“That’s right, Jasina. She’s my auntie, not yours. She’s not related to you at all. She only married your great-uncle because the Matrons told her to. They needed to breed you, ya see.” He stops walking so he can lean down into my face and spit his words out. “So I caneat ya.”
“What?”
“Donal!” Auntie yells this time. “Keep up, boy. We need to get this started!”
Donal yanks me and starts running, so I have to run too. But I trip and fall and he keeps going. So when we get to the end of the hallway, I enter a large room filled with people being dragged across a smooth shiny floor by my red hair.
Suddenly there is a lot of murmuring and Donal lets go, walking away from me like I never mattered in the first place.
I sit up, my head burning and my body already sore from the attack, and look around. But it takes whole, long seconds for my mind to even form thoughts that can explain what the hell I am looking at.
The people are the easy part. There are—well, every Matron who ever existed appears to be in here with us. And the Little Sisters are all here too, all wearing their blue tunics and cream aprons.
“Jasina!” Auntie barks my name so loud, all the hushed murmuring immediately stops. Like just her voice is enough to scare the piss out of people. “Get in your line!” She points to the Little Sisters, who are backed up against a wall on the far side of the room.
I scramble to my feet and stumble in that direction, looking for friendly faces. All of the up-city girls turn their gazes away from me. But I was expecting that.
What I wasn’t expecting is for my friends to do the same.
“Lucindy,” I say, still stumbling as I reach out for support.
“Don’t!” she snaps at me. “Don’t touch me, Jasina.”
“What?” I look at Harlow. And she doesn’t even bother with words. Just shakes her head. Then I look at Britley. “Brit?”
“Jasina, just shut up and stand in line.”
“Here.” Ceela moves over a little bit. “You can stand by me.”
I want to say thank you—should probably say thank you—but this isn’t a genuine offer. I’ve known Ceela too long. I know her too well. But I slip into the space anyway because there’s no other place for me.
As soon as we’re shoulder to shoulder, she starts in, her words just a whisper so as not attract the ire of Auntie. “You’re in big trouble. And don’t look to us to save you, Jasina.”
“What did I do?”
“What did youdo?” Ceela turns to side-eye me, her lip actually curling up to show her teeth. “Are youjoking? You’re a traitor! You?—”
“Listen up!” Auntie Bell roars, her voice echoing off the high ceiling of the underground room. “Matron Lightly and Matron Scott are going to explain your roles in the ritual. Do not speak, or ask any questions. This must be done and you all are here to do your part in saving this great city.”
The word ‘ritual’ is what snaps my attention back to the room I’m in. It didn’t make any sense to me at first, because I didn’t have the proper context for it. But now I see.
It’s achurch.
We have chapels, of course. Places where we pray to the god. But the church of the Tau City tower god is… well, the tower. Only Extraction Maidens enter the tower, so it’s not a place for regular people.
But we’reinthe Tower District. It’s above us, but we’re still in it. And even though I’ve never seen a proper church, this is a church. There are symbols everywhere. Circles with stars inside them. Not stars like the five-pointed ones that kids draw, but even simpler than that. Just eight lines radiating out from a central point. They are all over the room in every size imaginable. And when I look up at the ceiling, it’s painted to look like a night sky.
I squint my eyes, trying to get a better focus on the stars above me, when suddenly, they twinkle.
“What the…” I whisper. “That’s not… paint. It’s…” No one is paying attention to me. Ceela doesn’t even snap at me to shut up, she’s so engrossed in what the old Matrons are saying about the city. How great it is, or whatever.
It’s not paint on the ceiling. And I’d bet coin—all the coin I have—that if the lights came on right now there would be a dome covered in white triangle tiles on this ceiling. And they would be blank. Just like the Looking Glass Room up in the Extraction Tower.
This is when I start listening again. Because I realize that Matron Scott is Finn’smother.
Finn!
I know I left him behind, but… shouldn’t he be here? I mean, everyone who’s anyone in Tau City is in this room right now. Something big is happening.
