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“Yes, I was angry and short-tempered, and I didn’t have the spoons to be nice—but old women don’t divide into grandmothers and witches based on whether they smile and nod and bake oatcakes or…don’t.

“But some of them saw past that when they looked my way. Some of them saw someone whose opinion they cared about, and I appreciated that. Jayne could see I had scars and they called to her—she had her own. And Ambeth, gods bless her, she couldn’t pass by a hopeless case if her life depended on it. She thought I was all bark and no bite, and thankfully I never disappointed her, even though I’m mostly bite with a little bark showing above the waterline.

“The goddess put you in that crow because, of all of them, you’re the one who most badly needs to learn something, however old you are. And she put me in this…half corpse…because I’d made a trio. And she might be an evil, crazy bitch…but she was right.”

Rue sat up and pulled the knife from her belt.

“I made a trio. And they took it from me. And someone has to pay.”

28

Mollandra

Year Five

Mollandra could taste the elixir all day. The stuff burned on her tongue through one class after the next, through dinner, and through the cleansing of her teeth. Whatever had been in the liquid had found a home in her, tingling along her bones, colouring her sight with invisible shades. Something, some single ingredient, had changed them all. Mollandra’s certainty brooked no argument. This wasn’t the work of an alchemist, a cunning mix of rare substances, open to anyone with enough gold, time, and cauldrons to reproduce. But what it was, and why it should have immolated one girl, made another spark with holy fury, and had almost no effect at all on her, she couldn’t say.

Later, in the darkness of the dormitory, more empty after the day’s losses, Mollandra lay in her narrow cot, staring up at nothing. Quiet sounds reached her, the soft conversation of survivors seeking to make sense of the day’s slaughter, the gentle noises of those girls who could find comfort and distraction in each other’s bodies. Sharp would be one of them, danger always gave her that particular need, and she had never been in more danger than today. Though whose bed she might be sharing, Mollandra didn’t know. Some, like Jemna and Takki, were sweethearts, lovers, always in each other’s company. Mollandra envied them their closeness though she would never give the world such a weapon to hurt her with if she could help it. Others, like Sharp, were careless with each other’s hearts. Perhaps like Mollandra, they feared the wounds that true affection could open. It worried Mollandra, though. Would Sharp one day discard their friendship as easily as she shrugged off the girls with whom she shared her passion?

Tmanga came to sit at the foot of Mollandra’s bed, startling her from her thoughts. She vowed to be more alert. Her next visitor might not be a friend.

“Something happened with you today. You saved Sharp and you saved yourself. Sharp won’t remember, but the Kindnesses will.”

“We saved Sharp.”

“The elixir was going to burn her up whether she got to her feet or not. You stopped her burning.”

Mollandra hadn’t tried to do anything, except foolishly hold a girl who was about to burst into flame. The flames hadn’t come. No doubt the Academy would give both of them many opportunities to wish that they had.

“I…don’t know what happened.”

Anyone else would have pressed harder. Tmanga’s weight left the bed and she retreated to her own blankets.

Mollandra lay on her back, eyes open, seeing nothing. The darkness that had spoken lived at her core, in the marrow of her bones. It was something she had brought with her to the Academy—the only thing she’d owned, save her scars and the thin smock she’d been wearing. She didn’t think it had been born into her. Not all of it at least. It had been done to her, like the fury in the vault today. And now it ran through her veins, battling this new invader. She wouldn’t sleep before dawn—she knew that much. Maybe she wouldn’t sleep again.

The visitors came two days and no sleep later.

“Visitors!” Sharp careened into the practice hall, casually side-kicking a punch-dummy on the way through.

Constant terror had squeezed such frivolities as play, enthusiasm, and curiosity out of most of the acolytes, but Sharp behaved much as Mollandra imagined a “real girl” would. Except for all the killing. It sometimes felt as if she saw an entirely different world to the rest of them, and Mollandra envied her that.

“Visitors!” Sharp briefly took the edges of Mollandra’s robe in both fists and shook her before discarding her and slinging an arm around Tmanga’s shoulders, steering her away from Freeda, careless of both acolytes’ swords.

“We don’t get visitors,” Tmanga said.

Several of the girls were looking up from their various exercises now. Mollandra imagined that behind their narrowed eyes, thoughts of the parents who had sold them into this place were twitching, hope—ever cruel—springing from the salted earth of their regret.

“We do now.” Sharp folded her arms, triumphant.

“The Kindnesses get visitors,” Mollandra said. “Couriers come with the black scrolls.”

“Deliveries aren’t visits. And these aren’t couriers. I saw them. They look like a king and a queen, and they’ve got a prince with them. A handsome one. I expect he’s come to marry me. We’ll have lots of babies and I’ll get fat and eat cake all day.”

“You want to marry a prince?” Tmanga shot Sharp a sideways glance.

“Did you not hear the part about cake?”

Tmanga picked up her whetstone again and returned to honing her blade.