Chapter 29

Maryam stayed, as she would wish for others to stay with her in such circumstances, but it was clear Song was in no chatting mood. She seemed lost in thought, though her face was not as grim as Maryam might have expected.

Either way it was somewhat tedious to simply sit in silence, so eventually Maryam stirred herself to ask if there was anything she could for Song. Somewhat predictably, her studious captain asked for her writing kit to be fetched along with Theology books for tomorrow and what passed as light reading in the eyes of Song Ren: a fist-thick volume titled ‘Jewel of the Crown, A Comprehensive History of the Asphodel Rectorate’.

“That seems like a worse experience than the beating,” Maryam told her.

Song snorted.

“It is a bit… florid, I’ll admit, but it is the only history I could find that follows Asphodel from Morn’s Arrival to the Century of Sails.”

Maryam doubted even Asphodelans – Asphodelites? – wanted to know so much about the island they lived on, but if the Tianxi wanted to practice the scholarly equivalent of self-flagellation that was on her own head. If nothing else, the volume should help her fall asleep. The signifier headed back to the cottage and packed everything before glancing at the Orrery lights through the window. She grimaced at the sight, only now realizing how late the day was running.

She’d have time to return to the hospital then head back here in time for supper with Tristan, but not much wiggle room. The cottage was safe and close to Scholomance, but it came at the price of being far from most everything else.

Her second unpleasant surprise of the day came when she was heading down Templeward Street and ran into someone she would rather have avoided.

“Maryam,” Angharad Tredegar called out, lengthening her stride to catch up. “Please wait a moment.”

Despite the urge to ignore her, Maryam did.

“Tredegar,” she nodded with cool politeness.

“Is it true that Song was attacked?” Tredegar asked.

To her honor, the dark-skinned woman did not seem to be leaning into the quadruple murder end of the rumors. However low Tredegar’s opinion of their captain at the moment, it was evidently not that low.

“It is,” Maryam said. “She is bedridden, so I am bringing some of her belongings to the hospital.”

“I must accompany you, then,” Tredegar said.

Joy. It would please Song, though, so she’d live with it. And use the free labor that had just presented itself.

“I could use help carrying the writing kit,” Maryam subtly hinted.

Tredegar promptly volunteered to lug around the wooden box, which had been digging in the Izvorica’s back like a bony elbow for the last quarter hour. She put a spring to her step to see if she could force the Pereduri to rush, but sadly Tredegar’s longer legs and inconvenient physical fitness forced Maryam to slow down a few minutes in so she would not start panting noticeably.

It was like Captain Totec said – if you’re going to smash a skull, be careful not to drop the stone on your own foot. A lot of the old man’s advice involved cracking skulls, now that Maryam thought of it. Either it was a staple of Izcalli sayings or Totec had gone out of his way to learn all those that mentioned it. Her musings were disrupted by a throat being cleared.

“Have you had a pleasant week?” Angharad Tredegar tried.

Maryam eyed her skeptically. The dark-skinned woman seemed uncomfortable, almost squirming.

“We don’t need to talk,” Maryam finally said.

By the look on her face, Tredegar was uncertain whether she should be feeling relieved or insulted. Maryam’s skillful deflection of small talk delivered blessed silence for the rest of the way to the hospital, only for her jaw to tighten once they reached it. That Izcalli watchman from earlier was still at the door and he once more stared at her before frowning down at her plaque for a full ten seconds. He only gestured for her to pass after the other guard got curious.

Naturally, the man barely even glanced at Tredegar’s plaque before waving her in.

That little interlude put Maryam in a foul enough mood she did not slow when the Pereduri let out a noise of surprise at the sight of the hospital hall. She kept moving, forcing Tredegar to catch up with the writing kit rattling on her back. At least the second set of guards offered equal indifference while writing their names down, so there was that. The Izvorica had learned the virtues of apathy since crossing the sea: sometimes it was the best you could hope for.

Maryam had long been disabused of the notion that the Malani were the only ones to look down on pale skin. It took different shapes, different names, claimed different reasons, but she figured the source was all the same. The lands here, Aurager – the First Empire name for the two continents it had ruled, Issa to the south and Serica to the north – knew only darklings to have pale coloring and anything else went against centuries of how they thought the world to be.

