Chapter 21

Steady breath, eyes ahead, walk like he had a reason for it.

It bought Tristan the ten breaths he needed to leave and step past the antechamber into the glass-strewn ballroom, where he let himself slump against the wall. Forehead and palms on the stone, the coolness steadying, and still his breath caught. Panic was a blind thing, an animal whose frenzy would get you killed, but his head cared not: it spun, and behind the shakes spreading down his limbs lurked worse. The sight of her fading, of leaving, of aband–

A hand on his neck, soft as a feather.

“Tristan,” Fortuna murmured. “What happened?”

His fists clenched. Do not weep. Weeping was the sound of the wounded, the weak, and rats fed on rats just like they did everything else. He hammered at the wall with his fist to give his fingers a reason to shake. Some small, pathetic part of him wanted to ask her if it was true: whether she would leave should he be caught and broken, whether she’d grow bored or sick and… Tristan traced out that part of him, like chalk on stone, and wiped it clean. Like Abuela had taught him.

Fear, pain and grief, they were just humors of the body. Smudges on the mind, like chalk on stone. Trace them, wipe them and walk away, Abuela’s voice whispered in his ear.

“Nothing,” he forced out. “It was all a trick.”

“The god hurt you,” the Lady of Long Odds said as she withdrew her hand, voice gone cold.

“I hurt myself,” Tristan said. “It just helped.”

He pushed himself off the wall, tugged his coat down into place. His eyes were dry but he knew they would be red-ringed, and the roof of his mouth was so parched it stung to pass his tongue over it. Fortuna was standing close, but her eyes were not on him – instead they followed along the length of the ceiling to and fro, as if following a butterfly’s flight.

Then she went still, and suddenly it burned cold to behold her. Golden eyes and golden hair like a distant star, skin like porcelain and a dress like a gushing wound. Too much of what she was for the world to suffer it without trembling.

“Death and defeat,” the goddess scorned. “Did you think they were wings, child? They are chains, slowly tightening around your neck. One day we will find an end to pull, and when that last rattling gasp is torn out of you I will breathe it in and smile.”

And for a heartbeat he loved her for that. For being closer than a shadow and not being so in his corner so much as living in it. And maybe she could not love him back, not like a person could, but sometimes he thought it was close enough it didn’t matter.

Then the room groaned, shook, and a piece of the ceiling fell behind them.

Fortuna cleared her throat and when he turned back to her she was the goddess he knew once more, not a trace of that cold greatness left. A relief. She shot him a winning smile that was tinged slightly nervous.

“We should, uh, leave the room,” the Lady of Long Odds said. “I think it might have taken that personally.”

“You think?” Tristan got out, voice still hoarse.

“It’ll take more than loose masonry to impress me, you glorified shrine maiden,” Fortuna sneered at the ceiling. “And considering you are Scholomance, falling apart isn’t nearly as impressive as you seem to believe i-”

Tristan walked out of the ballroom before his goddess could get them buried alive. With the slate of his mind clear, he realized how stupid a risk he had taken by walking away from the others, even for so short a walk. He needed tempering. Song might have done him a favor, however accidentally. So long as there were eyes in his direction Scholomance should not have been able to change much, but-

Outside the ballroom he stood not in the stone antechamber but at the end of a long hall. There were four doors on each side and one on the opposite end – open – but the part that caught his eye was the glass cases covering the walls. They were full of human heads, each lovingly preserved and put on display. Men and women, most of them older. All of them wearing crowns. Some in silver, some in gold and a few in iron that- Tristan wrenched his gaze away.

Scholomance wanted to distract him, he could not let it get its way.

He hurried through the hall, heading for the open door. It should still connect to the same room, since there had been people inside to prevent Scholomance from moving it. He was barely halfway through when movement to his right had him reaching for his knife. Only it was a blackcloak, not a lemure or devil. A large Someshwari man with a tattooed chin. As well as the usual sword and musket he had a wooden mace at his hip, unusually shaped. It looked almost like a bottle made of wood.

“There you are,” the watchman grunted. “Come on, before you get yourself killed.”

