Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,53

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