“Why would I?”
“I thought your ma would’ve taught you. She was from those parts.”
Mia blinked. “She was?”
The old man nodded. “Long time back, now. Before she got hitched and became a dona.”
“She … never spoke of it.”
“Not much reason to, I s’pose. I imagine she thought she’d left these streets behind forever.” He shrugged. “Anyways, closest translation of ‘duum’a’ would be ‘is wise.’ You say it when you hear agreeable words. As you might say ‘hear, hear’ or suchlike.”
“What does ‘Neh diis…’” Mia frowned, struggling with the pronunciation. “Neh diis lus’a … lus diis’a’? What does that mean?”
Mercurio raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Consul Scaeva said it to my mother. When he told her to beg for my life.”
Mercurio stroked his stubble. “It’s an old Liisian saying.”
“What does it mean?”
“When all is blood, blood is all.”
Mia nodded, thinking perhaps she understood. They sat in silence for a time, the old man lighting one of his clove-scented cigarillos and drawing deep. Finally, Mia spoke again.
“You said my mother was from here? Little Liis?”
“Aye. Long time past.”
“Did she have familia here? Someone I could…”
Mercurio shook his head. “They’re gone, child. Or dead. Both, mostly.”
“Like Father.”
Mercurio cleared his throat, sucked on his cigarillo.
“… It was a shame. What they did to him.”
“They said he was a traitor.”
A shrug. “A traitor’s just a patriot on the wrong side of winning.”
Mia brushed her fringe from her eyes, looked hopeful. “He was a patriot, then?”
“No, little Crow,” the old man said. “He lost.”
“And they killed him.” Hate rose up in her belly, curled her hands to fists. “The consul. That fat priest. The new justicus. They killed him.”
Mercurio exhaled a thin gray ring, watching her closely. “He and General Antonius wanted to overthrow the Senate, girl. They’d mustered a bloody army and were set to march against their own capital. Think of all the death that would’ve unfolded if they’d not been captured before the war began in truth. Maybe they
should’ve
hung your da. Maybe he deserved it.”
Mia’s eyes widened and she kicked back her chair, reaching for the knife that wasn’t there. The rage resurfaced then, all the pain and anger of the last twenty-four hours flaring inside her, the anger flooding so thick it made her arms and legs tremble.
And the shadows in the room began trembling too.
The black writhed. At her feet. Behind her eyes. She clenched her fists. Spat through gritted teeth. “My father was a good man. And he didn’t deserve to die like that.”
The teapot slipped off the counter with a crash. Cupboard doors shook on their hinges, cups danced on their saucers. Towers of books toppled and sprawled across the floor. Mia’s shadow stretched out toward the old man’s, clawing across the splintering boards, the nails popping free as it drew ever closer. Mister Kindly coalesced at her feet, translucent hackles raised, hissing and spitting. Mercurio backed across the room quicker than she’d imagine an old fellow might have stepped, hands raised in supplication, cigarillo hanging from bone-dry lips.
“Peace, peace, little Crow,” he said. “A test is all, a test. No offense meant.”
As the crockery stopped trembling and the cupboards fell silent, Mia sagged in place, tears fighting with the anger. It was all crashing down on her. The sight of her father swinging, her mother’s screams, sleeping in alleys, robbed and beaten … all of it. Too much.
Too much.
Mister Kindly circled her feet, purring and prowling just like a real cat might. Her shadow slipped back across the floor, puddling into its regular shape, just a shade too dark for one. Mercurio pointed to it.
“How long has it listened?”
“… What?”
“The Dark. How long has it listened when you call?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She curled up on her haunches, trying to hold it inside. Screw it up and push it all the way down into her shoes. Her shoulders shook. Her belly ached. And softly, she began to sob.
O, Daughters, how she hated herself, then …
The old man reached into his greatcoat. Pulled out a mostly clean handkerchief and held it out to her. Watching as she snatched it away, dabbed as best she could at her broken nose, the hateful tears in her lashes. And finally he knelt on the boards in front of her, looked at her with eyes as sharp and blue as raw sapphires.