It was simpler to think of the Triglau as less than men, more comfortable, and despite their insistence they were all different mornaric all liked to stare down at the same navel. You could tell, if you listened carefully, just from the way they used the word ‘Vesper’ when really meaning ‘Aurager’. Deep down they thought of their corner of the world as the whole of it, and everything that did not neatly fit into that corner was to be despised.

The sound of the guards closing the door behind them jolted Maryam out of her morosity, back to silver eyes going wide at the sight of them. Song had been awake when they entered, busy staring at the ceiling, and now straightened against the cushions like she had been caught with a hand in the honey jar instead of simply being bored.

“Ah,” Song coughed. “Angharad, I was not expecting you.”

“Sergeant Mandisa told me of the assault,” the noblewoman solemnly replied. “I am glad to see your wounds appear minor.”

Tredegar’s eyes lingered on the bruised cheeks, her jaw clenching at the sight. There, at least, Maryam shared an opinion with her.

“Please, take a seat,” Song invited her. “You too Maryam.”

The writing kit was set aside, the books piled up on the bedside table and Maryam paid middling attention to the prompted second recounting of the ambush and how Song had survived it. Again the Tianxi remained vague on the nature of the creature Scholomance had guided into the fight, though it did not sound a devil so it must be some sort of lemure.

“They were from different cabals, I am almost certain of that,” Song was saying, answering Tredegar’s question. “The sole common thread was roots in Jigong.”

“Empty seats tomorrow should make it plain which brigade they belonged to,” the Pereduri said. “That will make obtaining reparations straightforward.”

Naïve, that.

“It won’t work like that,” Maryam said.

Eyes went to her. She cleared her throat, not having expected the attention.

“This isn’t a student squabble,” she said. “The garrison got involved, there is an official investigation and Captain Wen even mentioned a tribunal. It’s Watch business now, not some Scholomance scuffle – the hammer’s going to come down hard on everyone even slightly involved.”

“The Watch has been offhanded in such matters so far,” Tredegar pointed out.

“They gave us only three rules when we came off that boat,” Maryam replied. “If they do not strictly enforce those few lines in the sand, it will be chaos.”

Tredegar hesitated, then nodded in acknowledgement of the point. Song was Song, and therefore worried mostly of how fighting off an ambush would mar her record, but their captain wasn’t going to be the one the mud was splashed on here. Every captain who’d had a cabalist plot the murder of another student under their nose without noticing a thing was going to lose some feathers for it, as were their brigade patrons.

Normally that would have prompted fears of retaliation, but this once Maryam was inclined to believe the lot of them would be avoiding the Thirteenth like the plague for the foreseeable future. Being caught doing anything akin to doubling down on attacking Song might very well see repeat offenders killed. While the Watch tended to look the other way for small or first offences, its take on third chances was being lined up against the wall and shot.

“Maryam is correct that this cannot be considered a personal matter any longer,” Song said. “Not with the garrison involved. I expect the Watch will see justice done on my behalf.”

Ah, clever girl. Now continuing on the warpath would mean Tredegar was questioning the honor of the Watch itself, which she would be very careful about doing. She’d keep her saber sheathed until the investigation was finished, which no doubt was Song had been after by phrasing it that way. It was the right choice: much as Maryam would enjoy watching Angharad Tredegar cut down everyone involved, it would make them the aggressors instead of the aggressed. If you wanted the king to chasten your enemies for raiding your cattle, you couldn’t raid their cattle right back.

Alas, now that Song and Tredegar were seated in the same room there was no more avoiding idle conversation. They tore into pleasantries with ferocious appetite, moving on from the weather to class readings and what this week’s Warfare class might be like. Though Maryam considered this social equivalent of having your fingernails slowly pulled out by a disinterested torturer, she took some comfort in how Tredegar was growing more and more uncomfortable as time went on.

