Zole answered Nona’s question after a pause so long that Nona had given up waiting on a reply. ‘The Missing purged their klaulathu … their sins, if you like, in temples built for the purpose. The klaulathu are parts of an individual, not properly alive nor properly dead, and they dwell around the margins of the Path. But places such as the temples, in which so many were purged, remain weak spots where klaulathu can leak back into the world.’

‘And the black ice?’ Nona had an uneasy feeling that she knew the answer.

‘Is where the klaulathu have polluted the ice as it moves across the place where such a temple was sited. The corruption, the evil of an entire race tainting this world again.’

‘And this is the best way to get up onto the backs of the glaciers?’ Nona couldn’t imagine that it was.

‘It is the best way to avoid the Noi-Guin. They lack purity of heart and are susceptible to the klaulathu. They will not dare to guard this path.’

Nona eyed the sucking blackness ahead of them. ‘I’m not sure I dare to walk it. I’m susceptible too, remember?’

13

Present

Holy Class

‘We’ve got to steal the book today?’ Ara looked shocked. ‘We need at least until the seven-day to plan.’

‘Today! Now!’ Nona ducked out of Ara’s study room. ‘I’m going to grab Jula.’

‘Wait! Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?’ Ara’s protest followed her down the stairs.

Images of Sister Apple’s face filled Nona’s mind, just as she must have looked when she discovered the ruin of her stores chamber. Nona was sure she’d left the eye drop flask out. That must have been what told Joeli she was in there. Hopefully it was lost in the mess now rather than standing incriminatingly on the worktop before the shelves of preparations.

Even without such immediately damning evidence, though, Nona didn’t think it would take long for Mistress Shade to establish her guilt. What Abbess Wheel would do in response didn’t bear thinking of, but Nona doubted a raid on the high priest’s vault would still be an option afterwards.

‘Nona!’ Ara now hung from the dormitory window on the third floor, shutters flung wide. ‘Are you sure? This is madness …’

Nona looked up at the friend she was asking to risk so much. Abbess Glass had told her to obtain the book by whatever means necessary. She had given Nona the instruction when her illness first bit, and she had repeated it on her deathbed, knowing that the empire’s armies were failing. Nona had promised the dying woman and she would hold to the promise with or without help, even if it meant defying the high priest and all his archons. She would do it even if she had to reduce the place to ruin and dig the book out of a pile of corpses.

‘Trust me.’ It was all the pleading she would do. And with a nod Ara withdrew.

At the scriptorium Nona sped to a rear window and jumped up, propelling herself with the window ledge to gain height so that she could check the library’s occupants. As was so often the case Jula sat alone at a desk, a number of yellowed scrolls around her. Nona dropped back to the ground and hurried in through the front entrance. Sister Scar was at her desk in the scriptorium’s main hall, illuminating a copy of the Book of the Ancestor. She favoured Nona with a narrow stare but said nothing.

‘Jula!’ Nona closed the library door behind her. ‘You—’ She swallowed her words at the sight of a tiny novice carrying a book from the shelves. The girl’s habit pooled around her feet. ‘We were never that small, were we?’

‘You were smaller than me when you arrived.’ Jula looked up from her work. ‘There was room for two Nonas in the habit they issued you.’ She turned her head towards the younger novice. ‘Yes, that’s the one. Thank you, Marta. Put it on the chair, if you will.’

‘We need to talk.’ Nona took Marta’s shoulders as she straightened from setting down the heavy book. ‘Alone.’ And steered the child towards the door.

Jula sighed. ‘Off you run, Marta. We’ll do some more on the seven-day.’

They both waited for the door to close.

‘What?’

‘I need the order,’ Nona said.

‘You need to get the abbess’s seal back to her somehow. I know it’s not used often but I’m amazed she hasn’t noticed it’s gone.’

‘That will have to wait.’ Nona held her hand out. ‘We’re doing this today.’

Jula reached into her habit and retrieved a leather tube, a parchment scroll inside. ‘Good.’

‘Good?’ Nona took the tube and checked the document. ‘I thought you’d be horrified.’

‘Come with me.’ Jula got up and walked towards the rear of the library. ‘I’ve something important to show you.’

Nona’s shoulders slumped as they always did when Jula tried to get her excited about some ageing book. She followed, frowning. Some of the writing was so old it almost seemed they used a different language, all thees and thous and words that had to be explained. Others still contained no single word known to her.

Jula squeezed past the rows of shelves stacked with scroll upon scroll and pushed right to the back. She shifted a board aside, sneezing at the dust. In the gloom and after the brightness of the reading room Nona could make out very little. Jula fiddled with a key. Nona hadn’t imagined there was space in the scriptorium for another chamber, some secret vault no doubt … The door cracked open and to Nona’s surprise daylight streamed in. Jula stepped through, beckoning her out, locking the door behind them. They stood behind the building with the barrel store and Sister Candle’s workshop before them. Nona must have passed the door they’d exited by a thousand times without ever noticing it.

Jula led on, out towards the end of the spur on which the convent sat. The cliffs to either side marched ever closer as the Rock of Faith’s plateaued top narrowed towards a point. Jula’s shadow leapt before them, as if it were eager to reach the edge first and leap off. Nona could imagine herself alone and that the shadow belonged to her. Shadows might seem simple things but somehow they pinned you to the day. Since she’d lost hers Nona had never quite felt part of the world.

‘Where are we—’

Jula ignored Nona’s attempt at a question and marched on. She passed the Glasswater sinkhole and continued across pitted stone until they stood just yards from the jagged edge where the Rock dropped away. She pointed east. In the distance smoke smudged the sky.

‘You’ve been very busy the last few days, Nona, and nobody wanted to trouble you in the sanatorium … but that smoke? That’s Queen Adoma’s front line. Sherzal has returned to the Ark. They say the battle in the field is all but lost. Heretics will be at Verity’s walls in a week. Maybe sooner.’

‘But …’ Nona hadn’t known it was this bad. ‘What about the Ninth and the Seventh?’ The emperor’s personal divisions were an elite with fearsome reputation, forged through centuries. ‘Everyone says Crucical will deploy them.’

‘The Ninth went west last seven-day. A Durn army showed up at the walls of Arnton. The convent of Silent Patience and the monastery at Red Rill are both in ruins. The Seventh are lining up before the Ark but their numbers are badly depleted.’