Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,52

to the temple district, and, thus, never arrived.

Mia remained on the rooftops despite the awful cold (only one sun resides in the sky during Godsgrave winters, and the chill is long and bitter). As the snows began to fall, she refused to move lest she miss her mark. When Mia hadn’t arrived by next morning, Mercurio grew worried, retracing the messenger’s assigned path until he at last arrived atop the temple district roof. There he found his apprentice, almost hypothermic, shivering uncontrollably, eyes still locked on the Chapel of Tsana. When the old man asked why in the Mother’s name Mia had stayed on the roof when she was in danger of freezing to death, the twelve-year-old simply replied, “You said it was important.”

Not without her charm, as I said.

6. Astonishingly, remarkably, impossibly incorrect.

CHAPTER 9

DARK

The old man straightened her nose out as best he could, wiped the blood from her face with a rag soaked in something that smelled sharp and metallic. And sitting her down at a little table in the back of his shop, he’d made her tea.

The room was somewhere between a kitchen and a library. All was swathed in shadow, the shutters drawn against the sunslight outside.1 A single arkemical lamp illuminated stacks of dirty crockery and great, wobbling piles of books. Mia’s pain slipped away as she sipped Mercurio’s brew, the throbbing mess in the middle of her face rendered mercifully numb. He gave her honeyseed cake and watched her wolf down three slices, like a spider watches a fly. And when she pushed the plate aside, he finally spoke.

“How’s the beak?”

“Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Good tea, neh?” He smiled. “How’d it get broken?”

“The big boy. Shivs. I put my knife to his privates and he hit me for it.”

“Who told you to go for a boy’s cods in a scrap?”

“My father. He said the quickest way to beat a boy is to make him wish he was a girl.”

Mercurio chuckled. “Duum’a.”

“What does that mean?” Mia blinked.

“… You don’t speak Liisian?”

“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