Was the noblewoman failing to find a polite way to excuse herself? No, Maryam eventually decided. She was not glancing at the door or trying to end the talk. What she was doing was shuffle like someone whose seat was aflame. Hesitating. And while Maryam took perverse pleasure into feeding the conversation to stretch this out – have you done the Saga readings yet, very interesting stuff, did you know the Kingdom of Tariac existed before Izcalli? – Song had also noticed and the Tianxi was soft.

“You have something you want to say, Angharad,” Song said. “It seems to be weighing on you.”

Tredegar hesitated.

“The discussion need not happen today,” she said.

Ah, so it was bad and she did not want to add misery to Song’s already miserable day. For once this was eminently sensible and Maryam sympathized, but Tredegar had pulled on the wrong lever. She had just implicitly pitied Song Ren, the equivalent of tossing a torch inside a blackpowder depot.

“That is not necessary,” Song said, a tad coldly. “Speak your mind, Angharad.”

It would have been eminently petty to use such a charged moment to pick on Tredegar.

“Yes, Angharad, do speak your mind,” Maryam pleasantly smiled.

She was only human, it wasn’t her fault. Finding no ally in her quest not to further ruin everyone’s day, Tredegar sighed and took a moment to firm her resolve, squaring her shoulders.

“I have come across information about the death of Isabel Ruesta,” she said.

That infanzona girl from the Dominion? Tristan had called her poison, though one that the Cerdan brothers had swallowed so the pair had been quite cordial. There had been no deep relation there, though. She’d heard much more of the girl from Song, who had used a solid half of their secret meetings to rant on the subject.

“Have you?” Song mildly replied.

The Izvorica studied her, brow creasing. It was Song’s fighting face she was looking at, which boded ill for the rest of this conversation.

“Isabel was shot from behind,” the noblewoman flatly said. “And from the stairs. Only two stood there: Lady Ferranda Villazur and yourself.”

Maryam bit the inside of her cheek. Well now, that sounded rather close to an accusation. She eyed Song again, genuinely curious. Had she really shot the Ruesta girl? Certainly she had fumed about the infanzona when it was just the two of them, how dear Isabel had sunk her hooks in Tredegar and now kept complicating everything, but Song was not one to kill unless she felt she had good reason.

“You are leading to a question,” Song said. “Ask it.”

“Did you kill Isabel Ruesta?” Tredegar bluntly asked.

The silver-eyed Tianxi watched the other woman for a long moment, then sighed.

“Let us say that I did,” Song said. “I would have broken no oath by pulling that trigger.”

Maryam almost whistled, but she was wary of dipping even so light a toe into this conversation – they were a hair’s breadth away from each other’s throat, it would not take much to turn that tension on her instead. A full three beats of silence passed, the two matching stares.

“That is not untrue,” Tredegar finally replied, tone clipped. “After the Trial of Ruins, the truce was not explicitly established again. And your reasons for such an act?”

Song cocked her head to the side.

“Would they matter?”

Angharad Tredegar breathed in deeply.

“No,” she admitted. “They would not.”

She stiffly rose from her seat.

“I cannot be under the command of someone who slew an ally,” Tredegar said. “I will remain part of the Thirteenth in name until the month has ended, but transfer to another brigade after that.”

Maryam stilled. She had not truly expected Tredegar had it in her to walk out. To complain and bargain and settle, yes, but leave? Not after the Dominion. But then they were not the only brigade to come out of the Dominion of Lost Things were they? She had forgot that, having rubbed elbows with them so little.

“An appreciated courtesy,” Song evenly replied.

It took a second for Maryam to catch up there, to find said courtesy. Leaving at the beginning of next month gave the Thirteenth a full four weeks to find Tredegar’s replacement. If Tristan returns, Maryam suddenly thought. She was not as sure of that as she would have been minutes ago. She’d not believed Tredegar would leave either, but now that the door was open… Her stomach clenched. Just as she began to find her footing on Tolomontera, the ground turned to sand again.

“I would not consider you an enemy,” Tredegar said, “but neither will I call you friend. May you fare well, Song Ren.”

The Tianxi’s face was a blank mask. Tredegar turned towards Maryam, hesitating over what to say, so the Izvorica spared her the trouble.

