Reverend Mother Hildegarde keeps Isbe and William busy for most of the morning. It turns out there are many grueling chores to be done and too few hands to do them all. But Isbe hasn’t stopped wondering about Sister Genevieve’s appearance last night, that uncanny scent of blood and dirt and rust. She keeps imagining different scenarios: Sister Genevieve cutting her arm on a gardening hoe as she tends to vegetables, for example. Or perhaps Sister Genevieve discovering a rat in the granary and killing it with the sharp end of a pickax. Surely there are any number of possible explanations for her being out so late. . . .
And for her tending to the granary despite what the prioress said about it being empty.
Still, Isbe knows a lying voice when she hears one.
Finally, during a break for the nuns to have their midday meal, she finds a moment to pull William aside. They pass the dorter, the refectory, and the bell tower, turning the corner through the cloisters and moving across the graveyard to the granary at the far side of the complex. William throws open the double doors to the large grain storage room, and Isbe holds her breath.
“So . . . it is empty, then,” she says after a pause.
“Quite so. Hardly even a trace of wheat on the stone floor,” William confirms. “It looks as though the floors have been recently swept, in fact.”
“Perhaps to keep the vermin away,” Isbe says, thinking. She’s, truth be told, a little disappointed, though she’s not sure what sort of secret she thought she’d discover.
They decide to return to the refectory, hoping to catch a scrap of bread before the meal has been cleared. But upon passing once again through the graveyard, its scent of sage and cypress and new-turned dirt gives Isbe pause. She pulls back on William’s arm, and they stop out in the open. She can feel the sun on her wrists and face.
“Is there another fresh grave?” she asks.
William hesitates, scanning the area. “Possibly.”
“Weren’t the sisters digging one just yesterday when we arrived? Is it the same plot?”
“I’m not sure.”
Isbe sighs, frustrated. She knows she should let go of the apprehensive nag in the back of her mind, but it’s like a piece of snagged cloth that won’t come loose.
William clears his throat. “Isabelle, what are you really after here? Why are you so curious about Hildegarde and the others?”
She shakes her head, feeling a lump of annoyance lodge in her throat. She doesn’t want to explain it to him. And yet the words begin to form of their own accord. “She knew the king, my father.”
“Sure, but what’s in that? Many people knew the king well, I can only assume.”
“I thought she might be . . .” Her voice is a ragged whisper. “I thought perhaps she might know something about who my mother was. Just take me to the fresh grave. Please.”
She hears William sigh quietly, as though he’s attempting to hide it. “Very well,” he says, leading her there.
She kneels down in the soft earth. She is not very accustomed to praying. She closes her eyes because that’s what one is supposed to do. She puts her hands together, and her head down. She knows she needs to stop trying to find answers. This journey isn’t about her, or finding out who her mother was. This is about saving Aurora—her sister, her closest friend, the person who knows her better than anyone in the world. The only person, in fact, who has ever cared about what happens to Isbe.
Failing her is not an option.
Isbe places her palms into the earth. Whatever soul is buried here, Isbe hopes he or she is in peace. She gives the damp ground one final pat and is about to get to her feet when she reconsiders. There had been a touch of something cold, something hard. . . .
She pats the earth near the grave again, then pushes aside loose dirt. “William,” she gasps. “There’s something under here . . . there’s . . .” She begins eagerly moving clumps of dirt aside with both hands. She feels metal. She feels . . . a handle.
She lifts her hand, dirt now caked into her fingernails. She is holding a dagger.
“Now that is odd,” the prince says, kneeling beside her.
She runs her fingers rapidly over the hilt, feeling the careful carvings in the wood. “William, it’s not just any bodkin. It’s got an insignia imprinted on it. It’s . . .” A hawk perched on a sword . . .
“The Aubinian seal.” The prince’s voice has gone cold as the blade in her hand.
“How would this have gotten here? Why would it be buried in the ground like this?” Isbe’s fingers tremble with a mix of excitement and dread.
William is quiet beside her, but she can feel his tension. Finally he lifts her by the elbow and says, “We need to leave here, now.”
“But—”
“My brothers,” he chokes out. “They were traveling with a large retinue to overlook stores of Aubinian weapons proffered to the Delucian council.”
“And they were ambushed—”
“At Tristesse Pass, not far from here. Come on, we have nothing to stay for anyhow.” His voice is urgent. “No one is by. We can slip away unnoticed if we hurry.”
Her pulse hammers in her ears. William’s right. For all they know, his brothers’ killers could still be lurking nearby, protected by locals and perhaps even by the convent itself.
They have to leave now, and quickly.
But even as they flee the courtyard in broad daylight and head for the road into the nearest village, the foolish part of Isbe—her curiosity—thinks they ought to have stayed to learn more. She can hardly imagine Hildegarde harboring murderers! Still, she feels William’s wariness as they make their way toward town, and it begins to infect her as well, starting out as a tension in her hands and wrists, evolving into a stiffness in her chest.