Tristan eyed the door at the end the hall. A trick, then. Scholomance had crafted an entire hallway so he would be inclined to follow its length when the real open door was one he might pass by without noticing. The school was clever, exactly like Professor Sasan had warned them. He followed the blackcloak through the door, finding a stone antechamber much like the one he had seen earlier: though now there were two doors, and both were closed.

“Where are the others?” the thief asked.

He had left before Maryan took her turn. It could be her talents would let her weather the experience better than he, but they might also make it a great deal worse.

“Your captain went into shock after throwing up,” the man replied. “They’re getting her to the hospital in a hurry.”

Tristan breathed in sharply.

“Everyone left?” he asked.

Even to his own ears his tone sounded plaintive. Like a whining child’s. He needed to master himself. The Someshwari looked amused.

“Don’t worry, we’re not lost,” he said.

He got out a small brass device that straddled the line between watch and compass, too thick for the former but with too many gears for the latter. There were two thick needles within, Tristan saw. One was pointing at the door to their left, the other behind them.

“Tristan, right?” the man asked.

He nodded.

“Dev,” the watchman introduced himself. “This is a roseless cardinal compass, though we usually call them cardinals. Your cabal will be handed one later this year – it points at a part of Scholomance determined by the needle, in this case the front gates.”

“And it works?” Tristan asked, skeptical. “Would Scholomance not simply shift the paths to keep us away?”

“Keeping that going forever would take more power than it’s got,” Dev told him. “It takes time and effort for the school shift itself, so if you follow the needle and you’re careful all Scholomance will achieve is making it a longer way.”

The god in the walls was not all-powerful, then. Professor Sasan had implied it fed on generations of students, but it must have been at least a century since the school closed. It might just be feeling starved, and weaker for it.

“That’s what Captain Yue was doing,” he grasped.

The older man nodded.

“Navigators do it better,” Dev freely admitted. “Their Sign lets them ‘see’ ahead some, so the school can’t shift rooms as close as it can for us. It’ll likely take us longer to get back, though if we’re lucky we might end up close enough the captain can detour to retrieve us.”

The gray-eyed man hummed. A very useful device, that. And one that explained the bounties Song had mentioned taking place within Scholomance. With such a tool a cabal venturing inside to fulfill it would not simply disappear into the depths to be devoured.

“So if the first needle serves to point at the gates, what is the second for?” Tristan asked.

Dev shrugged.

“Fucked if I know,” he casually said. “The last user must have forgotten to put it back. It could lead anywhere, really.”

Tristan made himself smile. That answer, he thought, had been just a little too casual. Practiced. The thief could not afford recklessness, so he must find an angle. Provoke a reaction. Pretend to run off? No, heavy-handed and potentially a mistake. A leading question? He had left too quickly, so he had too little to work with. Although… Scholomance could make sounds so it likely could kill them as well, but the knee-jerk would still be there.

“We should call out for the others, see if they are close enough to hear,” Tristan idly suggested.

Dev’s face tightened for only the barest of moments before it smoothed away. Shit.

“Feel free to try,” the watchman shrugged. “It might work.”

Tristan smiled again, put it on slow and trusting.

“Thank you,” he said, turning towards the door as if to call out.

All the while he hid his hand under his cloak, reaching for his knife and – he caught only a flicker a movement, but that made the difference between taking the hit on the head and on the shoulder. Tristan yelped, backing off with a wince as the watchman drew back his wooden mace.

“Fucking Masks,” Dev said. “I should have asked double for one of you.”

“HELP,” Tristan shouted, drawing his knife.

The watchman snorted.

“You think Scholomance will let that out when we’re fighting?” he said. “No, it wants blood on the floor. No help for you, boy.”

Still worth trying.

Dev had a foot on him and was built like a bear. There was fat to that belly but muscle as well, and that was the worst kind of foe for someone using a knife. Even if he got a good blow in it’d be hard to make it a killing one. I need to cripple a limb, Tristan thought, giving ground even as the watchman idly spun his mace and advanced. Closing the distance without being struck would be difficult, given the man’s greater reach, but it was his only chance. Maybe a distraction, a-

Hesitation cost him. Dev suddenly charged in, swinging down, and the thief backed away again – only it was a feint and the watchman flicked his wrist again as he bounded forward, catching Tristan on the side of the head. Cursing, vision swimming, he swung at the man’s arm but only cut into the thick coat. It got him punched in the stomach. Tristan folded with a wheeze, but through the pain he saw an opening and drew his pistol. He pointed at the man’s chest and pulled the trigger even as the mace swatted away the gun.

