After work, I confronted Osan.
Walking to Food Management that morning, I had noticed someone trailing me. They were careful about it, always keeping at least twenty feet away, dissolving into the crowd whenever I glanced backwards. To be certain I wasn’t imagining things, I took a slightly more circuitous route to reach the offices. Sure enough, my shadow followed me on a pointless detour through Lokon.
Got you, I thought.
I bided my time. I pretended not to notice them during my lunch hour, or when my supervisor dispatched me to collect a report from the warehouse. When I left the office at seventeenth bell, I took Grove Street and then Lerish, acting like I was heading for the Gardens. Then, two streets away from the Lower-East entrance, I abruptly spun around.
Osan could not conceal himself in time.
“Oh, Just El,” he said. “What a nice sur—”
“Why are you following me?”
A quick calculation took place behind his dark eyes. I glared at him. He sighed and stuck his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
“You’re a little more observant than I anticipated,” he admitted.
“Does Rhyanon think I’ll double-cross her? How long have you been stalking me?”
“It’s not stalking.” He frowned, mildly offended. “I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, that’s all. For your own good.”
I could feel my blood pressure rising. “For my own good.”
“Yes.” He paused. “So I can make sure no one else is following you.”
“Go jump off the Edge, Osan.”
He lifted his hands in exasperation. “Come on, I was only watching your back. It’s for your own protection.”
“Take me to her.”
“That’s not—”
“If she wants me to put my life on the line spying on Reverends, the least Rhyanon can do is talk to me.”
Osan hesitated, and then suggested, valiantly, “I can pass a message?”
I gave him a caustic look.
“Fine, but she’s not going to be pleased,” he grumbled.
I did not care. Osan led me on a winding route through Major West, past the greenhouses and around the Gardens. He moved quickly, but I noticed the way his eyes roved, his gaze shifting from street corner to alley to shaded doorway, ceaselessly vigilant. He seemed on edge.
Who does he think would follow me? I had done nothing to draw the Order’s attention. Not yet, anyway.
“Just up here,” he said.
Rhyanon’s home was at the border of Minor East. A modest property for a high-ranking Herald, single-storey and rough-plastered. The garden was wild, overrun by oleander and bougainvillea, carpets of nasturtiums. An old dog slept on the front steps; he raised his head as Osan opened the gate, and his tail wagged.
I remembered this place. The name-giving celebration, the sugary sweetness of Rhyanon’s gift. The dog sniffed my feet.
“A word of advice?” said Osan, resting his hand on the gate. “Don’t involve your friends in the Order’s business again.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I leaned forward to knock on the front door, and when I spoke, my tone was perfectly controlled. “Why do you care anyway?”
“More people involved, more opportunities for mistakes. More opportunities for someone to get hurt. Think about it, all right?” He closed the gate and stepped back. “See you around, Just El.”
“Not if I see you first.”
The door opened.
Rhyanon wore a long green shirt and cotton pants. Her hair hung loose, which made her look less severe. Relaxed, she seemed almost pretty. Her features were soft and animated, and she had a distracted smile on her face, like she had been laughing a moment earlier.
The expression vanished the instant she saw me.
“What … what are you doing here?” she asked.
I folded my arms. “We need to talk.”
Rhyanon peered down the street. Osan had melted away, and we were alone in the evening twilight. “You couldn’t have waited? I was going to arrange a meeting for tomorrow.”
“You told me you needed information, and I risked my life to get it. Why would I wait?”
She was still flustered, grasping the edge of the door to block me from entering. “I do appreciate your efforts, but now isn’t the best time. You shouldn’t be here. Tomorrow—”
“People will notice if I keep missing work. I already had to take a stress pass for yesterday.”
“I see.” But she didn’t move.
Annoyed as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder at her reluctance. I had expected her to be irritated, and instead she seemed alarmed.
“It won’t take long,” I said.
She wavered, unhappy, then nodded.
“Yes. Yes, of course. Osan brought you here? I would have expected more discretion from him.” She stepped backwards to open the door wider. “Come in.”
The entranceway smelled of beeswax polish and sandalwood. Small details drew my attention: fresh flowers in a glass vase, books arranged by colour on the shelf, hand-painted bookends in the shape of stretching cats. Pretty, homely things. Things I wasn’t supposed to see. Somewhere in the house, I heard a door close.
Rhyanon’s jaw was clenched. She watched me out the corner of her eye.
“Let’s talk in my study,” she said.
“Mom?”
A scrawny, straw-haired girl, ten or eleven years old, hung in the doorway to the kitchen. She chewed on the end of her ponytail.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Everything is fine, darling.” Rhyanon’s shoulders were tense. “This is Elfreda; she’s a friend of mine. Elfreda, this is—”
“Jaylen,” I blurted out as her daughter’s name finally came back to me.
The girl regarded me with large moss-green eyes. She had a turned-up nose, and a sharp chin. Unfriendly, unsmiling, steady in her gaze.
Rhyanon interrupted our staring match. “Yes, that’s right. Jay, I need to have a quick conversation with Elfreda, and then we can finish the costume. Can you go to your room until then?”
She nodded slowly. “Are you sure everything is fine?”
“Absolutely. Off you go.”
Rhyanon’s study was a mess. Papers were strewn across her desk and stacked in dog-eared heaps. Mostly financial statements and records of transactions, all bearing the stamp of the Department of Civil Obligations.
She closed the door behind me. “Take a seat.”