“I don’t know what
any
of this means,” she whispered.
The old man’s eyes twinkled as he smiled. With a glance toward the cat made of shadows, Mercurio drew out her mother’s stiletto from his coat, stabbed it into the floorboards between them. The polished gravebone gleamed in the lantern light.
“Would you like to learn?” he asked.
Mia eyed the knife, nodded slow. “Yes, I would, sir.”
“There’s no sirs ’round here, little Crow. No donas or dons. Just you and me.”
Mia chewed her lip, tempted to just grab the blade and run for it.
But where would she go? What would she do?
“What should I call you, then?” she finally asked.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“If you want to take back what’s yours from them what took it. If you’re the kind who doesn’t forget, and doesn’t forgive. Who wants to understand why the Mother has marked you.”
Mia stared back. Unblinking. Her shadow rippled at her feet.
“And if I am?”
“Then you call me ‘Shahiid.’ Until the turn I call you ‘Mia.’”
“What’s ‘Shahiid’ mean?”
“It’s an old Ashkahi word. It means ‘Honored Master.’”
“What will you call me in the meantime?”
A thin ring of smoke spilled from the old man’s lips as he spoke. “Guess.”
“… Apprentice?”
“Smarter than you look, girl. One of the few things I like about you.”
Mia looked at the shadow beneath her feet. Up at the sunslight glare waiting just beyond the shutters. The Godsgrave. The City of Bridges and Bones, slowly filling with the bones of those she loved. There was no one out there who could help her, she knew it. And if she was going to free her mother and brother from the Philosopher’s Stone, if she wanted to save them from a tomb beside her father’s—presuming they buried him at all—if she was going to bring justice to the people who’d destroyed her familia …
Well. She’d need help, wouldn’t she?
“All right, then. Shahiid.”
Mia reached for her knife. Mercurio snatched it away, silver-quick, held it up between them. Tiny amber eyes twinkled at her in the gloom.
“Not until you earn it,” he said.
“But it’s mine,” Mia protested.
“Forget the girl who had everything. She died when her father did.”
“But I—”
“Nothing is where you start. Own nothing. Know nothing. Be nothing.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
The old man crushed out his cigarillo on the boards between them.
His smile made her smile in return.
“Because then you can do anything.”
In years to come, Mia would look back on the moment she first saw the Sky Altar and realize it was the moment she started believing in the divinities. O, Mercurio had indoctrinated her into the religion of the Mother. Death as an offering. Life as a vocation. And she’d been raised a good god-fearing daughter of Aa before all that. But it wasn’t until she looked over that balcony that she embraced the probability of it, or began to truly understand where she was.
She and Tric were led up another of the Church’s (seemingly endless) flights of stairs by Naev and other robed figures. All twenty-eight acolytes had decided to take supper, quiet conversations marking their climb, the mix of accents reminding Mia of the Little Liis market. But all conversation stilled as the group reached the landing. Mia caught her breath, pressed one hand to her chest. Naev whispered in her ear.
“Welcome to the Sky Altar.”
The platform was carved in the Mountain’s side, open to the air above. Tables were laid out in a T, the scent of roasting meat and fresh bread kissing the air. And though her stomach growled at the presence of food, Mia’s thoughts were consumed entirely by the sight before her.
The platform protruded from the Mountain’s flank, a thousand-foot drop waiting just beyond the ironwood railing. She could see the Whisperwastes below, tiny and perfect and still. But above, where the sky should have burned with the light of stubborn suns, she could see only darkness, black and whole and perfect.
Filled with tiny stars.
“What in the name of the Light…” she breathed.
“Not the Light,” Naev slurred. “The Dark.”
“How can this be? Truedark won’t fall for at least another year.”
“It is always truedark here.”
“But that’s impossible…”
“Only if
here
is where she supposes it to be.” The woman shrugged. “It is not.”
The acolytes were shown to their places, gawping at the black above. Though it should have been howling at this altitude, not a breath of wind disturbed the scene. Not a noise, save hushed voices and Mia’s own rushing pulse.