“Door’s behind you,” she said with a light wave. “Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”

Maryam had been most amused the first time she heard the sentence ‘taking the high road’. In her experience, the high road was the one you took to shoot at Malani patrols from behind before disappearing into the crags.

Tredegar’s face tightened.

“Goodbye, Maryam Khaimov,” she forced out.

Maryam only cocked an eyebrow. The noblewoman spared them a stilted nod, then marched out of the room like it was a parade floor. Song stayed still as a statue, so the Izvorica gave her the courtesy she knew the other woman wanted instead of the one that was her instinct to give.

She stared at the door in silence, pretending she could not hear Song putting her composure back together one piece at a time.

“An eventful day,” Song finally said.

The signal that she had glued enough of a mask together that Maryam was allowed to look again.

“A real Dominion classic,” she replied, then paused.

Song cocked an eyebrow. It should have been cooly inquisitive, but the Izvorica could see the cracks. The only word for it was fragile.

“Did you pull the trigger?” Maryam asked.

They both knew she would not particularly care if the Tianxi had, beyond some curiosity as to what Ruesta had done to warrant it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Song said, looking away.

“Given how much Malani care about oaths, I would argue otherwise,” she said. “I won’t say Tredegar would have stayed on if you swore otherwise, but it would have muddled the waters.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Song repeated. “She hesitated to ask, Maryam.”

Her brow rose.

“And?”

“Pity stayed her hand, the desire not to darken a dark day,” Song said. “The bedrock of that is the belief that the result would be dark, that I pulled that trigger. Angharad already believed me guilty, so all protestations otherwise would have achieved was mark me a liar in her eyes.”

Maryam frowned.

“Maybe,” she said. “But you good as confessed.”

“Had I not, she would have been honor-bound to consider both possibilities,” Song tiredly replied. “And to treat them equally, regardless of her beliefs. That would mean…”

“No joining the Thirty-First,” Maryam muttered. “Because Ferranda’s the other possibility.”

She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“Still taking care of her even as she leaves,” the Izvorica complained.

But there was no heat in it. It was, in truth, somewhat pleasing to see that Song would continue to extend a warding hand even to those no longer under her. Regardless of whether that help was deserved or not.

“Better she come under Ferranda than be snatched up by someone less scrupulous,” Song said.

Maryam cocked her head to side.

“That and Ferranda will feel like she owes you, so you might still be able to rely on that swordarm in a pinch,” she said.

The lack of denial was telling.

“Charity need not mean naivety,” Song simply replied.

She leaned back into the pillows, bruised and exhausted.

“You will be late for supper with Tristan if you do not leave soon,” Song said. “Please convey to him I request a meeting at his earliest convenience.”

The bit about being late was true, though that was now why she said it. Maryam did not fight the dismissal. She left, and let Song lick her wounds with no one looking.

—

There were lights inside the cottage when she arrived, and the scent of something being cooked wafted out when she opened the door.

“In the kitchen,” Tristan called out.

The smell was almost enough to make her drool: rice, fried vegetables and was that garlic? She found Tristan in the kitchen, as advertised, sleeves pulled up and wearing a leather apron as he stirred the insides of a large pan. He glanced back as she slumped into a seat, humming as he set down his long wooden spoon to grab a jug and a cup from the counter. He set both down on the kitchen table before her.

“I expect that’s not wine,” Maryam said.

She had never seen him touch a drink unless it would make him stand out to refuse, and even then he only sipped.

“Pear juice,” he said. “Fresh from the harbor.”

“Sounds expensive,” she mused.

“I expect it would have been,” he said.

She squinted at him, then down at his chest, then back up to his face.

“I don’t recall us having that apron either,” Maryam noted.

“The key to getting a good price was the just stealing it,” he solemnly revealed.

She snorted and helped herself to the jug of pear juice, pulling out the cork and taking a sniff. Like it was fresh out of the orchard. A lovely treat, she thought as she poured herself a cup. Tristan returned to his pan, but by the time she was halfway through her cup he’d taken it off the fire and was pushing two generous portions off onto plates. It looked delicious, Maryam thought – rice, peas and carrots made into an almost golden bowl seasoned with onions and garlic.

