A sick feeling twisted in my chest, but: “He knows his chances are best with us.”
“What happens when they’re not?”Mary’s back bumped into my chest as the movement of the crowd slowed.Cold air from the open exterior door blew over our heads.“He couldn’t control the soldiers; they have talismans.Does that mean they’re Ess Noti?What if we are captured and he’s not?”
“I have no answers, Mary.”
The jostling of the crowd increased and we were squeezed out into the courtyard.Soldiers sifted through the Servants, directing men and women into different groups on the trampled snow.
“I’ll meet you in the forest,” Mary hissed.She sounded calm, but her hand clenched mine too tightly.
I held hers just as firmly, valiant promises drying up on my tongue.If I tried to fight the soldiers and keep us together, I would call attention to us and likely end up getting both of us bloodied.
“In the forest,” I affirmed lowly, but could not manage to let go of her hand.
“You, here, now.”A soldier grabbed my arm and hauled me across the yard.I nearly slipped in the snow, and Mary was torn away.The soldier snorted something derogatory then shoved me into the knot of male monks.
Mary was prodded into a knot of shivering women, both monks and novices.
“Stand in a line and pull back your hoods!”a Mereish officer shouted.
No one moved.A frigid breeze threaded through the yard, rustling the leafless branches of occasional trees and biting my cheeks.Mary watched me briefly then looked down, pulling her hood deeper and easing back into the press of women.I lost sight of her.
Soldiers elbowed into the crowd, grabbing women and lifting their heads with rough hands and musket muzzles.A figure I thoughtwas Mary edged backwards, ducking behind older, more stoic monks and keeping her head down.
A soldier seized her by the robe and spun her around.
I lunged out of line.Soldiers shouted and swarmed.The cold mouth of a pistol pressed into my forehead, and I went still.
I saw the monk and soldier again a moment later when he forced her back into line.Her cowl was gone, red hair escaping at the temples from carefully wrapped braids.Not Mary.
“Him.”
A Mereish officer took stance in front of me.He looked vaguely familiar, with sun-narrowed eyes, smooth black curls tamed into a queue, and light skin with the slight hint of brown.
The officer snapped to his men in Mereish, sending more of them scattering off across the grounds, then gave his full attention to me.As soon as our eyes locked, I knew him for what he was.Another Sooth.
Furthermore, I recognized him.He had bumped into me on the docks in Tithe, right after I had glimpsed Enisca Alamay.
“Where are your companions?”the man asked.
I gave him a flat, cold stare.“You are Inis Hae.”
His eyes narrowed for a breath, then he shrugged.“I am.Now, where are your companions?”
Shouts erupted, and I glimpsed a blur of horses and men near the gates.The horses were wild, the men panicked, their eyes wide with feral, unconstrained terror.Ben or some other Magni had found an outlet for their sorcery.
Hae, too, glanced in their direction.In that briefest of openings I ducked to the side, snatched his pistol, and smashed the butt down towards his forehead.He deflected with preternatural swiftness, but I was already running.
Wind blasted through the crowd, throwing back hoods, tearing away hats and snapping clothing like flags.A Stormsinger’s voice rose, then another, and another, chanting and harmonizing and building off one another in a twisted version of a midnight prayer.
Mary’s voice was not among them.
I ducked reaching hands and exhaled half my consciousness into the Other.The Dark Water swelled around my ankles, lights pricked into view and I marked the Mereish mages.There were two Magni, desperately trying to calm the horses and ensorcelled soldiers.Then the bright, Sooth beacon of Inis Hae.
I caught a flash of teal.A nun fled past me, her body shrouded in Stormsinger’s light.But there was no grey in her aura, and her face was older—in her fifties.Other Stormsingers shifted at the edges of my vision, but they, too, lacked Mary’s signature blend of mage and ghisting.She must still be wearing her talisman.
I could not see Benedict directly, but his power burned in the Other—close, then far, near Hae’s light and then passing me by.Magni force laced out like flames, wrapping around soldiers and horses and Servants alike.The Servants broke from their lines, and the chaos in the courtyard became complete.
Someone caught my arm.The human world resumed its solid forms and snow-blurred lines as Ben hauled me behind a hedge.He had commandeered a staff—now streaked with blood—though his other arm was still in its sling.