She found herself seated with Tric on her right, the slight boy with the ice-blue eyes on her left. Seated opposite was the pair Mia had guessed were brother and sister. The girl had blond hair plaited in tight warbraids, shaved in an undercut. Her face was pretty and dimpled, smattered with freckles. Her brother possessed the same round face, though he didn’t smile, so no dimples made appearance. His hair was a crop of snarled spikes. Both had eyes blue as empty skies. Their cheeks were still crusted with blood from the baptism ceremony.
Mia had already received one death threat since she arrived. She wondered if every acolyte in this year’s crop would be an opponent or outright enemy.
The blond girl pointed to Mia’s cheeks with her knife. “You’ve got something on your face.”
“You too,” Mia nodded. “Good color on you, though. Brings out your eyes.”
The girl snorted, grinned lopsided.
“Well,” Mia said. “Shall we introduce ourselves, or just glare the whole meal?”
“I’m Ashlinn Järnheim,” the girl replied. “Ash for short. This is my brother, Osrik.”
“Mia Corvere. This is Tric,” Mia said, nodding at her friend.
For his own part, Tric was glaring down the table at the other Dweymeri. The bigger boy had the same square jaw and flat brow as Tric, but he was taller, broader, and where Tric’s tattoos were scrawled and artless, the bigger boy’s face was marked in ink of exquisite craftsmanship. He was watching Tric the way a whitedrake watches a seal pup.
“Hello, Tric,” said Ashlinn, offering her hand.
The boy shook it without looking at her. “Pleasure.”
Ashlinn, Osrik and Mia all looked expectantly at the pale boy on Mia’s left. For his part, the boy was gazing up at the night sky. His lips were pursed, as if he were sucking his teeth. Mia realized he was handsome—well, “beautiful” was probably a better word—with high cheekbones and the most piercing blue eyes she’d ever seen. But thin. Far too thin.
“I’m Mia,” she said, offering her hand.
The boy blinked, turned his gaze to the girl. Lifting a piece of charboard from his lap, he wrote on it with a stick of chalk and held it up for Mia to see.
HUSH
, it said.
Mia blinked. “That’s your name?”
The beautiful boy nodded, turned his stare back to the sky without a sound. He didn’t make a peep throughout the entire meal.
Ashlinn, Osrik and Mia spoke as food was served—chicken broth and mutton in lemon butter, roast vegetables and a delicious Itreyan red. Ashlinn handled most of the conversational duties, while Osrik seemed more intent on watching the room. The siblings were sixteen and seventeen (Osrik the elder) and had arrived five turns prior. Their mentor (and father, it turned out) had been far more forthcoming about finding the Church than Old Mercurio, and the siblings had avoided any monstrosities on their way to the Quiet Mountain. Ashlinn seemed impressed by Mia’s story of the sand kraken. Osrik seemed more impressed with Jessamine. The redhead and her cunning wolf eyes was seated three stools down, and Osrik couldn’t seem to tear his stare away. For her part, the girl seemed more intent on the thuggish Itreyan boy seated beside her, whispering to him and occasionally staring daggers at Mia.
Mia could feel other furtive glances and lingering stares—though some were better at hiding it than others, almost every acolyte was studying their fellows. Hush simply stared at the sky and sipped his broth like it was a chore, not touching any other food.
Mia watched the Ministry between courses, noting the way they interacted. Solis, the blind Shahiid of Songs, seemed to dominate conversation, though from the occasional bursts of laughter he elicited, Mouser, the Shahiid of Pockets seemed possessed of the keenest wit. Spiderkiller and Aalea, Shahiid of Truths and Masks, sat so close they touched. All paid the utmost respect to Revered Mother Drusilla, conversation stilling when the old woman spoke.
It was halfway through the main that Mia felt a queasy feeling creep into her gut. She looked about the room, felt Mister Kindly curling up in her shadow. The Revered Mother stood suddenly, the Ministry members about her swiftly following suit, gazes downturned.