On reaching the roof, Nona flipped herself up onto the sloping tiles using her core strength, and ran. She vaulted the roof ridge then slid down the far side. A leap from a height of twenty feet brought her to the ground amid a small barrage of dislodged tiles. She tucked into a roll to share the force of impact on feet and legs with shoulder, hip, and back. The roll brought her to her toes and she was sprinting as only a hunska can, straight across the plaza to where Sister Apple would emerge.

Nona could see the steps, the iron gate set further back, but no sign of Sister Apple or of Ara. Then she saw the nun, one hand reaching for the bars, the other thrusting a key at the lock. Ara came tearing around the corner, bare feet slipping from under her on flagstones still wet from the last rain. She rolled rather than try to right herself, and as Sister Apple pulled open the gate to ascend the last half a dozen steps, Ara reached the uppermost one on all fours.

The Poisoner reached the top step a few moments later, novices behind her, all heads turned the way that Ara had come, looking for Nona’s arrival in her wake. ‘One,’ the nun called out.

Nona rushed in from the other side, nearly knocking Ara down as she got to her feet.

‘Two …’ Nona heaved in a lungful of air. ‘Two novices … reporting as ordered.’

‘She must have cut the wire,’ Leenie said. Ketti and Alata, just behind Sister Apple, stared open-mouthed. The nun herself though fell to her knees, her hands reaching for Nona’s leg with a roll of bandage. ‘You’re bleeding, girl.’

Nona looked down at her crimson leg and the red footprints leading back behind her. A sudden vertigo, wholly absent when she clung above a drop of hundreds of yards, seized her and without a cry she fell into a darkness all her own.

10

Holy Class

Two days in the sanatorium proved sufficient for the patience trance to justify all the effort Nona had put into mastering it over so many years. The wire had sliced her shallowly but managed to open some large veins in her calf. Sister Rose sewed the wound closed and said that Nona would need a week of bed rest to recover from the loss of so much blood. After two days of staring from the depths of her trance out at the small garden cloistered beyond the sanatorium windows Nona felt herself ready to leave.

‘I should try walking.’ Nona sat up.

‘You’re a patient. The clue’s in the name.’ Ruli pushed her back down.

‘I’m an impatient patient.’ Nona wriggled up again.

Ruli tried to distract her with gossip. She had come to visit on her own and now looked as if she wished she had Ara to back her up should restraint prove necessary to keep Nona in bed. ‘Kettle’s home! They say she assassinated three Durn war-chiefs.’

‘They?’ Nona had already sensed Kettle’s approach through their thread-bond.

‘You know.’ Ruli waved the question away. Nona had never got to the bottom of who exactly the mysterious ‘they’ were. ‘I heard she went aboard a battle-barge to get the last one. Killed him out at sea. I hope it hurt.’ Ruli put her head down for a moment, the long, fair veil of her hair closing around her face. The Durns had killed two of Ruli’s uncles and sunk a good number of her father’s trading boats. She’d had no news of her family for months.

‘I’m sure she made the Durns regret crossing the sea.’ Kettle had been on the Marn coast weeks ago and some of her experience had haunted Nona’s dreams along their thread-bond. Nona doubted that the Durn commanders had suffered. Kettle was clinical in her kills. But it seemed that Ruli needed to hear something more satisfying.

Ruli nodded and sniffed.

‘Anyway, if Kettle is back that makes it the perfect time to get what I need from Apple’s stores.’ Nona kicked off her covers.

Ruli’s eyes widened on discovering the patient fully dressed. ‘Perfect? The Poisoner has eyes in the back of her head as it is. If Kettle’s there it will just be harder still. You don’t—’ Ruli stood as Nona swung both booted feet over the edge of the bed. ‘Get back in there!’

‘Yes, the perfect time. I’ve been wanting Kettle back!’ Abbess Wheel had been sending Kettle away at every opportunity, and war on two fronts provided plenty of opportunities. The fact was though that she would have sent her on nearly as many missions during peacetime. The old woman had never approved of Apple and Kettle’s relationship but even as abbess she couldn’t forbid it. The Church rules on celibacy within the sisterhood concerned only relations that might add branches to the tree of the Ancestor. Denial of such opportunity was considered a sufficient marriage sacrifice for the Brides of the Ancestor to make. ‘It’s been ages since Kettle was here. And who better to keep Sister Apple occupied?’

‘Well.’ Ruli hid a grin behind her hand. ‘You do have a point. They are very loud.’ She blushed. ‘At least that’s what they say. From what I’ve heard, if you pick your time you could batter down the stores’ door with a sledgehammer and neither of them would hear you. In fact, they’d drown you out.’

‘Ruli!’ Nona shook her head. ‘It’s settled then. We’ve got Sister Pan’s book to return to the vault. Jula’s made the order, complete with the abbess’s seal—’

‘Which you need to get back without Wheel noticing.’

‘Markus is ready to help compel any officials or guards who doubt us. And all I need now are Apple’s magic drops so that if there’s an investigation the only thing the guards have to say isn’t: “Well, I can’t remember much about them but I do recall the girl had completely black eyes …”.’

‘They’re not magic drops.’

‘Everything’s magic, Ruli. If you’d seen the thread-scape you’d know that. Everything’s magic, or nothing is.’ Nona slipped from the bed, sliding beneath her friend’s reaching arms to rise between them, smiling. ‘I’m fine. And I should do this while everyone thinks I’m still in bed.’

Ruli stepped back, exasperated. ‘How will you even get in? The main gate and the stores’ door both have sigil-locks now.’

‘I’ll find a way.’ Nona went to the window. ‘See if you can’t put a few me-shaped lumps in that bed in case anyone looks in to check.’ With that she slipped into the sheltered garden and clambered up Sister Rose’s prize cherry tree to reach the roof.

Despite her brave words Nona was shocked by how weak her arms were once called on to do any real work. Her calf muscle burned where the wire had cut it. She gritted her teeth and edged towards the roof ridge to survey her path.

Sigil locks were a problem. Abbess Glass had approved the expense after Hessa’s death in the undercaves and the Poisoner’s discovery of theft from her stores. Nona had branded herself as the thief by darkening her eyes with a self-brewed dose of the black cure, but the fact that a day before taking the cure Nona had saved Kettle’s life had meant that a better lock was the only action taken.

As tempting as it was to cross the convent Noi-Guin style from rooftop to rooftop the best practice, taught by Sister Apple herself, was far less flamboyant. Nona left the sanatorium by the door once an opportunity arose to do so unobserved. Under her habit she carried a lantern from the sanatorium, now lit and trimmed to its lowest. Already it was uncomfortably hot.