“It’s better with salt,” Tristan told her as he set down the plates, “but season as you will.”

He returned with their salt pot and a set of utensils, sliding into the seat across from hers. Maryam shoveled a mouthful in and let out a noise that might have made a man less utterly disinterested in sex blush.

“Itsh goodsh,” she complimented.

He rolled his eyes.

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“You know, when you told me to return for supper I did not expect to be the one doing the cooking.”

Maryam swallowed.

“I would never deprive you from the familiar comfort of being wrong,” she said.

“You’re all heart, Khaimov,” he drily replied.

“Thathsh mee,” she happily said.

After so much walking around and a dip in a layer, she was ravenously hungry. She’d polished off most of her plate by the time he was only halfway done with his, and Tristan usually tended to eat the fastest of the Thirteenth. By unspoken accord they put off the talk until their bellies were full, and as the Sacromontan finished the last of his rice Maryam put on a pot of tea. With how full she was, if she didn’t get some in her she might fall asleep at the table.

She poured them both cups of Someshwari leaf, though she knew he was unlikely to finish his so she left it half empty.

“Has the leviathan been sated?” Tristan teased.

“The leviathan would have liked dessert,” Maryam said, raising her chin, “but she will pardon the lack.”

“If the leviathan really wants those candied pistachios, she can shell out the coin for them herself,” he drawled.

“Solid pun,” she praised.

“I’ve been sitting on it for days,” he confessed.

Which was, she supposed, one approach to the matter.

“You might have been able to use it earlier,” Maryam casually said, “had we seen more of each other.”

His face tightened the slightest bit, then she watched as he forced himself to breathe out. He also killed an irritated glance to his left, meaning his goddess was likely making fun of him. She did that sometimes, when it was just the two of them. Maryam had been itching to hear it for weeks, but Tristan refused to convey messages either way. He claimed he’d be stuck playing interpreter forever if he started, which honesty compelled Maryam to admit was probably true.

“The teacher I sought was tucked away in a location that can only be accessed during hours overlapping with morning class,” Tristan said. “And it was nowhere near here to boot, so I slept out in Scraptown.”

The name begged a question, which was absolutely he’d dangled it, but she bit at the bait and asked anyway. Though he stayed somewhat vague on details, Tristan laid out his adventures of the last few days and the general area they’d taken place in. Those other Masks, she thought, sounded like a bunch of little assholes. Except that Silumko fellow, who unlike her own friend had displayed the rare good sense not to go crawling through strange layers.

Did the others also follow nice men down dark alleys when written signs told them to?

Tristan was usually wiser than that, which tugged at her unpleasantly. The thief only grew reckless when he believed himself cornered, and no matter how airily he talked of crossing the layer he had to know there had been risks. It was unlike him to take them, as was spending the amount of coin he must have to obtain the equipment he used in his story.

Poison boxes were not exactly common market fare, for one.

“So the only way in and out of the tower is through the Landing?” she asked.

Lucifer’s Landing was the thinnest of the layers around the island, according to Captain Yue, but that hardly meant it was without dangers.

“I think there might have been a physical entrance once, but it seems gone,” Tristan said. “Either way, the shortcut will rid me of much the travel time. I only need to pass through an underground shrine south of the Nettlewood.”

“Congratulations,” Maryam said. “You have both your Mask teachers for the year, sounds like.”

“Barring abduction, my stay at Scholomance is secure,” he agreed.

He’d said that casually, Maryam thought, and not in a ‘too casual’ sort of way. Unthinking, and so in a way as honest as Tristan got. And in that small sentence was, she thought, the thread to pull at. The reason he’d taken so many risks, and why she would wager he had no intention of sleeping at the cottage tonight. My stay at Scholomance is secure. Maryam sipped at her tea and marshalled her thoughts.

“Did I ever tell you how I became a signifier?” she asked.

He cocked his head to the side.

“I’d assumed your mother chose you as her apprentice,” Tristan said.

“That’s not wrong,” she said, “but it’s not right either.”

