“I feel like someone has scooped me from the inside out.” Saipha groans. She’s perched on the lockbox in front of the door. “I won’t be able to stand by the time the test comes.”
“You still have strength you don’t realize.” Lucan doesn’t really sound optimistic. More like grimly determined based on experience he has yet to share with us.
“We can’t do poorly on the tests. They look at those most of all for entry into Mercy.” Saipha presses her eyes closed and shakes her head before opening them once more.
She has a point.
I sit on the edge of the bed. “I have an idea.” I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I don’t think I can.
“I know that look of yours…” Saipha leans forward. “What kind of an idea?”
“Neither of you have to be involved. I can do it alone.” The risk of this only needs to be on me. If the inquisitors have any reason to suspect I’ve been given outside information about the Tribunal, they might think I have even more. Maybe even enough to hide the curse. I think of Benj and fight a shudder. The inquisitors are ready to jump at any opportunity.
“We’renotleaving you alone.” Lucan’s conviction startles me.
“I think I might know where we can get food.Maybe,” I say.Down the red staircase, behind the black dragon shield for food. I repeat in my mind what Callon told me on Convening Day before I entered the monastery.
“How?” Saipha’s voice has dropped to a whisper. She knows the implications of what I’m saying. If there’s a way to get food when they’re intentionally starving us, it means breaking rules.
“A hunch. An instinct.” I meet her gaze and hold it, bidding her to understand that I’m not going to say anything more. Saipha bites her lip. She’s too smart not to suspect that I have some kind of information I shouldn’t if I’m being this confident but this cagey. But she knows better than to ask. It’s safer for her not to know; if she doesn’t, I can take the fall alone. “It might not be anything.” His information is out of date, and I know better than to assume the monastery’s Tribunal layout is consistent fromone year to the next. It’s clear that they open and close different sections to us as supplicants that I imagine are all open for the curates usually here.
“But if there’s a chance, it’s worth it to get our strength back before whatever they throw at us during the next challenge,” Lucan says my exact thoughts.
“You’re both thinking with your stomachs.” Saipha folds her arms and raises her knees, curling into a ball. “It isn’t worth the risk.” She definitely knows I was given illegal information about the Tribunal. “They know we’re all starving…they won’t throw something too intense at us for the next challenge.”
“Do you honestly believe that?” I ask her. She has no response, so I add, “They are determined to root out the curse by whatever means. No one has shown signs—yet—so they’re still hunting.”
“They won’t ease until the very end,” Lucan adds grimly. “Two more tests left.”
“They had Benj,” Saipha says weakly.
“He wasn’t dragon cursed, and we all know it.” We all sit in tense silence until I add, “I’ll be careful, but I don’t see any other way. They could use our weakness against any of us, claiming it’s a sign of the curse manifesting. Let’s not give the inquisitors any more reasons to suspect us.”
Saipha sighs. Lucan says nothing. Finally, as if reaching the same conclusion at the same time, they both nod.
We make the decision to go the next night. Better sooner than later, while we still have some strength. Saipha is still resistant to the plan. Being even proximally related to anything that has to do with someone revealing secret knowledge about the Tribunal has her on edge.
The problem is, I don’t know where to “go” other than a red staircase. Which I haven’t seen. And I’ve been up and down this whole place multiple times. While I haven’t been explicitly looking for one, I think I would’ve noticed.
“Are you sure you want to go alone?” The slow dragging of the lockbox across the floor almost hides Lucan’s soft words. Saipha is still sleeping.
“I’ll be all right,” I tell him, a little surprised at how worried he looks. It almost makes me want to touch his arm to reassure him. But the idea of reaching out and closing the gap between us has my stomach fluttering in a way it never has before, so I don’t.
“If you’re not back by the time the sun is fully up, I’m coming looking for you.” He nods toward the window. The first beams of a gray dawn are threading through the slats.
“Don’t worry. You won’t have to.” I flash him a bright smile, more confident than I feel. And I think I imagine him leaning forward slightly. But I leave before I can be sure.
The monastery is quiet. Everyone is still asleep, but I still am alert as I strike out on my scouting mission. Benj’s death still hangs over the monastery like a shroud, and some part of me knows that Cindel is going to blame me for it. Then there are the late additions, who are wild cards—I’ve no idea what orphans who grew up “fighting for scraps” will do when pushed like this. Not to mention all the other supplicants…
I take a breath and steady myself before my worries spiral. I mentally prepared my route last night, so I can keep my head on a swivel as my feet carry me where I need to go. Callon said “down” the red staircase, not up. Assuming he spoke from ground level, that substantially narrows my options. He also said explicitly regarding food, which draws me in the direction of the refectory.
I check the short stair that leads to it first for any signs of red. I scan the walls for the ghosts of old signposts and see none. There’s no artwork hung. I do find holes left behind from a long-gone runner bolted over the stone and hope that wasn’t it. I scan for any kind of string or lint left behind but find nothing.
I do the same on the next staircase. And then on the third.That’s when I see it, in the corner of one of the stairs that dead-ends in a storeroom I wrote off on the first day: a fleck of red paint that’s been almost completely scratched away. Easily overlooked if you aren’t searching for it.
Glancing down the stairs, I debate going now, but instead return to Saipha and Lucan. It’s getting later in the morning, and I don’t want them to worry. Or for Lucan to come searching for me.
“How’d it go?” he asks when I enter.
