned.
"No," the lord said, without turning round. He sipped at a glass of pale apple wine, which Nova noted he had not offered to Ethred. "I'm taking it to Eril to sort this mess out. Who broke him out is clear; it was Devils' work. One of them was sighted, remember?" Faellian ceased pretending he was at all interested in the documents he was fiddling with and fixed the baron with a cold glare. "At this stage, whether they were paid to do so by a third party is secondary to the issue at hand."
The maid entered. Nova was dismayed to find it was the one who had taken against her; she had noticed her around frequently, though since Grace had stepped in she hadn't been quite so confrontational about her dislike. In front of the lord she was unable to speak, but the tight smile and the violence with which she scrubbed at Nova's face with the washcloth said enough.
No one seemed inclined to give any further detail on the problem, but Nova could take a good guess that they were talking about Silas. She had heard the intruder bells going off, sequestered in the kitchens with the household staff for safety, but hadn't been able to gather the reason behind the break-in until now. She thought about the boy's fear that his association with the Devils would be discovered, and couldn't help but feel just a little sorry for him; if they had taken the time to break him out of the castle from under the lord's nose, his debt to the guild must have been a heavy one.
She winced, stifling a hiss through her teeth as the maid tugged the stumps of her wings together and pinioned them behind her. A dress was dragged on after that, and as Nova turned so the maid could get at the bow, she caught Ethred's eye. The baron stared unashamedly, even when he realised she was looking.
She loaded as much venom into her glare as she could muster and held his gaze until he dropped it.
Before long she was up on the saddle of Faellian's stallion and the lord was mounting in front of her. For a moment she fervently wished Yddris was coming with them; she could neither see nor sense any sign of the Unspoken nearby and guessed he was busy with Jordan.
She supposed it wasn't the end of the world if she fell out of the saddle with no one there to catch her; she'd certainly had worse.
She looked back towards the castle one more time as they passed under the gatehouse, and realised with a jolt that Grace had followed the procession out and was watching them from the far side of the courtyard. She was holding a kitchen rag and clutching her arms to keep herself warm, but as Nova looked back she raised a hand and waved. Though she was too far away to make out her face, Nova felt the heat of that smile on her as they rode away.
"Stop fidgeting," Faellian snapped in front of her, "Or you'll find yourself walking."
Nova fell still, trying to keep her thoughts away from Grace and failing.
The city was quiet. Somewhere not far away, a Kellian church chimed for midday prayers, and in the distance others joined in. A minute later, the resounding gong of the house temple echoed over the quarter. Ethred, riding beside and slightly behind Faellian, made a disparaging noise in his throat and touched a fist to his chest, as if to ward off the influence of a god that wasn't his own.
The Orthanian house temple wasn't far from the castle, but the journey seemed to stretch on. They passed few civilians; those they did see were in a hurry to get somewhere, or else staring at their procession out of doors and windows. It was a depressing, grim kind of day; the twilight zone between the end of the light season and the onset of the dark. It was undoubtedly the worst time of the year in Nictaven, and even Nova – who got out of the castle very rarely and had even less to do with general city life – found it more miserable than usual. Even the sight of the temple, glowing with its many candles glittering off of polished stone, failed to mitigate the sheer greyness of everything.
Her wing stumps were aching. The maid had pinioned them cruelly tight; pain webbed over her neck and shoulders and down her spine. When she was pulled off the lord's horse she lost her balance, nerves screaming with pain as her knees hit the cobbled courtyard. A breeze rolled past her and made her aware of the spreading stickiness on the back of her dress where the wire had broken skin.
"What in Kiel's name is the matter with you?" Faellian hissed, wrenching her back up by her hair. He grimaced and let go of her just as quickly, and his palm was smeared with her blood. He wiped it on the shirt of the stable hand who had come to take his horse. "Night take me," he muttered, turning her around and ripping open the buttons on the back of her dress. "Do I have to do everything myself?"
Ethred's gaze was like a cold touch on the back of her neck.
"That maid you summoned was rough with her, Faellian," he commented, coming up behind them. "That's a lot of blood."
"I do wish people would refrain from forgetting that I'm not blind," Faellian replied, almost casually. Nova gasped as the wire came loose, the noise escaping her before she could hold it in. A whimper got past her, as well, as the stubs of her wings were pushed together again. The lord stopped and she tensed, expecting a strike from behind, but instead he let go of her entirely.
"Just this once," he muttered, throwing the wire to the stable hand. Nova was too relieved to object as the lord dragged her along by the silk ties on her wrists instead.
Inside the temple they were greeted by an oversized bronze statue of a kneeling man. His forehead was pressed to the floor, limbs curled around his emaciated body in a signal of total submission to bejewelled star that represented Orthan suspended above him. Orthanians did not have symbols for their religion, or represent their god in any human form, but those emblems they did carry were often ostentatious signs of wealth, depicted in gold and rare jewels. The interior of the temple was lit only by flickering candlelight, reflecting thousands of times off of the treasures on display; goblets, plates, tapestries woven with gold thread, swords with embellished handles, shields encrusted with precious gems the size of a fist. There were some items Nova recognised from the Caelumese war, artefacts of her people; a tarnished silver idol of Vestra, goddess of war and fertility, and Elandriel's Wicker Man, the promise of a blood debt in the eyes of the god of vengeance.
