room.
For a beat no one says anything. Silas looks down at the table, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles, save for those with the Nigredo, are white.
“I love my mother,” I say. “To save her I’d do almost anything. Are you telling me you wouldn’t, to save Silas?”
She doesn’t reply. Finally, though, it is Twylla who breaks the silence. “We’re leaving,” she says suddenly, pushing the bench back from the table. “These people have nothing to do with us.”
“I told you, you will go nowhere until you’ve heard what your mother has to say.”
Twylla slams her hand down, the slap of her palm against the wood echoing through the room. “I am tired of women like you telling me what I am, and what I should be.”
Sister Hope looks at her. “Twylla, soon enough you’ll understand what the Sleeping Prince will do to us, will force us to do, if he finds us. What he’ll do to you. I see why you think me cruel, and I’m sorry for it, truly I am. But her people –” she points at me “– won’t suffer as mine will if he finds us. He can’t hurt them as he can hurt us. She’s a liability and if you knew—”
“Can’t hurt them?” I speak before Twylla can, my voice icy. “You saw the state he left Tremayne in. Hundreds of people dead. Men, women, children. I lived in this town my whole life. I trained as an apothecary in the ruins above our heads. Today I saw bodies that I’ve healed in the past. My friends are missing. Maybe even dead.” And as I say it, I understand it might be true. The Dapplewoods, Master Pendie. “You have miles of caves down here where you could shelter children, and the weak. And you do nothing. Who are you, to think you’re better than us because you’re alchemists? That you’re worth more than we are because you make gold?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sister Hope says to me, shaking her head. “And this is not your concern. Twylla, please. Listen to us.”
I ignore her. “We won’t hide. We won’t cower in the dark. We’re going to fight him,” I say, relishing the words.
“And if you won’t help us, then you become our enemy too,” Twylla adds. “And may the Gods help you if you try to stop me.”
She leans across the table, glowing with rage. In this moment I understand how she became the embodiment of a Goddess; I almost believe in it.
There is a scuffling from outside the curtain and one of the Sisters rises swiftly, crossing the room and throwing the shade back.
Standing there, clearly eavesdropping, is a group of people, alchemists and non. I realize with a start that it’s the group that helped Twylla fight the golem. Including Nia.
“Forgive us, Sister. But we want to fight too,” a tall brown-haired man says, and the others nod.
“They are our people.” Nia steps forward, hand in hand with the white-haired woman she sat beside earlier. “We want to fight.”
“He can’t be beaten in battle,” Sister Wisdom says.
“Perhaps not,” Nia replies. “But she stopped one of the golems.” She points at Twylla. “We saw it. If we work together, we can thin his ranks, make him vulnerable.”
“And we can fight men. We can kill men,” I say. “The Silver Knight leads an army of men; we can battle them, to begin with, even if we can’t kill him with a sword.”
Sister Hope stares at me.
“I can teach them to fight,” Silas says, standing. “I can use a sword, and a bow. I’ll teach the willing what they need to know.”
Sister Hope looks back at him. “Silas, you know there’s only one way to defeat him, and it isn’t a duel. It’s a waste.”
“You can’t stop them,” he says softly, looking from her to me and then smiling ruefully. “You know that.”
Sister Hope turns to look at her fellow Sisters, seeming to confer silently with them. “As you wish,” she says, looking at the crowd in the door. “Silas, find the girls somewhere to rest until Amara arrives. And I’ll … I’ll send a message to the Council. Your mother is Trina Vastel, yes?” She looks back at me.
“Yes.”
She nods again, then turns, her cloak gliding over the floor like a snake.
“Errin.” She pauses in the doorway. “I’m sorry. I truly am.” Then, followed by the other Sisters, she moves past the crowd, now looking sheepish and unsure in the doorway.
“What