Chapter 13

Izel Coyac had known it would be a bad day from the moment he woke up with a corpse in his bed.

A leering, rotten cadaver with a burst belly leaning over the foot of the bed, intestines spilled all over the sheets. There had been another by the door, choked on its own vomit, and three more waiting in the hall. Five corpses, all dead from excess: the Five-Headed Hand was sending a stark omen. His suspicion it was about his overeating last night lasted no longer than the walk down to Crescent Street, and by the time he found the others he knew for certain it was going to be a bad day.

For one they were in a hospital and Izel hated hospitals in that same visceral, instinctive way that cats hated water.

The Allazei healing ward was packed even now that the least of the injured had been bandaged and sent to stumble back to some hostel with some poppy in their belly, but the first signs of thaw were already appearing in the hall. Gray-robed physicians changed sheets and mopped up floors, drawing the eye to the few empty beds that would spread like mold as the cured and the dead left by the same old temple doors.

Izel’s eye caught on the sleeping Nenetl Chapul, following the graven orbweaver crawling over the captain’s face that not even Song could see. It was the second he had found in here. The worst of the deaths must have passed, as two were well short of the eleven that would have betrayed the Grave-Given’s genuine attention. He tore his gaze away from the sight of the amputated captain as the Thirteenth moved briskly towards the back of the hall, trying not to let his eyes wander as he kept pace with Angharad.

His ken ran deeper than usual today. Looking for guidance, he sought yellows and found a few – a scarf, a ribbon, beads and southern face paint – but none were cut through by a black line. It was the fifth of the sacred months, the Lord Grandson’s twenty days, but that god was ever stingy with signs. Izel would have to do without even the slightest of omens, left with only his own judgment.

That, his record of late seemed to show a curse in full.

“Here,” Song said. “The private room.”

Their captain turned the corner past an empty, stripped-clean bed without waiting a beat and the rest of them followed. Brusque, by her standards. You could usually tell how fraught Song Ren felt by the pace at which she went through her courtesies. An omen of what was to come, this brusqueness, as was the way that Tristan failed to poke at her for it. The Sacromontan used humor like a prodding stick, jesting this and that to find out how deep riverbeds ran.

He’d refrained, which meant distraction or enough weight on his own shoulders he did not care to look. Even Angharad’s gait ran stiff, as if she were fighting down impatience. Gods, none of them had walked away untouched by last night had they? Even beyond the obvious. Izel spared half a prayer to the Dirt-Eater in their name – quartered-sister, take upon you that which weighs us down, all sorrow and sin – but it was not enough to ease the shame boiling in his entrails.

Song wrenched open the door after two swift knocks, dragging him out of the bath of self-loathing he had begun to run the moment he first heard of the Misery Square massacre.

“Sure, you can come in,” Maryam drily called out from inside.

Song did not even bat an eye at the quip as she entered. Izel was the last one in, which was not an omen so much as an unpleasant reminder that while the others had been fighting for their lives, for everyone’s lives, he had eating a cauldronful of beans, moping away at Tristan’s garden and – Izel breathed in, traced the Notched Feather against the palm of his hand with his thumb. It settled him down some.

It was not a prayer, the sign of the Three Hundredth Ninety-Ninth Brother, but a challenge to the self: do not continue as you have, lest you draw the eye of the god of cowardice and defeat upon you.

The private room Maryam had been awarded was small and mostly bare, the few pieces of furniture inside worn, but it had chairs enough for everyone and a small table by the bed where she set down the book she had been reading on top of a pile of the same. He was not surprised she had one of the anterooms, even though it was debatable whether she needed it. Maryam was Captain Yue’s favorite, and every other second year Izel spoke to on the way to the Rainsparrow had rhapsodized over her single-handedly holding back a ‘Lord of Teeth’ until the rest of the Akelarre could bind it.

His gaze lingered on the writhing things he glimpsed in the shadows beneath Maryam’s bed, past untucked sheets. Snakes, he thought. And bound together like the stripes of a skirt. The Serpent Mother, but what had drawn her here – vengeance, mutilation or terror? In the blink of an eye the shadows went to rest and Izel closed the door behind him, heading for the last empty chair.

Between Tristan, who was at Maryam’s left, and Angharad who sat at the foot of the bed. Maryam looked exhausted, her eyes ringed even darker than usual, but though there was a sickly air about her the skin of her face had not gone sallow the way it sometimes did after Navigators drew too deep on Gloam. One thing to be thankful for.

“I’d thank you for all showing up to help me relocate to the chapterhouse,” Maryam said, “but half of you look like your favorite goat just got served as skewers.”

It was bait, he thought, and she was eyeing Tristan from the corner of her eye waiting for him to pounce on the concept of having a favorite goat so they could bicker. But the Sacromontan barely even noticed, his foot tapping against the floor like a twitching nerve. Izel’s stomach sunk at the sight, as did Maryam Khaimov’s face. Worse than he had expected.

“There is trouble,” Song simply said, and that had them all trying to sit at attention. “Have you heard about the hunt and the delve yet?”

