Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,131

blond girl scowled at Jessamine.

“So it was the Trinity that shook you so?”

Mia lowered her voice further. “Not sure why. Something to do with being darkin, I think. Jessamine pulled it on me in the Hall of Songs. Felt like I was about to croak it.”

Ash noted the gold chain about Jessamine’s neck, almost hidden by her shirt.

“That sneaky little c—”

A globe of onyx wyrdglass burst on the desk in front of them. Both girls were consumed in a thick, rolling cloud of black smoke, Ash falling back off her stool. The rest of the acolytes guffawed, the girls coughed and sputtered, waving to clear the air. As the smoke slowly dissipated, Mia found herself met with Spiderkiller’s glare.

“Acolyte Ashlinn. Acolyte Mia. You have something to contribute to the lesson?”

“No, Shahiid,” Mia mumbled.

“Then you believe clucking like a pair of hens will assist me in imparting it?”

“No, Shahiid,” Ash said, with her best hangdog expression.1

“Then I’ll thank you to listen in silence. The next globe I hurl will be a different color.”

Spiderkiller hefted the bag of ruby wyrdglass, glanced at the other acolytes. Each returned to their notetaking with a fury that would shame an Ironscribe. Silence reigned for the rest of the morn. But at the lesson’s end, Ash stared hard at Jessamine.

Cracked her knuckles.

And then she gave Mia a wink.

Two turns later, a short time after evemeal, Mia was working on Spiderkiller’s formula. Every eve, she’d hunch over her notes and try to untangle the puzzle. It seemed impossible: every antidote for one component seemed to increase the efficacy of another. But solving the riddle was Mia’s best chance at finishing top of hall, and lurking in her room meant there was little chance of running into Jessamine. She was cursing the air blue and seriously considering lighting her notes on fire when she heard lockpicks at her door.

“Maw’s teeth, can’t she just bloody knock?”

The girl extricated herself from her tangled pile of venomlore and padded to the door, opening it with a twist and finding Ashlinn crouched outside her room.

“Do your knuckles not work or something?” Mia asked.

Ash gave Mia the knuckles with both hands, shaking them in her face.

“Bloody hilarious, you,” Mia smiled. “What do you need?”

“Not what I need.” Ash straightened with a wink. “It’s what I can give you.”

“And what’s that?”

“Jessamine’s Trinity.”

Ash yelped as Mia grabbed her collar, dragged her inside and shut the door.

“Maw’s teeth, take a breath, Corvere…”

“You stole it?” Mia hissed.

“Not yet.” Ash glanced to the pile of notes covering Mia’s bed. “But I’m about to, if you’d rather do something useful with your time.”

“She never takes it off, Ash. I’ve seen her wearing it in the damned bath.”

“Speaking of, I couldn’t help noticing those bite marks on your inner thighs a few turns back…”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been checking on my inner thighs in the bath?”

Ash shrugged. “No harm in looking.”

“Verdict?”

“Eh. I’ve seen better.”

Mia raised the knuckles in her friend’s face. “O, look, mine work too.”

“Aye, aye, very good.” Ash rolled her eyes. “Point is, she does take it off. She has to when she makes the Blood Walk, because it’s made of … help me out here…”

“Metal,” Mia breathed.

“Huzzah! She can be taught!”

“Fuck you.”

“Fair warning, I’m not much of a biter…”

“Ash, I swear to the Mother—”

“Regardless,” Ash interrupted, “I happen to know Jessamine and a few of the others just headed off for another round of Squeeze the Secret in Godsgrave. So at this very second, all her belongings are sitting neatly in the alcoves near Adonai’s pool.”

“… You want to steal from the speaker’s chambers?”

Ashlinn simply grinned in response.

“Jessamine will know it’s gone as soon as she gets back,” Mia pointed out. “And she’d have to be a special shade of dense to not figure out it was me who took it.”

From her britches, Ashlinn dragged out three gold circles on a glittering chain.

“Jessamine’s not going to know a thing, Corvere.”

Mia stared at the medallion, spinning and gleaming in the dull light. Another Trinity. Aside from the precious metal it was wrought of, which might buy a small house in one of the fancier areas of the ’Grave, it seemed perfectly ordinary. Mia didn’t feel at all sickened in its presence—obviously it had never been blessed by one of Aa’s believers. But still, the sight of it …

“Where’d you get that?”

“Mouser’s costumes. He’s got a strange love of priest’s dresses, that one. I found some women’s underthings in his collection too.” Ash shrugged, stuffed the Trinity back