up and down from their soup bowls while the delinquents walked around and picked up their trays. She turned back toward me, satisfied nobody could hear us. ‘It’s more than the whipping—all the girls are talking about it. But they’re a bunch of adolescents. Think you did something. I think it’s the other way around.’ Claire’s brow furrowed as she cupped her shoulder with her hand. ‘It’s a feeling I have.’
‘Christ, Claire. Again, with your shoulder?’
Her face scrunched when I said Christ’s name, but I didn’t apologize. I had a lot on my mind.
‘You’re saying there’s nothing going on?’
I looked at her, thinking about what she’d say if I asked her to help me with Marguerite. I couldn’t ask Mavis, nor would I want to. The other girls were too young. Claire was the oldest delinquent at the convent, and I had the distinct impression she craved a little excitement.
‘All right, listen,’ I said, pulling her in close. ‘I need some help. I’m not sure how much time I have.’
She nibbled her fingernails. ‘To do what?’
‘I need access to Marguerite’s chamber. At a time when I know she’ll be occupied.’
‘You want to get her back for whipping you?’
I wasn’t about to tell Claire I thought Marguerite might be a spy. If I did, I’d have to confess what I’d seen in the crypt and she’d tell every one of the delinquents before breakfast.
‘That’s right. The whipping,’ I said. ‘I need to think of a good time. In the morning, during prayer?’ Just as I said the words, I knew morning prayer wouldn’t work because everyone would notice I wasn’t there.
‘What about vespers?’ Claire said.
Vespers was an after-dinner prayer service only the nuns and postulants attended. They locked themselves in the nave, all very secretive, and chanted in Latin. It was perfect.
‘I’ll need a lookout.’
Claire nodded, excitement glinting like a firework in her eye.
*
The sisters’ private chambers were in an area off-limits to the rest of us, through a set of thick wood doors and up a flight of steep stone stairs. The postulants were on the ground level, behind the staircase, in what I heard were much smaller rooms.
Claire and I watched Marguerite and the rest of the nuns file into the nave and shut the door behind them. I flicked my chin. ‘This way.’ Claire nodded, and we snuck down to the private entrance, tiptoeing past freshly lit candles hanging from wrought-iron sconces bolted into the wall. The sisters’ chants spiralled hauntingly down the castle’s stone corridors.
‘In adiutorium meum intende…’
‘This way,’ I said, turning my head for one second, when Sister Mary-Francis and someone new passed by us, someone whose habit looked pieced together and a size too big.
‘Adèle,’ Sister Mary-Francis said, but then sounded much more suspicious. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Oh, uh…’
‘We’re going to the infirmary, Sister,’ Claire piped up, and I looked at her. ‘Mademoiselle has a stomach ache. I offered to walk her.’ She smiled, and I looked at Sister Mary-Francis, slowly moving my arms to my waist.
‘Oh?’ the sister said. ‘Are you sick? I noticed you weren’t at dinner.’
‘Uh, yes,’ I said, holding my stomach. ‘I’ll be fine though.’
I tried not to stare, but I wanted to get a look at the new nun’s eyes, see if she was the same woman I saw in the old convent with the guns. My heart sped up, leaning in, and her eyes slowly lifted from the floor, but then more doors slammed shut down the way and the chants turned even more muffled. ‘We better hurry!’ Sister Mary-Francis said, and the pair rushed off down the corridor to vespers.
I watched them leave as Claire pushed me to move on. ‘Come on,’ Claire whispered, and once they were out of sight, I moved.
‘What was that about?’ Claire said.
‘What?’
‘You were staring,’ she said, almost laughing. ‘Like you had never seen a nun before.’ She waved her hand around. ‘Look where we are.’
‘It was nothing,’ I said, thinking about how it was even more imperative that I get to the bottom of Marguerite’s story. ‘Come on.’ I grabbed her by the arm and walked to the end of the corridor where it opened into foyer. ‘Shush,’ I said, and we listened for what was up ahead before blindly walking around the corner. All seemed quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary.
She pushed me with her knee. ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘They’re all in vespers—’
‘Shush!’ I said, and I peeked around the corner, thinking Claire had to be right—we heard