Page 20 of Veil of Web and Ruin

‘That I had.’ Dinah looks up, her eyes cool now, no hint of the shock I saw in them a beat before. ‘Yes, Sister, I did. She was gathering something for me.’

I appreciate her vagueness.

‘Well, she nearly gatheredhemlockby mistake.’

‘She what?’ Her glare is enough to make me shrink into my shoulder. ‘I should have gone with her. I trusted her to be better than that.’

Her choice of words causes a dead weight within me. Her disappointment is plain. I’ve never felt it emanate from her to me so directly, and it feels like a direct reprimand from my mother, too. A lump forms in my throat, thick and hot, and I try to swallow it down.

‘Thank you, Sister. It was time Rose was leaving anyway. Thank you for bringing her back to me. I’ll take her from here.’

There’s a commanding tone to her voice, and while I know very little about the hierarchy of the priestesses, from the way the other woman dips her head and shuffles back slightly, she knows she’s been dismissed.

And I’m left here with a stone weight in my belly, staring at my feet. For some reason, I find it easier to square up against drunk men in the slums or climb impossible heights for a couple of eggs than to face the berating I’m about to get.

‘Hemlock, Rose? I hope she’s joking.’ Her nose wrinkles. ‘In the Goddess’s name, why do you smell like a sewer?’

I bite the inside of my cheek and consider making up some lie, but she’d see straight through it.

‘It’s how I snuck in here,’ I tell her. ‘So I wasn’t seen.’

‘You came in through the sewers? Goddess, Rose.’ She stares at my bag. ‘And I guess you got what you came for?’

Again, I consider lying. After all, it worked well enough on the previous priestess, but she didn’t know me. Dinah does.

It’s no use. I have to tell the truth.

‘Dinah, please … I need to keep Kay off the streets.’

‘By killing someone?’ A look of horror crosses her face. ‘What’s happened, Rose? Has something happened to Acacia? Why didn’t you come to me?’

I shake my head. ‘No, no, she’s fine. For now. Please, Dinah, believe me, this won’t fall into the wrong hands. If anything, it’s doing good. It’s going to save more lives than it takes.’

‘But itwilltake lives.’ Her expression hardens, and as I glance down at her fists, I notice the way her hands are clenched. I thought she was mad at me, but I was wrong. She’s fucking furious.

‘You come into the garden of the Goddess – the Goddess of Life! – and you steal a plant grown for death? What on earth are you thinking?’

‘What am I thinking?’ The fear and self-recrimination I felt only moments ago shift into frustration. ‘I was thinking that Kay has been talking about wanting to work, and the fact that I need her to work to earn money so we can survive. But you and I both know there’s only one job a girl who looks like her ends up with in the slums. There’s no chance of her being a seamstress like she could be if she were in the fifth ring. No work in a rich house learning to cook if she were closer to the High Hold. There’s only one job for someone like her, and it will break her. It will break her so fully that I don’t know if she’ll even want to keep living after that. I am exhausted, Dinah. Father’s only been dead six months, and it’s taken everything from me. I thought it would be easier without him. Without another mouth to find food for, without someone spending any money we managed to scrape together on drink. But for all his drinking, Father still laboured. Still brought us coin. Now that’s gone. I’ve been doing all I can, trying to make it work and failing. I know I’ve been failing. We’re starving every night, Dinah. But now I’ve finally got a chance. A chance to get Kay therightkind of work. That’s what I was thinking. That maybe taking the life of one murderous rapist who killed one of Kay’s only friends is worth it to prevent my sister from spreading her legs for coin and going the same wayas poor Talia. So if you’re going to ask me if I regret my decision to come here today, the answer will be no. A thousand times no.’

Dinah stares at me, jaw slack in shock.

‘Rose, Etta is the Goddess ofLife,’ she finally repeats, like I don’t know whose garden I stand in.

‘And yet her priestesses grow hemlock.’

‘For mercy!’

‘Right,’ I spit back. ‘And what is it you always say to me? “The Goddess has her reasons.”’

My skin bristles as I say those words aloud. I’ve lost count of the number of times the priestesses have spouted that line at me. When we were stripped of our powers and sent from the household. When my mother got ill. When she finally lost her life.

‘Maybe the Goddess has her reasons for sending me here today. In making sure that you were here in the garden when I needed you. It’s possible, right? You grow that herb. You grow hemlock. Surely there’s a reason for that, too?’ I pause, giving her space to respond, but she doesn’t. ‘The Goddess has her reasons for me being here. That’s what I think.’ I fold my arms stubbornly.

I see the deliberation flicker through her features. Surely she knows I’m right – that you can’t use a phrase when it suits you and ignore it at all other times. Meaning that maybe – just maybe – she’s going to let me walk out of here with the hemlock in my satchel.

As the pause extends, a flicker of hope sparks through me, only for her to stiffen her back, stamping it out.

‘She is the Goddess ofLife. I cannot let you do this, Rose. I cannot. Give me your satchel.’