Just for a moment Nova felt again the weight of a training sword in her hand, a shield she would never have to take up. The war would be lost by the time she was old enough to fight, and not long after that she would lose everything she had ever known.
She blinked. In her distraction, she hadn't noticed when Eril had arrived. The head of house looked deeply unhappy about the unexpected visit, and even surlier at the mention of the acolyte they'd lost. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the ghosts, and caught Ethred's eye by accident; he was smirking, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had been, but a scan of his aura only revealed to her an overwhelming smugness.
Eril led them through the cavernous halls of the main temple, their footsteps echoing back at them from the vaulted ceilings. Frescos decorated the ceiling panels, each painting enclosed in the gold ribbing of the stonework. Behind the altar, which was dominated by a triptych depicting the Orthanian conquest, was a door. It was partially hidden behind a thick velvet curtain, and the air that it expelled as Eril pushed it aside was musty and smelled of chilled stone. The contrast of the tight, bare little corridor they entered and the temple itself was almost alarming.
"Well, we've heard nothing since your missive," Eril was saying as he led them down the passage. "For all we know he's vanished without trace. No one's even been back for the boy's belongings, and I've had guards stationed outside the dorms for the last couple of days to watch his room."
He led them into a tiny office at the bottom of a flight of steps. It was bare stone, decorated only by a table and a less elaborate Orthanian star. Eril helped himself to one chair and offered Faellian the other, shooting Ethred a warning look when he threatened to take offence.
"So," the head said, casting Nova a dismissive glance, "I'm not sure what you're hoping to achieve by coming here, Faellian. I assure you we don't know any more than you."
"I wish to see your temple's expenses records," Faellian replied, polite but cold.
"I brought those to you last week."
"You brought me the public ones," the lord corrected him. Eril's face darkened. "I want to see all of it, please." When Eril didn't move, he continued. "My household has been lenient in this regard owing to your generous donations to the upkeep of the city, but if I consider this to be in aid of the assassins' guild you may find that your worshippers start realising where their alms contributions are really going."
"Fine," Eril bit off, and Nova felt a shiver of disgust as he brushed past her and disappeared down the passage. The lord, face serene, crossed one leg over the other and clasped his hands in his lap, offering Ethred a benign smile even as his eyes danced with malice.
There were few things the lord disliked more than being lied to.
"Is there news?"
The voice from the doorway was soft, deep, and hid an undercurrent of something sinister. Nova turned.
She froze.
The new arrival didn't look at her, even as she scanned his aura for confirmation of her suspicions. Dimly she was aware that he was scanning hers back. The man was tall, fair but not pale, and his dark hair carried hints of red in the candlelight. He wore the robes of an Orthanian priest but carried himself like someone of considerably higher rank, which he wasn't, last time she had checked; admittedly, that check had been over a decade ago.
"Ah, Jeorge," Eril said, returning staggering under the weight of the temple records. "Did you have an appointment?"
"No, sir, but I can return later."
"Don't bother," the head said, dumping the records on the table, but Faellian's attention, like Nova's, was on Jeorge. "As long as you're quick."
"This is the first I've heard of Angels in your temple, Eril," Faellian said.
"It's just that one," Eril said. "Found him in rags on the streets, wanted to be taken into a holy house. He's been no trouble, I assure you."
"He will be," Nova murmured, before realising what she was going to say. She couldn't take her eyes off him, and was viciously delighted to see the tremor of shame ripple through his aura. "You can count on it."
"You know this man, Anara?" Faellian asked, smoothly cutting off the beginnings of protests from both Orthanians in the room.
Nova curled her lip. "We've met."
"Should I arrest him?"
Ethred scoffed. "You're asking a slave?"
"I'm asking an Angel, Ethred." The lord turned in his chair to pin the baron with a glare. "And if I get any more impertinence and idiocy from you today I'll put the decision on your fate to my servants. I'm sure they'd oblige with something appropriate."
It was like being launched back into her past; the weight of her slave collar was suddenly unfamiliar. She felt much younger, standing in front of a man she'd once admired – maybe even loved - and who had betrayed her utterly.
He finally looked at her, and his dark eyes still managed to root her to the spot, just like they always had. She hated herself for it.
"Hello, Anara," he said, in a language she hadn't heard spoken for years.
"Die in a hole," she returned, the Caelumese grating its way out of her after so much time unused. In Common, she said to Faellian, "I think it would be wise, my Lord."
"Excellent," Faellian said, looking as delighted as Jeorge looked fearful.
"See here, now," Eril said, stepping forward. Faellian held up a hand.
"This is not your call, Eril," the lord said, his voice biting, "It was your call to notify me of his presence and you didn't. This precautionary interrogation," he leered at Jeorge as he said this, "should have happened the minute you found him. Take him away."
Two guards who had escorted them to the temple stepped forward and took Jeorge by the arms. The Angel barely struggled, and as he turned Nova felt a lance of pain that went much deeper than her physical disfigurement at the sight of his wings, full and unclipped.
"He's coming, Nova," Jeorge called over his shoulder in Caelumese. Nova stiffened, loading as much venom into her glare as she could. "This time he'll kill you if you don't get out."
"Quit your tongues," a guard snapped, cuffing Jeorge over the head.
Nova didn't even enjoy a trickle of satisfaction at seeing him arrested through the icy cold that had washed through her at his words.
This time he'll kill you.
He's coming.