Mother had certainly never believed there was a choice to make, but Maryam had known even as a girl that the Craft was not something you could be forced into. An unwilling or halfhearted practitioner was a disaster in the making.

“I was born with the talent, but I didn’t have to become someone who practiced the Craft,” she said. “I could have been taught just enough to not hurt myself and left to walk a different path.”

Practitioners had a term for those who made that choice, tup, which meant ‘dull’ and not in a complimentary way. It would have been a blow to her mother’s reputation for Maryam to refuse the Craft, enough that she would likely have tried for a second child with Father.

“So it was your choice,” Tristan said, sounding almost surprised.

She could understand why. There was power in wielding the Gloam, but also peril. And in these lands across the sea, the Navigators had gathered all the esteem of such a profession onto themselves – those who wielded Gloam without being guildsmen were seen as halfway charlatans.

“My childhood was… complicated,” Maryam admitted. “My mother was my father’s tenth wife.”

He choked.

“That seems perhaps overly ambitious,” Tristan tried. “How would a single man even have hours enough for ten wives?”

“It wasn’t a love match, it’s not like they were joined at the hip,” she said, rolling her eyes. “After Mother became pregnant they only met a few times a year.”

“An alliance match, then?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Maryam said. “Mother was the youngest member of the Ninefold Nine in a century, but she came from nothing. She needed backing. Father, well, he wanted the prestige of so famous a wife and a scary stick to shake at his trade rivals. It was a pleasing arrangement for both.”

She had heard marriage was used to make alliances in Sacromonte as well, though strangely only one spouse at a time. That seemed odd to her. If marrying for advantage, why stop at one? It was rare for a ruler to need to tie only a single ally by blood.

“And the Ninefold Nine were…”

“The society that rules over those who practice the Craft among the Izvorica,” Maryam said, then grimaced. “Ruled, anyway. Anyone who wants to learn the Craft has to be initiated, and from that number eighty-one souls are elected to decide which practices are outlawed and serve as a tribunal over practitioners who commit crimes. It is a great honor.”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed as he parsed through that.

“So within your father’s house, your mother would have been too strong to ignore but too weak to ward off the other wives,” he resumed.

That was… distressingly close to the reality of it, Maryam thought. Ever sharp, Tristan. Some of the other mothers had been born to landowners or the wealthy traders, and while they had feared Mother’s strength in the Craft they’d had weapons of their own to wield. That and Mother’s power had not always been an advantage – sicknesses and accidents had been blamed on her ‘curses’ quite often, when Maryam was young. She nodded.

“It was not clear where I stood when compared to the other children,” she said. “And several were close to me in age.”

She did not need to tell Tristan what kind of nastiness that would bring about.

“They were not kind in our childish arguments, and neither was I,” Maryam said. “Someone almost lost an eye. In the end, Mother and I were made to live away from the others.”

“I cannot tell if that is the mark of a victory or defeat,” Tristan noted.

Maryam shrugged. Looking back, she thought it might be a little of both.

“As a girl, it felt like the latter,” she said. “Like my own father had cast me out.”

“So you turned to your mother instead, and with her the Craft,” Tristan said.

She nodded.

“Years later, I learned the separation had been meant to stand for a few seasons only,” Maryam told him. “Until tempers had cooled. Come the following spring I was to have lessons along with my siblings closest in age, to foster ties.”

She sighed.

“Only I had chosen the Craft by then,” Maryam said. “My lessons were my mother alone, and it would have been unsafe for a young practitioner to sleep under the same roof as others. We stayed away.”

She shrugged.

“As for my siblings, from then on I spoke to them only a few times a year at feasts and never knew any of them beyond courtesies,” she said. “They were strangers.”

Maryam sipped at her tea, gone from nearly scalding to barely warm. Her lips were dry, it was pleasing to wet them.

“It was not something I grieved,” she admitted. “But now that they are dead, I look back on those children’s arguments and they feel… petty. A small thing, compared to the possibilities they cost us.”

Gray eyes studied her.

“Ah,” he said.

“Ah?”

“Ah,” he repeated.

She waited, but he said nothing else.