Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,128

waiting in the shadows…”

“Waiting for what?”

“… for one like you…”

“That simple, eh?”

“… what is wrong with simple…?”

“Because nothing ever is.”

“… you are too young to be so cynical…”

Mia lurched upward, passing right through Mister Kindly and up off the mattress. The not-cat licked its paw and cleaned its whiskers as if nothing were amiss.

“Fuck you, then. Keep your secrets. I’ll seek out Lord Cassius when he comes back for initiation. Ask him again about darkin and what it means to be one. And if he decides to play cryptic instead of giving me my answers this time, I might just choke them out of him. I don’t care how nice his damn cheekbones are.”

“… that is unwise, mia…”

“Why? Because he might tell me the truth?”

“… because he is dangerous. surely you sense that…”

“All I sense when I’m near him is your fear.”

“… and you think i am afraid for me…?”

Mia bit down on her tirade, stared at the not-cat sitting among the furs. All Mister Kindly had ever done was protect her. Chasing her nightmares away when she was a little girl. The nevernight phantoms of the puppy-choker who came to drown her. The scarecrows and shadows she’d seen inside the Philosopher’s Stone.

“So I wait for the chronicler, then. There’s bound to be a book in the athenaeum that holds the truth. It’s only a matter of time until he finds it.”

“… you truly believe you will learn to master the shadows by reading a book…?”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” she shouted.

“… i have told you a thousand times, mia…”

She looked at her friend, curled there in her bed. Chill fingernails running down her spine. The sound of distant screaming echoing in her head. The image of a tear-streaked face. Hollow, frightened eyes. Blood.

“… to master the darkness without, first you must face the darkness within…”

Breath coming quicker. Sweat on her skin. She rummaged in her britches, found her cigarillo case. Put one to her lips with shaking hands.

“… it was not your fault, mia…”

“Shut up,” she whispered.

“… it was n—”

“SHUT UP!”

The girl hurled the silver case at the wall. Face twisted. The not-cat pressed his ears to his head. Shrunk down on himself and whispered.

“… as it please you…”

Mia sighed. Closed her eyes and breathed. After long, silent minutes, she struck her flintbox and lit her cigarillo, drawing deep and sitting down on the bed. Watching the smoke wind in broken spirals through the gloom. Finally sighing.

“I’m becoming something of a bitch, aren’t I?”

“… becoming…?”

She glanced at the cat as he chuckled, flicked ash in his general direction.

“… this is all new to you. it cannot be easy…”

She dragged hard on the smoke, exhaled through her nostrils.

“It’s not meant to be easy. But I can do this, Mister Kindly.”

“… i have no doubt. and i am with you to the end…”

“Really.”

“… really…”

Mia stayed awake, watching the cigarillo slowly burn down to nothing. Sitting in the dark with her thoughts. Mister Kindly was right; initiation should be her goal. All else was just chaff and fuckery. She wasn’t the master at pockets that Ash or Jessamine was. And training with Tric wasn’t helping her swordcraft the way it needed to. But her only match in venomcraft was Carlotta, and her current weakness in the Hall of Songs was something she could exploit. Like Mister Kindly and Mercurio had said, being underestimated was a weapon she could turn to advantage.

Time to start hedging my bets.

With her cigarillo dead, she lay back in her bed. Grateful the smoke had killed what was left of Tric on her skin. Just the once, she told herself. Just to keep the dreams away. Her thoughts turned slower as fatigue finally caught her, as sleep wrapped her in gentle arms, lashes fluttering against her cheeks. And finally she slept.

The not-cat sat beside her, waiting for the nightmares that came to call.

Ever watchful.

Ever hungry.

It did not wait long.

Before mornmeal, Mia rose from her bed and crept from her room. She made her way past the acolyte bedchambers, deeper into the Mountain. Enquiring politely from a passing figure in black, she was escorted down wending stairwells, into a chamber she’d never seen. The smell of dust and hay, camel and shit. And stepping out into a great cavern carved in the Mountain’s guts, she realized where she was.

“Stables…”

The cavern was at least fifty feet high, great wooden pens holding two dozen snorting, snarling spit-machines. She could see Hands unloading a newly arrived wagon-train, watering the beasts