All he hears is her scream like a creature announcing its territory. He feels his soul slip forward, pulled partly through his skin, drawn by the inexorable singularity of something he cannot name. A deep gravity inside of her. He is leaving his body. Nearly breaking against her. He is nearly dying.
Caliph steps back from the beautiful sprawl. Dizzy, glazed. But she cannot dehorn him.
He is staring into her face. Staring at a blue sun. All that matters is his unity with the attractor inside her. He wants to dash himself against her and be utterly destroyed.
CHAPTER
11
Since early spring, three Pandragonian bureaucrats have disappeared. One leaves a sprinkle of brown flecks, dried blood like half a dozen exterminated chinches on otherwise immaculate designer sheets. The second leaves a richly upholstered bariothermic car whispering at the side of the road. The third leaves nothing at all.
The Sisterhood uses Miriam to orchestrate these minatory escalations of Shradnae diplomacy not because she is Pandragonian and therefore moves unnoticed through the south, but because the Eighth House trusts her completely.
With the last bureaucrat’s disappearance, summer fades and the entire coven turns restless.
Miriam returns from Pandragor on furlough and is admitted to the Sixth House. Bored, she takes a part-time post overseeing Parliament’s “nursery.” She wonders what is happening to the Sisterhood.
In the nursery, she overhears girls in the Second House speaking furtively after lights-out about Sienae Iilool and the Willin Droul9: the Lua’groc … the terrifying Cabal of Wights. In Parliament’s vast east wing, they drape themselves over iron bed frames and thin mattresses. It is hot but the windows are open. Some sit cross-legged on the floor, letting the final sweet pantings of summer lap over them. Their white gowns ripple over willowy limbs and small breasts. They speak in Withil, practicing the cant so that if they are caught they can say they have been studying.
Miriam does not bother them. She stands in the shadows and listens to the mythopoeic fertility of fourteen-year-old mouths.
“She used to be one of us.”
“Really? Stupid.”
“I wonder if she’s stronger than the Eighth House.”
“No one’s stronger than the Eighth House.”
“She was stronger than Megan.”
“Shh. What if someone hears?”
“Without the book, she’s nothing. That’s what Haidee says.”
“I hate Haidee.”
“Haidee’s going to be Coven Mother, idiot.”
“I still hate her.”
“Why haven’t they already picked someone? To replace Megan?”
“They should pick me!”
Mocking laughter from all of them.
“No. Me!”
“Shut up. It’s not funny anymore.”
“Maybe Giganalee’s lost her mind … she’s soooo old.”
“I’m telling.”
“You do and I’ll kill you.”
“Bitch!”
“Eat me.”
“Maybe I will.”
More laughter.
“I bet they haven’t picked someone because they’re scared. What if Sena just kills whoever they pick? Just like Megan?”
“They should pick you, then.”
“Shut up!”
“Maybe they’re waiting to get her book.”
“They’re all afraid of her. I bet she’s stronger than Giganalee.”
“No one’s stronger than Giganalee.”
“I bet she is.”
Miriam retreats from the childish, circular talk. Over the course of several weeks she answers the Eighth House’s pointless questions and fills the old woman’s hookah for her with herbal fruits. Maybe the ancient woman really is losing her mind. Maybe she’s just high. To Miriam, the Sisterhood feels different. She senses a change in the organization, a lack of businesslike ambition that it used to have when Megan was still alive. Instead of feeling awed and inspired, she feels ambivalent, despondent and unsure. Since Megan’s funeral, the Sisterhood has felt headless.
Unofficial “representatives” from Pandragor claim the transumption hex was a failure. They say it did not dislodge Caliph Howl from the throne as promised and that they are not obligated to adhere to the bargain. They will not attempt to get the Sisterhood’s book.
In retaliation, the Sixth House in particular has tried to send a message, but the Pandragonians are not afraid. They say that if any more of their bureaucrats turn up missing, Skellum (and Parliament) will be razed.
Not that Pandragor, as a government, would ever admit to dealing with witches or that those dealings had gone sideways, but Miriam knows Emperor Junnu is quite capable of concocting other reasons for war.
There are rumors that Pandragor has taken an interest in the Cisrym Ta. The emperor may be trying to secure it for himself.
She wonders again what has happened to the Sisterhood. Bullied by governments, murdered by the Willin Droul, terrified of a girl with a legendary book.
Perhaps all of it really is linked to the Cisrym Ta.
The Eighth House babbles incessantly about it. Every day, Giganalee mutters paranoid expletives. She is convinced that Sena Iilool has opened the book.
Miriam recalls the Sisterhood’s last encounter with Sena, on a weedy road in Stonehold, surrounded by singing insects and fabricated shadows. It is a chilling encounter that Miriam remembers clearly. She alone had been privy to it.
But there have been no Shradnae operatives in Stonehold since then. Over a year now. Not even half-sisters. And even if there were, Sena has cut her eyes. She would recognize a Shradnae spy.
The coven needs a window into Stonehold.
Miriam spends her time thinking and waiting for opportunities.
And then it happens. Late in the year, disillusioned with her family’s faith, the daughter of Avidan Mwyr comes sailing out of the south: heading for Stonehold. Her pedigree dictates that she will have access to Isca Castle.
Taelin Rae is worth using a puslet.
On the tenth of Oak, the clergywoman arrives in Newlym and disembarks for a bit of shopping at the town’s rustic stores. Miriam is there with a qloin10 and an iatromathematique to perform the procedure.
That night, while Taelin sleeps, Shradnae witches descend on her stateroom. A thick silence settles over the deck, the halls and mooring lines.