“I can’t believe it worked,” said Maureen, tears still wet on her face, the ink on her cheek streaking. Then she clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Brilliant,” said Mischa, glaring at her.
Maureen glared back.
“We should discuss nothing,” said Quinn, more mouthing her words than saying them. “You are quick on your feet.” She looked at me with a respectful dip of the chin.
Somewhat proud, I thought to myself that she likely did not often give compliments.
Eefa was still crying, but her mother had regained some composure. “Yes, that was really good. Really good thinking. Edie was it?”
I nodded. “That’s Helena, Maureen and Mischa. We work at the scriptorium.”
“All of us in the wrong place at the wrong time,” remarked Catrin, dabbing at her nose.
“The worst place at the worst time,” sighed River, tearful but serene.
“What will happen to us?” asked Bronwyn.
“I think we’re in for a very long journey,” Helena responded.
“A very long journey toTintar,” added Mischa and then, my plucky sister scribe, always with a retort, always brash, an independent woman who had never accepted a marriage proposal or a defeat, began to cry. “Brox,” she wept. “He’s probably dead.”
“Your husband?” asked Catrin.
Mischa shrugged, her eyes wet. “He’s my man. He’s a capitol guard.”
And that realization, that Brox guarded the buildings targeted in a restrained invasion, hit me. And in my grief for Mischa, who had lived with Brox for winters, refusing his hints at finally wedding each other, but seemingly happy with him, I thought of Levi with his wicked grins and his roaming hands. And then I thought of the people I had known over ten winters in this place. Had they survived? Did they find cover?
The notion was contagious and around me, everyone began to cry. Helena had the same small shock as me, our bold Mischa in tears being a strange sight. Our eyes met and her lips pressed together.
“Quiet!” said the guard who had yelled at Quinn.
“Tristan. Let them be,” said the other guard. He turned and looked in the doorway at us. He was even younger than I had first thought and had a handsome face.
I saw the moment his eyes lit on Maureen. She was pressing her inky cheek against her mother’s, not seeing him, but he was transfixed. My mind took note of this. I did not know what our next days would look like, but we were prisoners and at no advantage. While I, who saw myself as an aunt to Maureen, having known her since she was a girl of seven, would never put her in harm’s way, I could not help but see this young man’s interest as a good thing.
“What is your name?” I asked him, trying to smile. I must have looked insane, tears on my face, one side blotchy with blue ink.
“Quiet!” came the voice of the first guard.
The handsome one pulled himself back outside the office. But before he did, I watched him tear his eyes away from my Maureen to look at me. And in his eyes I saw, yes, a Tintarian killer, but also a boy who had just seen a pretty girl and wanted to speak to her. He had been about to answer me with his name.
I looked back to Maureen and saw Helena had noted it too, but her eyes were full of worry. And then, later than Helena had, I thought of the unspoken thing all women must worry about, that dark shadow that looms and never leaves.
“We’re priestesses,” I mouthed at her. “They’re religious.”
She bobbed her head, but her expression was still upset.
I continued to speak to her without sound. “It will be alright, kindred.”
It was our term of endearment for each other. Neither of us had had sisters and both of us had endured dissatisfied husbands and dashed dreams. We had invited Mischa to use it and she sometimes did, but it had just been the two of us in the beginning, both lone women with pasts trying to feed ourselves and make livings with scribe work, hoping to find some small happiness in life.
She gave me a feeble, upward quirk of her mouth.
I knew our priestess act was a cold comfort. I also knew Tintar to be a somewhat savage people and their religion centered around nature. It was not like Rodwin’s piety and pureness or Agnes’s wisdom and resourcefulness. But I also sensed they had an abiding respect for faith in general. I looked to River. We would need her knowledge of Tintar.
My mind continued to ruminate. We were as a winter traveler crossing a river, hoping the ice is thicker than thin, more solid than bubbled. We had to operate carefully. This ruse would be the only guard against our deaths. We could not, even as we were rightfully allowed it, let our grief consume us.
