had retracted into the floor. Sherzal walked out, arms crossed before her, thumb on the hidden button that would detonate the explosives she’d installed in the Ark.
Nona, under Ara’s control and carrying Ara, moved to one side of the corridor to allow Sherzal to pass by as far from the shipheart as she could get. Clera nodded to the emperor’s sister as she went but said nothing.
As the three of them crossed over the blast door Nona returned to her own body, Ara slid back into hers, and Ruli returned to her own flesh with a series of whimpering gasps.
‘Blast doors up!’ Nona called, and behind her ten tons of iron slid smoothly into place.
The special window continued to show the corridor as if inserting a two-foot-thick wall of iron made no difference to the view. Nona hobbled in and watched as Sherzal turned their way. She jabbed at the button experimentally, happy to blow them all to the Ancestor now the door had risen between them.
‘How frustrating for her.’ Nona narrowed her eyes at the woman. Even now her devils screamed for her to chase Sherzal down and hack her apart.
Beside Nona, Clera helped Ara to her feet. Ara, for her part, allowed Clera to aid her and didn’t punch her in the throat, which wouldn’t have been unreasonable given the fact that Clera had thrown a spear at her back less than an hour before.
‘This isn’t over,’ Ara said, joining Nona at the window.
‘No,’ said Nona, watching as Sherzal stopped at the blade-trap.
The emperor’s sister tossed a coin out to check that it hadn’t been reactivated. The coin hit the floor in four silver strips. She shot a foul look back at the blast door and pushed the button uselessly.
‘You should go out there and kill her.’ The guards had cut Jula free and she had crossed to help Ruli who was struggling to roll Safira’s corpse off her.
‘If we open the blast doors she can blow the explosives,’ Nona said, not looking away.
Sherzal tapped out the sequence to deactivate the blade-trap. Ever cautious, she tossed in a second coin. It hit the ground with a chime and rolled to a halt. Satisfied she hurried through, picking up speed, anxious to reach her guards and flee before the Scithrowl broke in.
She was clear of the blade-trap when suddenly she jolted, slowed, then carried on at a reduced pace. The jolt would have been the first wire breaking. Invisibly thin it would have cut to the bone before Sherzal’s momentum broke it. The slowing was the result of the multiple wires behind the first biting into her. By this point the pain would have registered. The blood appeared as thin red lines first, blotting the sliced edges of her gown. As she staggered large folds of flesh and muscle began to flay away from the bone. The top half of her face did something similar, the detail thankfully hidden behind a rising crimson mist. The emperor’s sister managed five more steps before falling in a gory ruin. The sound of her screaming didn’t reach into the Ark.
Beside Nona, Ara and Clera looked ready to vomit.
Nona nodded slowly. ‘Now it’s over.’
26
Holy Class
‘I’ll bring in the wires.’ Ara looked as if she would rather do anything else, even if she weren’t battling just to keep standing. But the first and last thing that Sister Apple had taught them about setting wires was that you cleared up afterwards.
Who had actually set the trap for Sherzal was open to debate. Nona had used her thread-bond with Ara to ask her to do it. Ara, too weak to set the wires, had used that same bond to inhabit Nona’s body while Nona in turn inhabited Ruli and spoke with Sherzal behind the blast doors. The bloody lengths of Ark-steel would be returned to the wire kit that Kettle had given Nona along with the poisons and cures carried by every Grey Sister.
Even so, it was Ara’s task to pull the wires from Sherzal’s gory remains.
‘Go with her, Clera.’ Nona nodded and motioned the two of them back into the corridor. Ara would need support.
When the way was clear Nona would let Sherzal’s guards go. Joeli would stay here. Jula had tied the girl with Safira’s cords. Joeli might be good with threads but Jula tied better knots.
‘The book was a lie?’ Ruli came closer, cradling her injured arm as if it were made of eggshell. Jula hovered around her, trying to help. ‘I went