“Captain Yue mentioned a few things when she came by earlier,” Maryam said. “The garrison is angry enough about Misery Square that we can hunt the Lord of Teeth instead of taking our yearly test, or try and explore Scholomance for some secret archive.”

“Lucifer’s own library,” Song explained. “It is called the Glass Repository. A god running it can shed light on the matter of the Lord of Teeth, how it may be no such thing – and might have just walked out of a layer like a living nightmare.”

Izel sucked in a breath at that little announcement. None of the students he’d stopped to talk with on either Regnant Avenue or Hostel Street had even hinted that the lemure might be a fake, but then Song was among that small circle of leading Stripe captains. She was handfed morsels of information by Colonel Cao where most brigade captains stumbled around in the dark. By the looks of their faces, this was news to most everyone else as well. Not Tristan, though. His face was empty, without even the mask of a friendly smile, and that was telling. An uncomfortable silence lingered so after a few moments Izel cleared his throat.

“When I arrived this morning, there were garrison men putting up broadsheets directing students towards the gatehouse to sign up with either venture,” Izel said. “We would need our covenant instructors to agree to it, but not Captain Wen.”

“Students, not brigades?” Angharad said.

He’d noticed the same. It was bound to cause chaos that students could get out of their yearly test by signing up, emptying brigades long before they could set out. Then again, their superiors might see that chaos as a test for the Stripes – did they deserve the captaincy, if they could not navigate fresh trouble? How closely the teachers of Scholomance sometimes flirted with the Dialectic of Night in the way they did things.

“It’s expected that the vast majority of College recommended will pass on both enterprises,” Song said. “If they make full brigades obligatory, they risk losing some who might otherwise have signed on.”

Despite the looks slid his way, Izel did not try to deny their captain’s words. Most of the students from the societies would avoid these ventures like the plague. And by the description of this Lord of Teeth the Watch would be needing all the warm bodies it could get, so in this sense their choice was wise.

“There will be several full brigades, though,” he shared. “The First already came out and said their full roster was headed in as an exploration crew while the Ninth announced the same about the hunt.”

The latter of which would force the Third to follow suit even if they hadn’t been a better fit for it by virtue of their members. Their tinker was a powderman and a gunsmith, pure Clockwork Cathedral track, and their signifier was a Banerjee. Those might be a scholar clan on paper, but it was an open secret they were in deep with the Savituri. Tristan breathed out slowly, then shared a look with Angharad – who nodded. The tinker glanced below the bed, but the snakes had not returned.

“I need help,” Tristan Abrascal said, and Izel almost choked on his spit.

The Sacromontan hurried to keep talking, as if he could paper over the first words with the rest.

“Fortuna was eaten by the beast,” he said, “but she still lives. She’s imprisoned in the belly. I consulted a specialist and their best estimate is three months before she begins dissolving.”

Savant, Izel thought. How many were learned enough in practical theology to run that formula for him? Four, maybe five. Khosa, Claver, the Qiao siblings, probably Naxi? He couldn’t think of a single one that would be willing to give answers for free. He was either paying wholesale or racking up a debt and neither answer was like Tristan Abrascal.

“Whatever that thing is, I need it dead,” Tristan told them. “And I need it done quick.”

“He is not alone in this,” Angharad quietly added. “I am being haunted.”

Izel’s hand was halfway to his knife before he stopped himself, but already two pistols were drawn and the tip of Maryam’s finger boiling black when Angharad raised a hand to stop them.

“Not possessed,” she said, evidently thinking the distinction reassuring.

“Elaborate,” Song ordered.

“As you know, I cannot speak of what goes on in the depths of the Acallar.”

Izel slowly nodded. By the Marshal’s order, allegedly. No doubt some had ignored the man, but they had been prudent enough not to let rumors spread about what took place during the Skiritai graduation ceremony.

“What I can tell you is that the souls of three dead have latched on to me,” Angharad continued, “and that the usual means to rid myself of them are barred to me by wisdom or circumstance. Should I take longer than four months to achieve this, it may kill me.”

Izel only barely mastered his disgust at the notion of the dead cleaving away from the Circle. Such a thing was… vile, if done on purpose. Lessening the world knowingly, one of the few objectively evil acts a man could commit.

“Slaying the Lord of Teeth would end the haunting, or close, and perhaps even mend the wounds the dollmaker left on me – which are what allowed the dead to find purchase on my soul, I am told.”

Angharad finished on a hopeful note, back straightening. Izel could sympathize. It was a seductive thought, being able to redress your mistakes. It was how Tristan had talked him into the Thirteenth. But it wouldn’t be this simple, would it? Else Izel would not be seeing a skeletal hand grasping a match in the curve of Song’s hair. The Midwives of Secrets, handmaids to the Skeletal Butterfly – goddess of murder, yes, but also of things hidden in the dark.

“It has to be your own hand?” Song asked, tone forcefully calm.

There Angharad hesitated.

“It would be preferable,” she said. “But to be present and involved in the fight that ends it might also serve.”

