boy who probably got it from his father. She set it by the guard’s feet before retreating into the vault and pulling the door closed. Just inside the chamber beyond she dropped a copper groat, worn and stamped with the head of Adoma’s father. It bounced and rolled against the wall. She didn’t see which way it landed, but heads or tails it would still point eastwards.
‘What are you doing?’
‘A little misdirection. Let them think it was Scithrowl agents in disguise.’
‘Very careless Scithrowl agents!’
‘The horde is on our doorstep, everyone’s jumping at shadows, it won’t take much to send them running the wrong way. Let them think spies were here and that soon Adoma’s Fist will blow open the city gates for their queen,’ Nona said. It probably wasn’t far from the truth in any case. She turned towards the towering shelves.
In the space before the shelves a thick and slightly narrowing length of ironwood wandered down from the ceiling and continued into the stone floor. The deepest root of the tree of the Ancestor, part of the golden arborat that once spread above the cathedral. The taproot leading back to the source. Nona wondered what she might find if she dug down after it. She shook away the thought. ‘We need the book, Jula!’
Jula, who had been gazing in hungry amazement at the stacks of tightly bound tomes, jolted back into the moment and began to move between the rows. The shelves bore labels relating to the books they held, each tome carefully wrapped in skeilskin to fend off the damp. The air hung heavy with mildew, mould, and the stink of foxed paper. Markus began to sneeze and Nona, feeling her own nose begin to tingle, moved to the vault door and fresher air, opening it a crack.
‘I’ll listen out for any trouble.’
She waited, calling back the tatters of her serenity trance so that she wouldn’t be tempted to urge Jula to hurry up. Outside, Ara and Ruli would be imagining all manner of disasters that might have befallen them.
Time crept by, seeming slower than the deepest Nona’s hunska blood could bury her between the seconds. She discovered her foot tapping without instruction. Outside the door either Edran or the church guard made a soft grunt, probably an angry shout muted by the boneless.
More moments crawled by, mounting slowly into minutes. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I’m getting there. I’ve found the right section, I think. I’m having to unwrap everything though, and then wrap it back up so they don’t know what we were after.’
A distant shout rang out and at the same time Ara pulsed along their thread-bond an image of soldiers crowding in through the cathedral doors above.
‘Hurry! Someone’s coming!’ Nona hissed.
The distant sound of booted feet approaching at a run. Lots of booted feet.
‘Dung on it!’ Nona stepped back and pulled the door to, locking it. ‘We’ve been found out …’ It didn’t seem possible.
‘Found out?’ Markus hurried over. ‘Ancestor! They’ll hang us all! How can we be found out?’
‘We’ve been betrayed.’ Nona stared around the shadowed corners of the vault. There must have been a lot of them coming or Ara and Ruli would have delayed them more effectively.
‘We’re done for. We can’t get past them!’
Nona started to walk the perimeter of the vault, trailing her fingers across the wall. ‘Jula! Hurry up with that book!’
Markus followed, panic in his voice. ‘Leave the damn book. If we don’t touch it we can say this was all about turning in the other book. Just that we were rather too zealous about it …’ He trailed off, hearing how weak the excuse sounded once said out loud.
Someone outside shouted into the pause. ‘Open up!’ A fist pounding on iron panels.
‘Barricade the door, Markus.’ Nona took hold of his shoulders and pointed him back at it. ‘They’ll get another key soon enough.’
‘How will that help?’ But he went, taking hold of a ladder used to reach the top shelves.
Nona’s mind raced, shredding her serenity. She might battle a way through the soldiers who crowded the antechamber and corridors beyond, but it would hardly be an escape. Murder would be added to the charge of theft. Her own sisters would be sent to hunt her down. All she had worked for lost.
She continued pacing, stepping away from the wall where the shelves demanded it, returning to set her fingers to the stone once more. Marjal rock-work allowed for more than the manipulation of stone. Nona sank her senses through the