“Are all the doors locked?” someone exclaims downstairs.
A commotion is rising. More confusion. Similar exclamations from supplicants.
I look back to Saipha, whose eyes are as wide as mine must be. We all know what the vicar said, what we’ve been told our whole lives: the Tribunal has one purpose—toforcethe curse out. By any means necessary.
And like it or not, all my worst fears are about to come to a head.
A copper box on the wall rattles with the crack of Etherlight and the voice of an unseen speaker. Their words boom through the halls.
“Keys to the rooms have been hidden across the monastery. Acquaint yourselves with your new home. But do it before the day bleeds out. Like the rest of Vinguard, in the Tribunal, safety at night is not a promise.”
I look over at Lucan. Then Saipha. Then back. He turns and bolts down the stairs.
“Chances of there being enough keys for all of us?” I ask Saipha, emotion draining from my voice.
“Slim.” She says what I also suspect.
“And whatever they’re going to do to us at night?”
“Horrible,” she agrees with my thoughts yet again.
“You ready?” I roll my shoulders back and take a breath.
Saipha cracks her knuckles, tosses her short hair. “Yeah, you?”
Even though I feel like I could vomit. Even though this is the nightmare I can’t run from. Even though I’ve spent years training for this and yet feel like I’m somehow unprepared… My voice doesn’t crack when I say, “More. Than. Ever.”
10
We only need one key. Saipha and I can share a room, I tell myself as we race down the spiral stair. What matters is that we’re not left out at night. Whatever the inquisitors have in store for those unlucky souls isn’t going to be good, I feel it in my marrow, and I’m not going to let it be me.
Once afflicted human bodies have matured enough to physically hold the imbalance of Ethershade that causes the transformation, it can happen any moment. But times of intense physical or emotional distress—pain, fear, danger—are well-established triggers. Knowing this, I can only imagine what kind of situations they’ve crafted to draw out a change.
The other supplicants seem to have the same take on our circumstances. They’re racing down the stairs, shouts and grunts echoing back at us. Saipha and I are all the way on the fourth floor, so beating anyone out to the main areas is hopeless…unless we resort to more ruthless physicality.
Is that what we’re supposed to do? Harm each other for an edge? Would the inquisitors stop us? I’ve no idea. For the first time, it dawns on me what that really means…Anythingcould happen in here. The notion sticks in my brain as though pinned there by a Mercy dagger, poisoning my blood with fear.
Suddenly, not telling us about the inner workings of the Tribunal feels less like an effort to prevent the cursed from avoiding discovery…and more like another way to mess with our minds. And cover their asses. Mum’s words echo in my ears.But they will do things to you in there…horrible things that should never be forgiven, and they’ll tell you it’s normal.
“Down here.” I make a quick decision and pull Saipha into the third-floor hall.
“Here? Why?”
“We’re already the last of the group. We’re not going to catch up. Let them dissipate, maybe find a few keys, and we can see if there’s some sort of trend in where they’re hidden. Plus, there’s nothing to say a key can’t be hidden in plain sight here in one of the hallways,” I explain, skimming the long stretch of doors for a key already in its lock.
“Sometimes the right solution is the most obvious,” Saipha immediately agrees. “I’ll go back up to the fourth floor and check there.”
“After this, I’ll check the first.” Concocting a plan already feels better than racing headlong into the chaos.
“And I’ll take the second.”
“Then we can split up to search the rest of the building.”
She pauses at the entrance to the stairwell. “We only need one, right?” I love how we arrived at the same conclusion without the need for discussion.
“Yeah, but let’s get as many as we can find. They could be good for bartering later.” It’s probably far too optimistic to think we’ll find more than two, but if we do… I’m taking any advantage I can get here.
“Great minds.” She grins, no doubt having already thought much the same again. Saipha is going to make an exceptional Mercy Knight, I already know. “The vicar or your father wouldn’t have happened to teach you any find-the-thing-I-need sigils, would they?”