The shot went wild, the pistol spun on the ground and Tristan was struck in the belly again. This time he convulsed as he felt to his knees, beginning to puke, but Dev kicked him over so he was looking up. He heaved drily, the bile not quite leaving his throat, and the large Someshwari snorted at the sight as he raised his mace-

Thunder, smoke.

—

The Zhangshou-pattern musket was of smaller caliber than the mainstay of the Republics, the Jifeng, but fired from this close on an unmoving target?

The watchman’s knee burst like a tomato left too long under the sun.

Song, her mind still and clear as a frozen pond, closed the gap even as the man attacking her cabalist dropped to his knee with a scream. He half-turned, hitting out behind him with the mudgar mace, but it was blind flailing. Song flipped her musket, cleanly hammering at the back of his head with the butt. The man dropped like a sack of rice. From the corner of her eye she saw that Tristan had pushed himself onto his hands and knees, but his eyes were still out of focus. The Someshwari watchman groaned, reaching for the musket he had dropped, but she kicked it away.

“Tristan?” she called out.

She barely recognized her own voice. It sounded like another woman’s – faint, empty.

“Alive,” the thief said, licking his lips and grimacing. “It will bruise, but nothing permanent.”

“You honorless shit,” the watchman on the ground said. “From behind.”

Song tossed away her musket, reaching for her sword and sliding it out. Hand and torso at the right angle, drill-perfect. Her hand was on the chisel.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Our friend Dev here said you’d all gone ahead and I should follow him,” Tristan replied, getting onto his knees. “I smelled a trap, and you saw how the ensuing brawl was going.”

With him being thoroughly thrashed. What had the watchman been up to? Was it even the same soldier from earlier, or had this cursed school slipped in a fake that-

“He mentioned getting paid,” the gray-eyed man added.

The bounty, Song realized. This was not a Scholomance trap or the man going mad, this was about that misbegotten bounty someone had put on Tristan’s head.

“Honorless,” she said at the prone man, disbelieving. “You call me honorless when you try to bag one of us for sale – and now, now of all the hours in all the days.”

She could still feel the grass against her legs, taste the smoke of the paper crane through the vomit in her mouth. Song could still see the contempt in her sister’s eyes, how she had deserved it. And now this, this utter – Dev, still face down against the ground, laughed.

“You silver spoon brats,” he groaned. “Everything handed to you, not a-”

He suddenly scrambled for the mace he’d dropped. Ice cracked. He dared, still dared. Song snarled and swung, the angle perfect and the flick of the wrist practiced and nothing half so satisfying as the thunk as her sword carved through half the fingers on that hand. He screamed and drew back the mangled hand. Dry-eyed, she kicked him belly up and stripped him of his blade before tossing it in a corner. The mace followed a moment later.

She should have done that from the start. Song needed to concentrate, to stop making mistakes that would cost everyone around her.

“You can’t,” Dev moaned. “I’m a watchman, you can’t-”

“You are a corpse, unless you talk,” Tristan said, still on his knees. “Who paid you?”

His eyes were sharp now. He was entirely there and no happier about that than she. Gods, Song had only left to fetch them because she could not bear to look at the way Angharad was bleeding. Dev’s dark eyes went to the thief, afraid, then to Song. She raised her arm, sharp edge still dripping his blood.

“I don’t know,” the man swore. “There were no names. They paid me to bring him to the west gate, alive.”

Tristan started, muttering something about a ‘second needle’, but that was not what Song needed. She rested the point of her sword on the wounded man’s throat. Not cutting into the flesh, only pressing. A measured threat, her hand was on the chisel.

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“Descriptions,” she ordered.

“They wore hoods,” Dev said, then hurried on at the look on her face. “Young though, students. One sounded Izcalli.”

She waited a moment longer for him to go on. He did not. She couldn’t help it: Song laughed incredulously.

