A hardrain battered the stained glass windows of West Tower. Beyond them, I saw nothing, only impenetrable blackness, but I could hear the wind screaming through the battlements like a banshee.
I’d had to brave the storm to fetch my tools from my room: the hammer and chisel I’d stowed under a floorboard. I’d begged the deluge to spare my dress, but it was single-minded in its pummeling of the island. Still, only the silky outer layer was wet, and the pins in my hair had held fast against the gale. I smoothed the flyaways as I hurried up the steps, my dancing shoes mercifully silent on the stone.
Then, out of nowhere, a deep rumble sounded. The spiral staircase jolted and trembled. I put out a hand to steady myself; a tapestry ahead of me now hung askew.
Another faint shudder. Glass tinkled downstairs. A few far-off exclamations—then stillness.
I could hear only my breath and the insistent, driving rain.
A quake, I guessed. I’d never felt one before. We’d learned about the big ones in our classes at Arbenhaw: The Breaking of the Eastwilds,north of Gods’ Hollows, which had tumbled House Avocet’s citadel into the sea. And, long before that, the unnamed quake that had flattened half of Ulthony, buried House Ibis, and set off a tidal wave that had ravaged southern Breova.
I knew small quakes weren’t uncommon along the coast, but I’d never expected to experience one. My breath came fast as I carried on upward.
By the time I neared the family’s rooms, the jovial music had resumed downstairs, the chatter was decidedly less excited, and my heart had calmed. There were no more shudders.
I made for Vercha’s chamber first.
It seemed the safest place to start: to try out the tools the Cage had handed over and give the room a more thorough going-over in search of something interesting—or incriminating.
The sisters shared adjoining bedrooms with a well-appointed washroom between. Vercha’s domain was the most familiar, with its blush-colored furnishings, its heavy gold-trimmed drapes, the glass vases on nearly every surface, bursting with bunches of late-blooming roses. Their scent was heady as I circled the room.
I’d already tallied the laconite in here, but now I tapped at a piece with the chisel experimentally. A hairline crack, almost invisible, spidered out from the center of the stone. Breath catching, chest thudding, I drew the tools away. The odd little rap every now and then should be enough to degrade it sufficiently—but not enough for the damage to be obvious.
I was more concerned by the Cage’s other task: sniffing out information they could use to “influence” Rexim’s decisions in the Chamber.
Quickly I checked in all the placesImight have hidden something secret in this room: beneath the mattress, inside the books, the top of the wardrobe, the bottoms of pockets.
There was paper on Vercha’s writing desk, a pot of ink that lookedfresh from today. As I searched, I came upon a small wax-sealed envelope, shoved all the way to the rear of a drawer. It was as yet unaddressed, and when I held it to a lamp, I saw faint, close-packed writing inside. But intrigued as I was, I could do nothing with it. The wax seal would break, and she’d know someone had snooped.
Frustrated, I tidied, leaving everything pristine. But when I walked past the fireplace, something else caught my eye. Crouching, I prodded at the cinders with the poker. There was paper here, too, blackened scraps among the ashes. One brownish corner seemed to have escaped the blaze; three spiky words in black ink: …our future depends…
Vercha had been burning letters.
I stood and returned the poker to its stand, remembering when Vercha had dropped a letter at the posting house in Port Rhorstin. How odd it now seemed that she hadn’t left it in the culverhouse to be flown to the mainland by one of our crows.
My mind whirred as I moved to Catua’s room. It could all be nothing, I supposed. Maybe Vercha just didn’t like storing letters. But it struck me as strange that she would go to the trouble.
The urge to pry further was smoldering in me, but there was little I could do, with the letters sealed or burned. Besides, I couldn’t linger. I might be missed soon.
Pushing the discovery aside for now, I stepped into the bedroom of the youngest Shearwater.
It was all reds and golds and looked far more lived-in. There were books on nearly every surface, some lying open, others in teetering piles. A blouse hung haphazardly on the back of a chair. Something told me I didn’t need to worry so much about putting things back exactly where I found them.
Working quickly, I moved from armoire to dresser, from washstandto writing desk, and finally to her end table. She had far less laconite than Vercha did, less than her father and her eldest brother. What was here was dusty, as though little used, and as those lacework cracks spread outward, my heart didn’t pound quite as forcefully as before.
I’d found no evidence, however, to pass on to the Cage. No love letters, no diary mentioning Rhianne…Disappointment plucked at me, mixed with cold guilt.
I was about to leave to search the brothers’ rooms when my fingers dislodged something in an end table drawer. I crouched, feeling around a bit more, and realized with a jolt what I’d discovered:
A hidden compartment.
I eased it open and reached inside, drawing out a thin stack of paper. It was a slim volume—a pamphlet, really—bound together with fraying string. I flipped it and read the title stamped on it:
The Breovan Charter of Orha Rights
I dropped the pamphlet as though I’d been burned and stared down at it, pulse hammering. Then, fingers trembling, I picked it up and flicked through it, wanting to see if it really was what it said it was.
And sure enough, it was a charter. A manifesto. Printed in stark black ink, its pages well thumbed.