As they enter the village in search of horses to take them the rest of the way, they find it eerily quiet. Even in winter, there should be peasants herding goats to market, traders hawking wares, people going about their daily business with a coarse and noisy obliviousness. Instead, the tension, Isbe realizes, is not just within her but outside of her too, in the lack of busy voices and grunts and—
“Where is everyone?” she whispers to William. She clutches the Aubinian dagger, which she has shoved into her belt, hiding the seal beneath a fold of her dress. “Something isn’t right.”
No sooner are the words out of her mouth than a man’s deep voice barks out, “Halt, in the name of Queen Malfleur.”
Isbe always thought that her death would have some sort of meaning or bravery to it. Maybe she’d take a dramatic fall from a wild horse. Maybe she’d throw herself before a drawn rapier at some profound and important moment. Maybe she’d lose her mind and run naked through a frozen field, hollering until her last breath turned to frost.
But now she fears her death will be swift and unremarkable. There’s no doubt the soldiers intend to kill her and the prince. She and William are currently sitting back to back on the floor of a recently abandoned manor, tied together by the wrists. The lord who once governed over the village from this very manor is still where the soldiers left him: hanging, dead and bloodied, from the front gates of his own estate, winter flies ravenous at his eye sockets. Isbe didn’t even need William’s gruesome, whispered description to envision it. She got all the information she required from the stench as they were shoved past, before being dragged roughly inside, thrown to the floor, and bound.
The soldiers who apprehended them are just beyond a closed door, arguing in gruff murmurs.
Perhaps it is stubbornness alone that’s keeping her from succumbing to complete panic. That and the lingering question blazing through her brain like fire: How did the soldiers discover their identities? It’s not like the visages of Deluce’s bastard half princess or even Aubin’s youngest and thus, until recently, least important prince are well known across the land. Neither of their faces has made it onto any stamps or coins. The mercenaries did find the dagger Isbe was carrying, bearing the royal insignia, but that alone would not be proof of anything.
Perhaps they make an unusual pair: William, with his noble bearing and the smooth dark skin of a highborn Aubinian, and Isbe, with her sightless eyes and raggedly shorn locks. But the soldiers didn’t just capture them because they’re unusual. They specifically referred to Isbe and William as “the ones we’ve been looking for.”
Isbe can hear their muffled argument through the door, even now. One word emerges from the rest, ringing out like the toll of a bell: “ransom.”
William’s body goes alert against hers. He has heard it too.
Which is perhaps why neither of them is all that shocked when, a short while later, a couple of the soldiers burst back into the room and, instead of threatening them with violence, simply corral them toward a covered wagon. By now it is getting late, and Isbe can feel the chill as the winter sun begins to sink below the horizon. She’s heaved up onto the back of the wagon and hears the swish of leather and clanking of metal rings as a horse is harnessed.
So. She will not be making her journey to the afterlife today.
She will be making the journey, instead, to LaMorte. Presumably to become a pawn in the faerie queen’s game.
She thinks of the models William carved. The miniature knights, the ships, and the cannon; how they reminded her of elaborate chess pieces. For some reason, even though she should be thinking about ways to escape, or to die nobly if they’re tortured for information, she instead thinks how wondrous it must feel to turn an unyielding mass of ivory or marble into an object that seems to breathe. So different from one of her silly snow statues. She thinks, uncontrollably and irrationally, of William’s hands.
A bell peals in the distance—probably all the way from the convent, signaling evening vespers once again. The nuns will be going about their divine offices, pews lined with their devout postures and solemn faces, the prioress probably wondering, meanwhile, where her new visitors have gone.
“Isabelle,” William whispers now. It’s the first thing he’s dared to utter since their capture, and her name itself sounds forbidden to her, foreign. Isabelle is a stranger, a woman being held hostage in a war that’s only just beginning, her role in it uncertain and out of her hands. Isbe is not that woman.
“Isabelle,” he repeats, more urgently. “If we’re parted, or . . . if I don’t get another chance to tell you this . . .” He wraps his hand around hers and squeezes it.
She feels a small, unexpected shock, like a piece of flint sparking in her chest. A wish, maybe.
But nothing ever comes of wishing, Isbe reminds herself.
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.
Instead, there is a loud swishing rush of wind, like a flock of enormous birds converging nearby. Isbe and William simultaneously tense. There’s the startled cry of one soldier, followed quickly by a gargling gasp, as though his partner is choking on his own spit. Then a few swift swipes of fabric through the air, the thump of a skull coming into contact with a rock, and two thuds.
There’s a breathy voice, unpeeling the dark like a snake shedding its skin: “Hurry up before the rest of ’em come out.”
Isbe knows that voice.
It’s Sister Genevieve.
Isbe shuffles along the dirt road that leads out of the village, under the hasty cover of the spare habit Sister Genevieve gave her. William too is wearing one. Under different circumstances, the disguise might be comical. As it is, the reality of the situation has begun to sink in. They were nearly killed. Nearly shipped off as bait in a larger conflict. She hadn’t been afraid—hadn’t allowed herself to be—but now her body won’t stop shaking.
