“Our most secure hiding place,” said the Pontiff. “And also, incidentally, the one with the greatest concentration of bones, which I imagine may help to nourish the spell.”
“Ah, there it is,” Milady exclaimed, and I heard the soft susurration of her skirts as she glided to where Mother’s book was displayed. She ran her hands over it almost reverently. “I’ve been looking for you,” she scolded it, as if it were a small child that had run away and hid.
“Beautiful work,” said the Pontiff. “Rivals even our best bookmakers and scribes. As to the efficacy of the spell within, of course, I cannot testify, as no one has yet been able to cast it.”
“No, of course not,” said Milady, still lovingly running her hands over its leather. “My sister is far too clever for that. I’d swear that she bound it to herself.”
“Is that even possible?” asked Ban Morin, standing beside her. He reached one fingertip to touch a pearl embedded in its surface. Even at this distance, even cloaked in shadows, I shuddered to see him so near.
“Magic this powerful would have required a mighty sacrifice,” said Milady, as if to herself. “Especially if she intended it to respond to her and her alone. There is a chance, of course, that she also allowed her daughter access.”
I jumped a little. Patrick gripped me tighter, a warning.
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said the Pontiff, sounding extremely self-satisfied, “I have her daughter in my palace dungeon at this very moment.”
“You what?” said Ban Morin, turning to him so suddenly that the glim rattled on its chain.
“She came to see me this very night,” said the Pontiff. “Offering her allegiance to the Temple in exchange for the book and her mother. I knew she would be useful.”
I did not turn towards Patrick’s accusing stare, but kept watching the Pontiff, Milady, and Ban Morin.
“Netta,” Patrick began.
“Not now,” I hissed back.
“Well, why didn’t you bring her down here at once?” Milady demanded. “Call for her now! She is my niece, and Ban Morin’s betrothed.”
“Patience, Milady. I shall. But I wished you to try to read the book first, as you are a more experienced mage than your niece. The girl will be very useful, undoubtedly, but she is young, and untested.”
“Get. Her,” Ban Morin hissed between his teeth.
The Pontiff sounded a little miffed as he turned to the guard and ordered him to fetch her—to fetchme. I bit my lip. It was a long way back along the passage and up all those stairs, but soon the Pontiff would know that I—and the Book Man—had broken out of his dungeon.
“I shall study the text,” said Milady, “in preparation for an attempt.”
They waited. No one attempted to make small talk. Ban Morin coughed once, but was otherwise silent. The quiet and the sense of anticipation made me want to scream. I couldn’t move, could barely breathe, and had an urgent need to urinate. Baldbeak was somehow managing to stay as still as a stuffed bird, his neck practically invisible as he hunched down with his chin buried in his chest feathers.
“Netta,” Patrick hissed to me again. “What did he mean, you offered your allegiance to the Temple?”
“They’ll hear us!”
“I told you, the shadows muffle sound. If we whisper, they won’t hear a thing.” He was trying to stare into my face, and I was resolutely looking straight ahead and refusing to make eye contact. “You offered your power to the Pontiff?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I whispered sharply. “I couldn’t trust you to help me any longer”—he winced a littleat that—“and I had nothing else with which to bargain my way into the catacombs. I thought if I just got to the book, and found Mother, then I could puzzle out what to do afterwards.”
“So you aren’t really loyal to the Temple?”
“For Plague’s sake, Patrick!” I was really starting to lose my temper with him. Again. But it was a welcome distraction from the suspense and the looming presence of Ban Morin, so I quite relished an argument in that moment. “Of course not. But what was I supposed to do?”
He exhaled. “I don’t know. And the Pontiff said you were in thedungeon?”
“Astonishingly enough, I couldn’t trust him either,” I said.
“Netta. If you had just stayed at the palace … if we had talked further …”
“You could have worn me down with your clever arguments?”
“We could have talked more,” he said flatly. “I was … frustrated. I needed to cool down, to think through your refusal …”
