close to Abbess Wheel were few and far between.
‘Fine. Well, what about this?’ Jula waved Aquinas’s Book of the Moon at her. ‘One look at it and we’re all done for.’
‘So we make sure they don’t get a look. We hide it before we get back. Perhaps you can find what we need and memorize it.’
‘I liked the whole Argatha prophecy better when it was supposed to be a four-blood who saved us.’ Jula frowned at the tome in her hand. ‘Not four shiphearts, the Ark, and some poor idiot who has to memorize a whole damn book. Just one four-blood. Nice and simple.’
‘I miss Zole.’ Ruli let go of Jula’s habit and stared at the ground. ‘Even if she wasn’t the Chosen One …’
Nobody had anything to say to that and for a moment only the wind spoke.
‘I have to get back,’ Markus said. ‘Lovely to meet you all, novices.’ He brushed some of the mud from his robe.
‘Brother Markus.’ Ara inclined her head.
Markus bowed his head in return then looked at Nona. ‘I did you a great injustice at the Academy. I hope that account is now settled.’
‘It is,’ Nona said.
‘I’m not sure any of us will survive the next month.’ Markus raised a hand to forestall any patriotic objection, though none appeared to be forthcoming. ‘But if we do survive, then whether it’s under Durnish overlords, the Battle-Queen’s dominion, or our own glorious emperor, long may he reign, I would like to meet you again, Nona Grey.’
Nona felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Ruli and Jula stared from her to Markus and back, open-mouthed. Nona opened her own, calling on the Ancestor, or the Hope, or any small god who might be listening to put some words there, any words at all as long as they were cool, witty, and sophisticated. A moment’s silence stretched to the point at which any coherent sound would be acceptable as long as it vaguely resembled a response …
‘Ancestor’s blessings, brother?’ Ruli asked, probably for the tenth time. ‘Ancestor’s blessings?’ Eleven.
‘It was all I could think to say.’ Nona picked up the pace again. Verity’s lights lay three miles behind them, the twinkling of the convent two miles ahead.
‘But Ancestor’s blessings?’ Jula panted.
‘I was stressed, all right?’ Nona saw Markus’s eyebrow go up again. She couldn’t stop seeing it.
‘Leave Nona alone.’ Ara came up alongside her, running tirelessly. ‘Brother Markus is clearly a very holy man. It’s only natural that Nona should want to share blessings with him. Rather than, you know, respond to what he said.’
Ruli and Jula snorted and fell back, gasping for breath.
Nona ran on towards the Rock of Faith. A kind of hysteria had infected her friends. The type that demanded you cry or you laugh. In the east distant fires peppered the countryside, too many and too bright. And on the road, despite the hour, they had already passed a dozen ragged bands limping towards the city, many with everything they owned heaped upon handcarts.
The fears that surrounded the novices were the kind that were too big to hold inside all the time. War in the east. War in the west. Both converging on the capital with horrifying speed. And now the distinct possibility that the full authority of the Church itself would be turned upon them, the novices branded as thieves of a forbidden book, a crime for which Nona had no doubt that some antique law would demand a gruesome and almost certainly fatal punishment. She vowed it wouldn’t come to that, but even if the others agreed to fight their way free … any future that awaited them looked very bleak.
Close to the plateau’s base Nona called a halt. She and Ara waited while Ruli and Jula caught them up. Ara patrolled the area, her shadow-work unravelling the night for inspection while Jula got her breath back.
‘I’ll go up first,’ Nona said. ‘Ara will check the Seren Way, shadow-wrapped, and get you two into the undercaves.’ The cave entrance lay close to the start of the track. ‘Ruli will lead Jula through to the novice cloisters, and somewhere on the way you can find a place to hide the book. Somewhere Jula will be able to visit alone when she needs to study it.’
‘What if they’re guarding the track?’ Jula asked. ‘We could all go around to the Styx Valley and come up from the west …’
‘Too far.’ Nona shook her head. Gaining the plateau from the west was easy and the