Chapter 1

Maryam woke up the sound of Song Ren shouting at a bird, which was not an infrequent occurrence.

She cast off the covers and went to wash her face, rubbing her eyes blearily before glancing at her reflection in the bronze looking glass. The war against those black rings around her eyes had hit a stalemate, but at least they were no longer getting larger. There had been victory on other fronts: her skin looked a great deal less sallow than it had when she left Asphodel. If only that had stopped the damn fever fits.

Hooks traced accord, then reproach. Maryam sifted through the nuances effortlessly.

“I know Captain Yue said those will end when I obscure another limb,” Maryam muttered back out loud. “I’m just tired of spending one evening a week sweating in my sheets with a pounding headache.”

Her sister did not quite answer, at least not in a way that could be translated with words. Their efforts in keeping a clear boundary between them had settled on thought-enforcing the concept of a veil – a silken, almost translucent sheet between them – and by tracing their thoughts and feelings against that veil they could share them with the other. A trace of agreement on the veil closed the matter, Hooks no more enjoying the fits than she. Her sister was tethered enough to this body to dislike when it felt ill.

Careful to keep her thoughts off the veil, Maryam chided herself for having been sloppy in her control when she first woke. She still bled through the veil regularly, as she just had when mentally bemoaning the fever fits, which Captain Yue insisted was in part because they had chosen the thought-concept of a veil instead of something heavier like a wall or a gate. Neither sister had cared for that much separation, however, and Maryam’s control was already heaps better than when they had first begun and there was no such thing as privacy even in her own mind.

She picked up her shift from the dresser, pulling it on, and slipped on a robe over it before padding down the stairs towards the enticing smell of eggs and cheese. It smelled delicious enough that Maryam hardly even blinked at the sight of Song brandishing a wooden spoon at a large magpie. Sakkas was a handsome bird, his feathers a lustrous black with the sides and back streaked white, and he waddled on the kitchen counter letting out distressed croaks while Song pointed her spoon as if it were a magic wand fit to banish him.

“Outside, beast,” Song hissed. “You have a bowl of berries already, you are not getting an omelet as well.”

Not even the absurdity of her current situation managed to make Song Ren seem entirely unserious. The Tianxi’s intricately braided black hair and immaculate formal uniform lent her a touch of the severe, only added to by the strangeness of her silver eyes. It was not a color one could be born with, those eyes. Even the heavy apron Song wore somehow felt part of her uniform, despite its mismatched lurid red stripes.

Sakkas warbled sadly while Maryam slid into a seat at the table, finding a steaming mug of black tea waiting for her. Ah, the comforts of the cottage. Unlike some of the others, she disliked spending the night at their room in town – it did not feel like a home, not the way the cottage sometimes did. Sakkas was the size of a large cat, or a small dog, which made his loudly put-on grief while he resisted Song at once tragic and entertaining. One might have thought that pitiful sadness genuine, if not for the clever gleam in his eyes.

Maryam ignored the bird and sipped at her tea with a little sigh of pleasure, knowing better than to try and pet him by now. The Gloam-touched bird had not taken to her, despite several attempts at bribing her way into his affections. She was the only one of the Thirteenth the magpie would not allow to pet him, which was likely because Maryam was signifier. It was not uncommon for animals to dislike signifiers, especially herbivores.

Angharad had been relieved to hear as much, for she had rather amusingly been suspecting their bird of being a bigot.

Within a minute Song managed to chase away the magpie after some aggressive skirmishing, Sakkas letting out a rebellious cackle-call as he fled out the window – which was promptly locked behind him. For all the good that would do, since Tristan constantly let him in through the stargazing tower. Maryam was only a third of the way through her tea when her captain slid a plate with an omelet and a handful of cut figs in front of her.

“Thank you for the help, Khaimovs,” Song said, tone full of reproach.

Amusement was traced on the veil, Hooks sliding out of her shadow a moment later. Her sister had taken to wearing blackcloak’s clothes and this morning was no exception, though as always she added some elaborations- this time elaborate red lace and embroidery in the Izvoric style to the sleeves, as well as a white collar with a heavy pearl necklace. Maryam liked the little touches, though that liking was unfortunately paired with envy at being unable to replicate any of them.

Uniform limitations aside, at the moment her finances were… lacking. She had walked hospitals with less bleeding happening inside them.

“You know Sakkas goes wild when I come out,” Hooks righteously replied. “We held back for the sake of your cooking.”

“You don’t deserve those figs,” Song told her, making as if to take them back.