“That’s it?” she said. “That is all you have to say?”

Her grip tightened around the hilt of her sword until it hurt. Blood on her blade, her Mask savaged and all she had won for it was this? Panes shattered like glass.

“One sounded Izcalli,” she mocked in a deep voice. “Do you have any idea how many fucking Izcalli student there are on this island, you –” Antigua failed her, “you gouzazhong.”

“Song,” Tristan said, somehow on his feet. “We shouldn’t-”

“You think I’m the fool? You attacked a watchman, girl,” Dev interrupted, sneering up at her. “You think that won’t make it onto your record? That the stain won’t follow you for the rest-”

And he was right, she realized. It would be their word against his, and though she was confident they would come out ahead in the hearing the incident would be added to her record. She had shot a watchman from behind. Every superior officer she could ever have would know she had crippled someone wearing the black. Who would trust her after that? Who would let her stand behind them?

Song had already seen how bad it would be, fighting against the tide, and now mere minutes out of that place she was somehow making it all worse. She had learned nothing, made all that pain and grief pointless.

Crack.

“-of your life,” the man laughed. “You’re fucked, brat, you-”

Her hand slipped.

It was not the blow of a duelist or a soldier: her blade hacked into the man’s face like a butcher knife.

“You trash,” she snarled, ripping her blade out and hacking down again. “You relic, you-”

Song screamed and struck again. And again, and again and again. He had cornered her, ended her career. Only when her arm hurt and her breath was ragged did the silver-eyed girl fall to her knees, choking out a sob, fingers closed around the chisel she had used to make a ruin of the watchman. He no longer moved. Her eyes were tearing up. Someone crouched down on the other side of the corpse, and suddenly she remembered Tristan was there. Had been there the whole time.

“Oh,” she softly exhaled.

It was bad, but she could not bring herself to resent it. She was a rag wrung dry.

“Oh,” he repeated, almost gently. “Hello, Song Ren.”

Her lips thinned.

“I am not a wild animal,” she said, swallowing. “I don’t need-”

No words left her throat. The gray-eyed man shook his head, brown locks tumbling.

“I greet you,” Tristan said, “because we just met for the first time.”

Her fists clenched.

“I am not this,” she hissed.

“This is all we are,” he replied. “The rest is just what we wrap around so the nerve is not exposed.”

The last of the rage retreated like the tide, leaving behind a long shore of anguish and horror. Gods, what had she done? Tristan rose slowly, gingerly.

“This is a failure,” Song croaked. “I was only coming to fetch you, not to-”

The thief crouched and leaned forward, checking the pulse on Dev’s neck. He might as well check a roasted pig for blush. There was blood everywhere, including the neck, so after withdrawing it Tristan wiped his finger on the watchman’s clothes.

“He was right,” Song forced out, the taste bitter. “This will be in our dossiers. It will follow us everywhere.”

“He has a cardinal compass with a needle pointing to the west gate,” Tristan said. “That will lend weight to our words when we say he meant to grab me and take me there.”

“It’s not enough,” she tiredly replied. “We would need to catch those waiting for him as well, and unless they are great fools we will not.”

She considered it a moment, bringing this to Captain Yue. The other party will not be idling in front of the gate like idiots, just keeping a watch from distance. They’ll run when they see it. And we do not have anyone who looks like Dev even from a distance to try baiting them close. It would not be enough.

“It will be our word and a needle it is not a crime to possess,” Song said. “They won’t expel us for it, but we will be marked. I killed a watchman, Tristan.”

“Did you?” he quietly asked.

Her eyes flicked up.

“You can’t be serious,” Song said.

“Repeat after me,” he said. “We did not run into any watchman. You found me in a trap and helped me out, which is how you lost your cloak.”

Song slowly blinked.

“What?” she said. “My cloak is fine.”

“It isn’t,” Tristan said, gesturing at her chest. “There’s too much blood splatter, it will smell even if we wipe it. You’ll wear mine and I’ll go without.”

The Tianxi looked down and swallowed. There were flecks of red everywhere. She had not even noticed.

“They’ll know,” Song said. “When they see the corpse-”