Questions bounced around inside her skull. Who was this patron? Why kill a member of the braavi? Why did they request her specifically? What’s on this map?
It doesn’t matter, she realized.
It wasn’t her place to ask. It was her place to serve. The sooner she proved herself, the sooner she’ d earn a permanent posting in the Godsgrave Chapel. And from there, no matter what Solis might say, she’ d be one step closer to her revenge.
The wolf did not pity the lamb.
The storm begged no forgiveness of the drowned.
“I’ll not fail,” Mia vowed. “In the Black Mother’s name, I swear it.”
Solis folded his arms, his face unreadable in the gloom.
“Go,” he finally said. “May Our Lady be late when she finds you. And when she does, may she greet you with a kiss.”
Mia took the scroll case, tucked it under her arm along with her beaten book. Bowing low, she backed slowly out of the hall. As she stalked away down the darkened corridors, past beautiful stained-glass windows and grotesque bone sculptures, two shapes slipped from the darkness and fell into step alongside her.
A cat made of shadows. And beside it, a wolf of the same.
“Can you believe him?” Mia hissed. “Calling me ‘acolyte,’ the bastard.”
“… you act as if solis’s bastardry is some kind of revelation …,” Mister Kindly replied.
Eclipse’s growl came from somewhere beneath the floor.
“… CASSIUS ALWAYS THOUGHT OF HIM AS AN ARROGANT THUG. OF ALL THE MINISTRY, HE LIKED SOLIS LEAST. ONE TURN, WE SHOULD TEACH HIM A LESSON IN MANNERS …”
“… there are less dramatic forms of suicide, pup …”
“… SO LITTLE FAITH IN OUR MISTRESS, LITTLE KITTEN …”
“… she is not yours, you w—”
“Black Mother, enough,” Mia snapped, rubbing her temples. “The last thing I need to hear right now is you two bickering like a pair of old maids.”
Her passengers fell quiet, leaving only a disembodied choir to echo in the dark. Mia took a deep breath, tried to pull her notorious temper into check. They were still treating her like a novice. Despite all she’d done. But if nothing else, she was headed to Godsgrave. The patronage of this mysterious benefactor was unexpected, but in truth she was glad somebody was recognizing the talent it took to murder a justicus and a hundred of his men. If it got her closer to Scaeva and Duomo, all the better.
But still, her mind swum with images of her fight in the necropolis. That thing and its gravebone blades, the tentacles writhing at the edges of its cowl. Though she couldn’t find it in her to be afraid with the shadows so thick at her feet, she knew there was something grander at play here.
She looked at the book under her arm, running her fingers across the timeworn cover. The tarnished brass clasp.
“Seek the crown of the moon,” she muttered.
“… we have until midbells …”
The girl hooked her thumbs into her belt.
Realized she was dying for a smoke.
“Time enough to take my library books back.”
Her cell smelled like piss and stale misery.
The straw was musty, the bucket in the corner crusted in filth and flies. Mia had been escorted from the Pit, Teardrinker nodding farewell as she was taken out through the gates. Four heavyset legionaries had marched her across the roiling marketplace, finally locking her in a holding pen inside a large administratii building. Though her price was settled, coin had yet to be paid. She had a few hours before her new domina took full possession. A few hours to pull together the tattered threads of her plan.
“… we must inform the viper …”
Mia scowled at Mister Kindly. He was only a darker shape against the shadows thrown by the bars across the floor. The cells beside Mia’s were empty, but she kept her voice a whisper.
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that.”
“… you have another term less flattering …?”
“You could use her bloody name.”
The not-cat made a sniffing sound; impressive for a creature without lungs.
“… we were supposed to be purchased by leonides. leonides’s daughter bought you instead. the viper has no way of knowing this. she and eclipse will be waiting for us at leonides’s collegium in whitekeep as planned …”
“That was something of an oversight,” Mia admitted.
“… this entire plan is oversight and folly, stitched together by jiggery-fuckery …”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“… a pity, then, that the viper does not …”
Mia sighed. “You’ll have to go tell her. Can you make your way to Whitekeep?”
“… i am certain i can find a ship to stow aboard. but what will you do …?”
“What else can I do?” Mia shrugged. “Train in Leona’s stable. Fight. Win. The destination hasn’t changed, just the starting point.”
“… and where do i tell the viper to meet you? where is your new dona’s collegium …?”
“I’ve no fucking idea.”
“… o, aye. you certainly know what you’re doing …”
Mia flipped the knuckles at the shadowcat, dragged her matted hair behind her ears. She was still covered in dried blood, old sweat, dust. Sitting in the straw, she tried not to picture the faces of the men she’d killed in the Pit. She’d needed to impress, and she’d done so … after a fashion. She’d killed dozens who’d stood in her way before now. But still, those pit fighters had only been doing as they were bid …
“I feel like shit,” she sighed.
“… you do not smell particularly pleasant either …”
“That’s not what I—”
“… you cannot afford to pity those men, mia. swimming this deep, your compassion will only serve to drown you. you must be as hard and as sharp as the men you hunt …”
“If not for the pity I took in my final trial at the Red Church, I’d have been at the initiation feast when Ashlinn and Osrik poisoned the Ministry. We’d all be dead.”
“… you’re just going to keep rubbing that in, aren’t y—”
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, and the not-cat faded away like smoke. Mia looked up to see an administratii unlocking her cell. The man was stocky, bearded, clad in white robes marked with the three suns of the Itreyan Republic. Beside him stood a young boy in a short-sleeved novice frock, carrying a tall chair and a mahogany box.
Dona Leona walked softly into the cell, followed by one of the most wellbuilt men Mia had ever seen. He was Itreyan, perhaps in his mid-thirties, thick beard going gray at the edges, thick hair swept up and back in a long tail. His skin was like leather, and a particularly vicious scar bisected his