Hooks’ hand darted out, touching one of the sliced fruits, and there was a whisper of power in the air. Under all their gazes the fig shriveled into a blackened husk in the span of a breath. Maryam’s sister let out a pleased noise while the Izvorica felt a shiver of satiation against the veil, accidental bleed on her sister’s part. Hooks did not actually eat food, having no physical needs, but she did require sustenance of sorts.

What her sister had just done, as far as either of them could tell, was consume an echo of a memory of eating figs. Despite Captain Yue’s best efforts, they weren’t yet sure whether it was Maryam’s memory of eating figs being used or local aether taint.

“Too late,” Hooks smugly said.

Song’s eyes lingered on the husk instead of snipping back. Maryam could guess what she was thinking about. Towards the end of the time in Asphodel and even for some weeks after Song had not needed to purge even once, but that reprieve had ended all too soon. Now they were back to purging every week, and when Song looked at that shriveled fig she must be wondering how easily her own flesh might come to look the same. Hooks’ presence slid against her mind and she traced the thought on the veil, her sister’s mood sobering instantly.

A touch of gloom came upon the three of them, but distraction came in the form of the cottage’s front door being opened. There was the sound of boots being cleaned on the threshold and then Tristan Abrascal cleared his throat.

“All right, who has been bullying Sakkas? He looks fit to weep, the poor thing.”

“The poor thing tried to eat your omelet,” Song called back. “And if you keep letting him into the house, next time I will let him.”

Maryam traded a look with her sister at the obvious lie. Tristan padded in a heartbeat later, looking similarly skeptical.

“If you’d threatened to cease feeding me I might have bought it, but to reward him instead? Try again.”

Tristan had, to Maryam’s mild anguish, left the last of the rawboned skinniness he’d had when they first met behind. He looked hale now, and had even put some muscle on his frame. Yet the marks of the night he had almost turned into a Saint were still there when one cared to look – that golden stripe in his hair that you could swear was metal in a certain light, the slightly ridged nails it had taken him months to grow back. He always wore a hat over the dark curls now, usually his tricorn, and there were faint flecks of gold in his gray eyes.

Like her, he’d come close that night to crossing a line that could not be uncrossed.

“I will hold back on that threat until I have secured the pantry with a lock you cannot pick,” Song said, then hummed. “I have made inquiries on the matter with the Umuthi Society.”

“You can just say Izel,” Hooks opined. “We all know what you mean.”

Joining them in the kitchen in the cheap clothes that had become his gardening set, Tristan spared their captain an insolent grin before sliding into the seat next to them.

“Maryam,” he greeted. “Princess.”

She smiled back through a mouthful of omelet, which as always Song had seasoned just right. Where had she learned such dark magics? Hooks entirely withdrew from the veil when Tristan called her Princess, which had Maryam tracing mockery. Her sister did not reply, as they both knew from experience that while tracing an answer she would likely bleed through the thrill she got every time he called her that.

The nickname he’d immediately picked when Maryam asked the Thirteenth to stop calling Hooks by that name where someone might overhead always got a reaction out of her. Hooks insisted it was an old remnant of Maryam’s causing it, but the odds on that being true were getting lower by the week.

They had, strategically, chosen not to address the matter any further than that.

To avoid glancing at the forearm bared by Tristan’s rolled-up sleeves, Maryam stole a pepper out of the plate Song had slid in front of him and avoided his half-hearted attempt to steal it back. She popped it in her mouth, wincing at the burn. Sacromontans might not take their spices as strong as Tianxi or Someshwari, but they still liked their peppers more than anyone should.

“Justice is served,” Tristan said righteously.

“You can bicker when you’re done,” Song told them. “I told Angharad we would meet them at seven sharp, we’ve only so much time to spare.”

Her gaze lingered on Tristan as she finished. He swallowed a mouthful of omelet, undaunted by the heavy gaze. He could still be prickly with Song, at times, but Maryam sometimes feared that these days those two might be getting along with each other better than they did with her. An ugly thought, all the more so for the way it kept creeping back in the corner of her mind every time she cast it out.

“Yes, I will wash before changing into the formal uniform,” Tristan finally sighed. “Though I don’t know why you make such a fuss about it – it’s only the general graduation ceremony. All the fancy parties will be put on by individual covenants.”

He leaned in.

“Unless, of course, you know something I don’t.”

Song’s brow rose.

“Always,” she said. “But in this case, all I have to go on is an insinuation by Colonel Cao that having that ceremony happen inside Scholomance is not a symbolic gesture.”