“Thanks.” I cleared a pile of folders off her spare chair and set them on the ground. “Costume?”
“For Moon Tide,” she said shortly. She drew her floral curtains across the street-facing window.
“Oh, of course.” I found it difficult to imagine Rhyanon sewing. Difficult, and faintly amusing. “You’ve probably forgotten, but I was at her name-giving.”
She paused, still holding the edge of the curtain. “You were?”
“You gave me sweets.”
Her brow furrowed.
“I remember Kirane being there,” she said. “She was the only person who didn’t congratulate me.”
Hearing her say my mother’s name gave me an odd, out-of-place feeling. I gestured apology. “She could be thoughtless.”
“I believe it was the opposite, actually.” Rhyanon shook her head. “So you saw my public meltdown?”
“I wouldn’t call it a meltdown.”
“Everyone else did.” She snorted. “Horrendously embarrassing. For years, I was a joke in Civil Obligations. The incident cost me a promotion, you know. Not to mention I got sent to the Sanatorium for a month.”
I was silent.
“What, that surprises you?”
“No,” I said, stung. I felt defensive, although I wasn’t sure why. “Of course not.”
“Ah yes, because you’re the expert on the San.” She smiled, a cold and deliberate movement of her lips. “Have you lost weight since I last saw you?”
She was trying to goad me into losing my composure, to reclaim the upper hand after I’d trespassed on her private life. I looked at her, and I understood her cruelty. I had made her feel vulnerable.
“Actually, I was thinking that you were unjustly treated,” I said. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
Rhyanon’s mouth tightened. For a moment, I thought she would tell me to get out of her house.
Then she looked away and sighed.
“You’re quite like your mother,” she said, in a different voice. “I didn’t see it at first, but sometimes you sound exactly the same.”
I tried to affect nonchalance, but couldn’t quite pull it off. “In what way?”
“You share a certain forthrightness, I suppose.” Rhyanon leaned back in her chair. “Kirane was my supervisor for a few years. She wasn’t always an easy person to be around, but I admired her.”
A strange kind of hunger rose up inside me. Now wasn’t the time to ask questions; Rhyanon would only leverage my weaknesses against me. And yet I could not help myself.
“At Kisme’s party, I overheard women talking about…” I hesitated, struggling with the word. “Accidents. In the Martyrium.”
Rhyanon said nothing, and my nerve faltered.
“I probably misunderstood.”
She breathed out heavily. “I know what you’re trying to ask. But I’m not sure how to answer you.”
Her voice was surprisingly gentle. My mouth went dry.
“So it could have—” I swallowed. “Someone might have wanted to martyr my mother?”
“It’s happened before.”
“Does it happen often?”
My mother in the kitchen, telling me that it was no accident. My mother burning with rage, then gone. The quietness of her house. I felt suffocated.
Rhyanon spread her hands. “It’s possible, but I don’t know. I’m sorry, Elfreda.”
“No, it’s … I don’t suppose it changes anything now anyway.” I gripped my hands together in my lap, trying to gather myself. Later. I could deal with it all later. I should not have asked in the first place. “The woman I overheard at the party said that someone intended to destroy the Sisterhood. She said that they ‘need the seat, and there’s an easy way to vacate it.’”
Something shifted behind Rhyanon’s eyes: a strong feeling stifled.
“Saskia,” she murmured.
“What?”
She shook her head, and the emotion disappeared. “Commander General Saskia Asan. They were probably referring to her seat.”
“You’re saying that this extends to the Council?” My mind reeled. I held up my hands. “Wait, do they think we’re the ones trying to destroy the Sisterhood?”
Rhyanon gave me a hard look.
“Are we trying to destroy the Sisterhood?”
“Not exactly, but would you have a problem if the answer was yes?”
Of all the heretical, insane things I could have suspected of Rhyanon, this possibility had never occurred to me.
“Not exactly,” I said faintly.
She smiled, amused.
“I thought as much,” she said. “I’ll warn Commander Asan, and we’ll take further precautions to protect her mother.”
“This is—what are we doing? Who else is involved?” My head was still spinning. “What—”
“You are safer not knowing,” she interrupted.
“That’s not—”
“If anything happens to me, trust Enforcement. That’s all the information you need.”
No, you are safer if I don’t know enough to sell you out. But I bit my tongue. Rhyanon seemed unperturbed by my scowl.
“Do you have anything else?” she asked.
Oh, nothing on the scale of destroying the Order, no.
I shook myself. “Possibly. I looked into Verje’s renovations.”
“And?”
“She’s dug a pit inside her barn, and has sent away all her estate’s regular staff. The farm was badly neglected.”
Rhyanon looked mystified. “A pit inside her barn?”
“Yeah. And there was a lot of metal sheeting stacked outside. Whatever she’s doing, it seems unfinished.”
She chewed on her lip. “How odd.”
“That was my reaction.” I stood up and straightened my robes. “Anyway, that’s all I had to tell you. But one more thing, before I go.”
“Yes?”
“Call off Osan.”
Rhyanon gave a little shake of her head. “And there I thought he would be subtle. I’ll talk to him. And good work, Elfreda. This was valuable.”
Jaylen watched me through a gap in the curtains as I left the house. When I waved, she vanished. I shoved my hands into my pockets. Children were not my forte. I walked out into the warm evening, mosquitoes droning in the heavy air.
Destroying the Sisterhood?
If they had really sent my mother to the Martyrium before her time, maybe that wasn’t the worst idea.