I take a few breaths, trying to process this new information, arrange it beside all I have learned this evening. The effort fatigues me. It is too complex, too overwhelming. “What I don’t understand is why you had to complete that—” My stomach turns at the recollection. “Ritual.”
Only now does Zephyrus turn. His eyes are darkened moss with little light to brighten them.
“The only thing I can tell you is that the past is always present. As such, this is the life I must live.”
“But you’re his captive,” I press. “Why? For how long?”
He rests a hand against the wall. Beneath his touch, the stone shimmers into a bright opening that reveals a familiar bend of water singing over rocks. There is no mistaking it. Carterhaugh lies on the other side of the doorway.
“This is where I leave you,” Zephyrus says.
A gentle push sends me stumbling through the quiet wood. When I turn around, there is no sign of the entrance, nor the Bringer of Spring, only the smooth, leaden face of a boulder.
I blink, a bit dazed. Daylight streams through the broken canopy. Noon, judging by the sun’s position, which means I have missed not only service, but breakfast and morning chores. Zephyrus failed to maintain his end of the bargain. My absence has no doubt been noticed.
Lifting my dress, I hurry back up the mountain, trying to think of an adequate excuse for my absence. I could claim I was gathering pearl blossom, which only blooms under moonlight, and which the infirmary is dangerously low on. Soon enough, the church spire breaches Carterhaugh’s leafy crown. Once the porter admits me through the gatehouse, I fly across the grounds toward the cloister. As I turn a corner, I run into Isobel and Fiona, both of whom I was supposed to harvest barley with this morning.
Isobel shrieks and recoils against Fiona, whose face drains of color so quickly she teeters. “Brielle?”
I offer my most apologetic smile. Perhaps it is not too late to fix the damage I’ve wrought. “Sorry for missing chores earlier. I lost track of time and…” And nothing. The lie is so pathetic it doesn’t seem to be worth voicing.
They stare at me, slack-jawed, eyes wide.
Isobel recovers first. “What are you going on about?” she cries, and the strength of her ire sends me back a step, my shoulder knocking one of the pillars. “Mother Mabel has been worriedsickabout you. Is this some kind of joke?”
Joke? I look to Fiona in confusion. The younger novitiate approaches me, slow and watchful. Never before has she regarded me this way: as though I have risen from the dead. “Brielle,” she says hoarsely. “What happened to you?”
Too much, I nearly say, but I must remain tight-lipped. “The infirmary is low on pearl blossom, so I went to gather some at the riverbank. I’m sorry I lost track of time.” It has happened before, so it isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility.
Fiona’s expression grows troubled. She knows, as I do, that traveling from Thornbrook to the River Twee, where pearl blossom thrives, takes less than an hour on foot. “Did you get lost?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?” Isobel demands. “We looked everywhere for you. Mother Mabel sent for the sheriff.”
“The sheriff?” My voice crests sharply. Through the open doors at the end of the corridor, a group of novitiates startles at the disturbance. Shade obscures their features, but someone gasps, “Brielle?”
I do not understand. Only once before has our abbess sent for the sheriff. It took seven days of searching to find Madeline, whose mysterious pregnancy led to her eventual dismissal from the abbey. “Why would she send for him? I was only gone for an hour.”
“An hour?” Fiona is incredulous. “Brielle,” she whispers. “It’s been sevendays.”
The words do not immediately process. “What?”
“You’ve been gone for a week.”
“Stop.” My voice cracks. “Do not toy with me. I went down to the river, but I am here now.” Have they fashioned this hoax as a punishment for my tardiness? If so, I do not appreciate the distress it causes me.
I begin to brush past them, but Fiona snags my arm, her expression grim. She is stronger than I had anticipated. “It is no act. We’ve been searching for you for many days. We believed you to be dead.”
My blood pounds so forcefully my skin throbs with each heaving beat. In the far doorway, the novitiates have multiplied, their mystified whispers seeping out into the open air. Any attempt to neutralize my features crumbles as my mind falls quiet.
It cannot be. Because if what they claim is true, then somehow, over the course of a single night in Under, an entire week has passed in my absence.
“Mother Mabel truly sent for the sheriff?” I croak.
Fiona nods. Isobel shuffles backward as if I carry a pox.
“I will speak with her.” I nod to myself, for it is a good plan. We will speak, and I will explain my mysterious absence. “What time is it?”