Maryam shared rolled eyes with her sister at the way Song spoke Chunhua Cao’s name. The ‘Unluckies’ were in the colonel’s good books, mostly because of what they had done on Asphodel, which unfortunately had Song even keener on her than before. Maryam herself was of the opinion that the teacher for the Stripe students was a petty tyrant with troublesome whims, but that was an opinion best kept to herself around her captain.

She’d learned that the hard way.

“There has to be a practical reason we attend classes inside the school,” Maryam said, slipping back into the conversation. “If this was only about exposing us to an aether well to harden our souls, then being around Port Allazei ought to be enough.”

“Wouldn’t that be a treat,” Tristan darkly said.

It was telling that, by the year’s final count, more students had died at Scholomance than out there in Vesper taking their yearly test – and by a significant margin. Though it was a closer count if you removed the students the Thirteenth had killed, apparently. Song had embarrassedly confessed one night that the Stripes were running a ‘cause of death’ tally and ‘Unluckies’ was the fourth entry on the list.

“I could have a look in the Cauldron for answers,” Hooks idly suggested. “Can’t be the first time something like this happens.”

Or not so idly, Maryam frowned as she realized her sister was still keeping her finger off the veil. Tristan and Song shared a look, the thief shoveling the rest of his omelet into his gullet in a fascinatingly gruesome spectacle while Song suddenly found she had plates to put away in the cupboards. Maryam turned to glare at Hooks, interrupted only by Tristan clapping her shoulder before absconding with the mint brew that Song had put out for him.

“I’ll finish it upstairs,” he said when she glanced at the mug. “I enjoy it best with the view.”

Maryam spared an apologetic half-smile for him before she met her sister’s eyes. Hooks was picking at the red lace of her sleeve, but did not look all that abashed. Song was making just enough noise in the kitchen to give them both the illusion of not being listened to, so Maryam finally spoke.

“Captain Yue told us not to attempt that on our own.”

“Yue doesn’t know everything,” Hooks muttered. “I don’t care what she says, the knowledge is part of me. I just need to-”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“No,” Maryam hissed. “We only just got our footing back. If she’s right and going fishing in the Cauldron destabilizes our Grasp and Command-”

“I held off on asking until we passed the Akelarre examination, didn’t I?” Hooks said. “It’ll be months before classes begin again, it’s not like there’s anything urgent even if something does go wrong.”

“It might stop me undergoing obscuration,” Maryam said. “I want the fevers gone.”

“You haven’t even decided on what you’ll obscure,” Hooks scorned. “Am I just to wait until you-”

“Yes,” she harshly said.

“Nemoj me jebat,” her sister snarled.

“Don’t you fuck with me,” Maryam snarled back.

Hooks slapped her hand on the veil, both of them wincing for it, and disappeared back into Maryam’s shadow. She might as well slam the door while at it, the fucking brat. The signifier looked down at the last of her tea, still warm, and Song continued to pretend she was putting away things for a solid thirty seconds in what Maryam could only call an act of mercy. She drained the last of her cup, setting it down before passing a hand through her hair.

“You have sisters, right?” she asked.

Song sighed, then came to the table as she undid the laces on her apron.

“Two,” she said. “Younger, by three and five years.”

“Did you get along with them?”

Methodically, Song wiped and folded her apron. Twice, for a crease dare appear on the first go of it.

“Sometimes,” Song said, then cleared her throat. “Sometimes less. Aihan used to take my slippers without asking.”

Maryam blinked.

“Your shoes?”

Song snorted.

“Not exactly,” she said. “They’re called xiuhuaxie, cloth slippers with embroidery on. I had this beautiful pair with a peach blossom pattern that our father gave me as congratulations after I got my contract. She kept stealing them out of my room, said they went perfectly with her favorite hanfu and I shouldn’t mind her borrowing them anyway.”

“And you let her?” Maryam asked, fascinated.

It did not sound at all like the Song she knew, to allow something like those – even less more than once.

“Gods, no,” Song laughed. “I threw her all her favorite hairpins in a pond, though Mother made me fish them out afterwards.”

The other woman paused.

“She never stopped, though, no matter what I did,” Song said. “Looking back, I think she just wanted me to pay her attention. Our brothers never did, and she thought of our youngest sister as a baby even though they are closer in age.”

Maryam eyed the empty space where Hooks had just been.

“I don’t think that’s what’s happening here,” she muttered.

“Neither do I,” Song replied. “But I must admit that I’ve snarled a few things at my sisters in just the tone she used. It comes with the territory, I think.”