“Where are you leading us?” William asks.
Sister Genevieve—and Sister Katherine—are guiding them rapidly through the darkened countryside.
“Somewhere ’ats a bit more fit than where we found ya,” Sister Katherine replies.
Isbe’s mind is reeling. “But why, how, when . . .” She doesn’t even know where to begin. The shock of being rescued by the nuns has yet to fade. “What did you do to the soldiers?”
“Knocked out, but they’ll be comin’ to shortly,” Sister Katherine explains, a note of pride in her voice.
William is obviously just as baffled as Isbe is. “Those men were twice your size.”
“She keeps us in good shape, Mother Hilde—”
“Sister Katherine!” Genevieve whispers.
Sister Katherine huffs. “You were the one who insisted on rescuing ’em. Said it weren’t fair to sell ’em off like a pound o’ lambs’ meat at market.”
“Sell us off?” William asks. Isbe hears the knife’s edge in his voice. She is feeling something similar too, down in her gut, like she’s been stabbed.
Sister Genevieve sighs. “I suppose you may as well know the truth. The prioress felt we could garner much-needed funds by offering you two up to the enemy. And she was right—we did get a healthy sum.”
The invisible knife in Isbe’s gut twists. Mother Hildegarde gave them away. “But how did she know who we are?”
Sister Genevieve snorts. “We had our suspicions from the start. Catching you snooping around in the scriptorium didn’t help. But it was really Hildegarde herself who recognized you, Isabelle.”
“Said you got the same look as your mother,” Sister Katherine adds.
Isbe gasps, a strangled sound. “She knew my mother? What did she say?”
“Only that much and nothin’ more,” says Katherine.
“No need to slow down. We’ve still got a long way to go and back before morning lauds, or we’ll be missed,” Sister Genevieve says, pulling Isbe along by the elbow.
“So the prioress has been, what? Training you to defend yourselves against soldiers,” William says, something like stunned amusement in his voice.
“’Mong other things,” says Katherine.
And then it occurs to Isbe. “Last night—the granary. You weren’t checking for vermin at all, were you?”
Sister Genevieve answers. “We were practicing. Every night a group of us stays awake, learning our stances, exercising our skills, handling new weapons. Granary’s the perfect spot—big enough, empty enough, and the thick walls hide any sound.”
It all begins to unfold in Isbe’s mind. “You keep the weapons buried in the graveyard during the day.”
There’s a silence. “Yes,” Katherine answers, clearly impressed that she has pieced it together. “Can’t risk anyone discoverin’ we’re in possession of stolen royal weapons.”
Stolen. Isbe feels a flood of victory. She was right about one thing: the convent was not harboring or protecting William’s brothers’ murderers—they were hiding the weapons and the weapons only. And Hildegarde may have betrayed them, but it was in the interest of supporting a convent full of orphan girls, educating them about the world, and training them to be able to protect themselves in the event of war. The surprise of it is quickly replaced by awe. Isbe would rather be betrayed a thousand times by such a woman than allied to one less brave and interesting.
“We’re almost there now,” Katherine says.
“Why are you helping us?” Isbe asks quietly.
“Because,” Sister Genevieve says. “If you really are who Mother Hildegarde says you are, and you plan to seal an alliance between Aubin and Deluce against Malfleur, then we might consider you two our only hope.”
Sister Katherine murmurs in agreement. “Only thing more evil than the faerie queen of LaMorte is her dead sister. Nothin’ was ever as bad as the Night Faerie, a’ course.”
Sister Genevieve ignores her comment. “But you two will have to somehow survive the sickness and the mounting presence of LaMorte soldiers. It’s said they’re immune to it—those beaks they wear protect them somehow—which means for all we know they’ve already got plans to seize the palace. Time is of the essence. You’ll never do it without help.”
“And so you’re leading us to . . . ,” William begins.
“The Veiled Road, a’ course,” Katherine answers.
“Veiled Road?” Isbe asks.
“It’s a safe route through the kingdom,” Genevieve explains.
“Mostly servants in noble houses an’ the like,” Sister Katherine adds, “willin’ to help each other out in the case of a military takeo’er.”
Isbe marvels and thrills at the idea of the Veiled Road, delighting to imagine the council’s shock if they were to find out how organized some parts of the serfdom really are. At the same time, this information is only further proof of what William told her back in Aubin—that Deluce’s aristocracy is famous for not understanding the lives and needs of its own peasants. It’s something that really needs to change if Deluce is ever to become the kind of nation that can truly defend itself and respond to the needs of the people. A kingdom divided is a kingdom doomed—that much is obvious. Certainly it is obvious to Malfleur.
Isbe’s heart rate picks up again as she reminds herself of the urgency of her journey. She needs to awaken Aurora, undoing the curse and giving a sign to Malfleur that her country is not as weak as it seems. But then what?
Then they will have to defend themselves, with the help of William’s armies.
They will have to fight.