Adelaide put her hands over her mouth. “I forgot about gillyflowers.”
“You’re saying you did not want us to come?” Tessa asked.
Adelaide nodded.
“We thought,” I hissed, “you wereindanger, not that you were warning us from it. An anemone with a dandelion means ‘a woman with an emergency.’ You are telling me we left everything we ever knew, ever held dear, that I left my home where my husband was laid to rest, because you were too daft to remember a code that comprised of three—three—symbols?”
Tessa swatted at my arm again. “Adelaide, are you unhappy in your marriage? Is that why you sent for us?”
“No, I—Well, yes, but that’s not why. This is a disaster.”
“You think?” I sniped.
“Robbie,” Tessa shot at me. She was done with me. “If you cannot stop mistreating your niece, I will ask you to leave us. She cannot be expected to remember a code she never had to use.” She took Adelaide’s hands in her own and said, “You must explain it all to us. Quickly, before your father returns unless you want him to know that you are unhappy.”
“He already suspects,” Adelaide started, but then she shook her head as if to clear her thoughts. She withdrew her hands from Tessa and brought her fingertips to her chin. “My husband, Roland, is a part of the city guard here. He is higher ranking now and, the thing of it is, I cannot really explain it except to say thatthatis cursed.” Shepointed to a spot behind us. “The tower is like a poison. It makes anyone who lives in it mad and weak with terror. Then they become subservient. Usually, before this pilgrimage business, they put new army recruits there for their conditioning. It makes them pliant and their minds turn to mush and... I don’t know what else I can say.”
“You make no sense,” I mumbled, but I began to think of the rising tensions of the penitents, of my Zara’s flinching, of my own sense of doom, of how none of us could sleep well.
“Keep talking,” encouraged Tessa and reached down to pinch my arm.
Adelaide shifted her weight from foot to foot. “The men here? In the army, powerful ones, friends of the king—they all talk of ‘feeding’ it. I swear to you, some kind of presence lives there. It feeds off of people. I think they are feeding the penitentstothe tower.”
“It’s not as mad as it sounds,” Dermid interjected, not taking his eyes off of the people around us, staring back at every soul who eyed the tattoos on his face and neck. “Magic and gods exist, and that means the evil and the good of both is to be taken with serious measure.”
“Tell us about your marriage,” Tessa ordered, reclaiming Adelaide’s hands. “He seemed like a nice young man. Your father and I were so unsure of what to do and we did not want to keep you from any happiness, though it was a speedy courtship. And so soon after the loss of your mother. Do you desire a divorce? We will make that happen.”
“It is illegal here?—”
“We will make that happen,” Tessa repeated, releasing her hands. “Do not concern yourself with their laws from a darker age even than this. Tell us.”
There was a squeak in Adelaide’s response when she said, “He is not unkind, but I do not share his ideals or his... or his god. I miss my mother’s gods. I miss your gods,” she tacked on, looking at me. “This god, their Rodwin, makes me feel so vile, like I am a badperson. And Roland believes it. He loves me, but he believes I am naturally wicked.”
I could have said that this was something I had said all along about the church of Perpatane. I could have said she should have noticed their tyranny by the time she was past the age of ten back in Sheridan. Instead, I stepped forward, took her in my arms, and held her against me. Instead, I said, “We’re going to take you away from here. We’re going to help you start over.”
She wilted against me a little.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear. “I am never kind towards you, and I do not know why. You deserve better from me.”
When Thane returned to us, Adelaide dried her tears. While he spoke to his driver, who had returned with him, about seeing to Adelaide getting home safe, asking that Dermid accompany her, I asked in an undertone, “Is your father staying with you at your husband’s house?”
She nodded.
“And he can see your unhappiness, you think?”
“Tell him,” Tessa answered before her stepdaughter could. “Tell him everything, girl. The letter, the code, the tower. Tell him everything. We may need him in your escape. And he deserves to know. I tried to explain it to him moons ago, but it is better explained by you.”
“But my grandfather and uncle and the priest? What if he tells?—”
“Tell him if he loves you as his daughter, he’ll assist in this,” I said, cutting her off. And I had to believe it to be true. Thane may have been the son of a lord, privileged and well fed, may have been brought up in the church that he was the superior sex, yet he had married Rowena to save her from shame, punishment, and even death and had made room for Tessa in their lives.
Tessa made a noise of agreement, and then Thane was helping his daughter into a small wagon that was clearly meant for city travel.
Dermid turned to me and said, “Tell Reed to look for a cellar tonight,” then climbed into the wagon next to Adelaide before I could ask what he meant.
84
NOW: RIVER