Might. An unnecessary risk, if she could get the kill instead. If.

“With the right weapon, I could tie it down long enough for you to kill it,” Maryam said.

Song rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“No,” she said. “You could not.”

Izel did not hide his surprise, and for that matter none of the rest.

“My efforts to secure your countrymen a place in Port Allazei as inhabitants have failed,” Song told the signifier. “If they are to remain it will be as auxiliaries, and for that we need signatures on the mercenary contract.”

“And?” Maryam said, frowning away at her.

And if Colonel Azocar is the one who refused Song, Izel thought, they will have to be signatures that give him pause else he will simply do it again. There were few of these, even in Scholomance. A colonel was nothing to trifle with.

“And Colonel Cao agreed to be one of those signatures,” Song said, “but only at the condition that the both of us join the exploration crews.”

“It is said to be her favored venture,” Tristan mildly said.

It was never a good omen when Tristan went mild. Maryam’s face drew tight.

“But we’d still need at least one more,” she said. “It wouldn’t solve the problem.”

“We would need only one more because it is Chunhua Cao signing,” Song flatly said. “Every second-year patron could put up their name instead and it would weigh about as much. If we get Cao and Captain Yue, we have what you need. Anything else is a maybe.”

A pause.

“And I have my own reasons to seek the Glass Repository,” Song admitted. “I need a book it may hold.”

Izel’s gaze flicked to her hair. The hand was gone and the spindle with it. Good. Things leaving the dark.

“I’m assuming nor for bedside reading,” Tristan said.

It was almost a joke, but there was not a speck of humor in his tone. The longer Song had kept talking, the more… something drained out of him. Not quite patience, but not unlike it.

“It is called the Book of the Lofty Mountain,” Song replied. “The work of Momu the Lame, founder of the Yunning Sect and the greatest exorcist to ever grace Tianxia. Its pages are said to hold a thousand ways to bind and dismiss curses.”

None of them, not even Izel, needed to ask why she would have an interest in such a thing. The urgency, though, was new.

“You haven’t needed to purge more than usual,” Maryam slowly said.

“It isn’t for me,” Song tiredly said. “It’s for my little sister. My parents are marrying her off and it’s going to kill her.”

Izel sucked in a breath. Ironic, that Angharad might not have been wrong about the marriage meeting after all – only who it was for.

“I am not one to speak loudly on the matter of betrothals,” he said, “but how would it be mortal?”

Song passed a hand through her hair. He regretted asking, for a moment, but better he than one of the others. He had made such a botch of his own life in that regard that his captain could not feasibly think he was looking down on her by asking.

“The curse made my mother miscarry twice, after my youngest sister was born,” Song said, fingers clenched. “It killed the child in her belly, and nearly her as well. And that was years ago, when I didn’t need to purge nearly as often. If Aihan gets pregnant and I don’t have a way to seal the curse, it will be a writ of execution.”

Izel grimaced at the unspoken implication that her sister’s marriage had no other outcome than being fruitful. He was more familiar with that sort of burden than any of them knew.

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“And the only copy is in the Glass Repository?” Tristan asked.

“There are four copies known,” Song replied, then raised a finger. “The first is inside the Black Mountain.”

That name meant nothing to him, but Angharad winced. A second finger went up.

“The second is in the hands of Forquet the Wanderer.”

Tristan let out a low whistle. Why would he care about an old devil that – ah, there was a story about the Knight of the Library robbing the University of Reve, wasn’t there? Supposedly Forquet had driven half the faculty mad with a riddle and ridden off with a sack full of precious volumes. A third finger went up.

“The third was looted during the Wars of Abolition and is now part of the royal treasury of Izcalli.”

Now it was his turn to wince. The Grasshopper Kings had not been shy about looting anything not nailed down during the Cathayan Wars, and quite a few things that had been.

“The fourth was last seen in Lucifer’s possession shortly before he invaded Tolomontera, and has not been seen since,” Song finished, her fingers folding away. “It is not a sure thing, not like the others are, but…”

“But it your best chance at getting the book,” Angharad finished.

And then there was silence, not one of them daring to speak. Them because they were all being pulled in one direction or another but did not quite dare to step on the reasons of the others. Izel, though, Izel kept silent because he did not know what to say. What could he say? He only felt stark, guilty relief that none of them were looking to him as some sort of tiebreaker, as if the least worthy of them to speak up was somehow the one who ought to decide.

Tristan was the one to break the quiet, and when Izel saw the smile on his face he wished it had been anyone else.

“I will not ask you to set your pledges aside for mine,” the Sacromontan said, the picture of understanding. “But neither will I do the opposite.”

He could not be the only one, Izel thought, who saw none of the pleasantness reached his eyes. It was like looking at a man cut off his limbs so he might better fit a set of clothes.

“I wouldn’t ask you that,” Song quietly said.

“Then ask nothing,” Tristan said, rising to his feet. “We all go our own way. Some of them may twine, some will not.”

His eyes caught on silent, grave-still Maryam and then slid away.

“It need not be a brigade matter, we are free to make our own choices.”