This was not an ideal situation. She wasn’t in her early apprenticeship, dared by the other young apprentices to steal sweets from Master Kastora’s desk drawer. She did not know how much time she had until Demir actually mounted that rescue – whether it would come in hours, days, or months. She didn’t even know if she could rely on him, and so her own plans had to keep moving forward.
Despite her fears, despite a certainty of the consequences if she was caught, Thessa found herself depending on those silly skills learned as an apprentice in a glassworks dormitory. If she could steal low-resonance godglass to sell in town for beer, or sneak older boys and girls into her bunk for some teen fumbling without one of the garrison reporting her late-night movements to Kastora, then she could damn well outsmart some bored Magna enforcers and their small-minded overseer.
And he was small-minded. She knew his type, and better yet she had seen how Demir had talked circles around him. Filur Magna could be manipulated. She would take advantage of that.
The first thing she did was work late again. She didn’t need to, but after the rest of the prisoners had finished their own quotas and gone back to the dormitory was the perfect time to inspect the furnace room for loose paving stones. She found one just beneath workbench number seven, pried it up with her fingernails, and used her heavy shears to dig out a space large enough to hide the vellum schematics. She tossed the dirt into the fire and deposited Demir’s razorglass into the hiding spot before making sure the paving stone fit back in its spot without a wobble. She then left the furnace room, walking casually down the road that ran through the middle of the compound.
It was a short walk, but an important one. It was late, the night lit by a handful of gas lamps. Craftsman Magna’s carriage was still parked just inside the compound entrance, and lamplight flickered in the large window that overlooked the courtyard. Thessa couldn’t see the man himself from this angle, but she bet he was in there. A driver waited beside the carriage, and the horses stamped.
Thessa passed the administration building and walked around the corner to the end of a little-used alleyway. She was in clear sight of the courtyard, well within the light cast by the nearest lamp, when she knelt down and took three smooth stones out of her pocket. She stacked them one on top of the other, regarding them thoughtfully for several moments before bowing her head.
Religion was a peculiar cultural artifact in this part of the world. It was both meaningless and everywhere; dozens of belief systems and hundreds of sects practiced to some degree by millions of people throughout the Ossan Empire and its neighbors. The Empire itself had no official religion, but it tolerated pretty much anything as long as none of them threatened the unofficial worship of godglass and money. Thessa’s mother and father had been omniclerics – priests of a sort, with a thorough knowledge of many of those religions, who could offer advice, ablutions, blessings, or rites to locals and travelers alike. Thessa hadn’t revisited her religious upbringing in almost a decade. There was no time for religion in Kastora’s glassworks.
But that knowledge was still there, and Thessa had spent her entire day thinking about how she could use it to get back the schematics.
She heard a nearby door slam shut and the call of voices across the courtyard. At the sound of them she leaned forward, rocking back and forth in front of the three smooth stones, pouring her focus into them. For this to succeed, she had to get it right. She needed to pass as a worshiper not just to the casual observer, but to another worshiper.
Footsteps echoed across the courtyard. More words were exchanged. The driver of the carriage said something, and there was the click of an opening door. Thessa began to wonder if she’d been overlooked, or if her guess had been wrong, and genuinely began to pray to Renn, the Nasuud goddess of commerce, whose altar was a pyramid. Thessa didn’t think she had any actual belief left in her, but it was worth a glassdamned shot.
After a long silence, footsteps slowly approached. Thessa swallowed a lump in her throat and kept rocking back and forth.
“What are you doing?”
Thessa almost choked. It was Craftsman Magna himself. Thessa leaned forward all the way, pressing her forehead to the cobbles in front of the three smooth stones, then looked up. She pretended to do a double take and snatched up the three stones, shoving them in her pocket as she leapt to her feet. “I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t think I’d disturb anyone here!”
Craftsman Magna’s eyes narrowed. “What’s in your hand? Show me now, quickly!”
Slowly, as if with great hesitance, Thessa removed the stones from her pocket and held them out.
“What is that?”
“It’s … it’s an altar, sir. I was praying.”
The overseer’s frown deepened. “It doesn’t look like an altar.”
Thessa stacked the stones one on top of the other, largest on the bottom, in her palm. “It’s a pyramid, sir. Not a very good one, but the best I have. For the goddess Renn. She’s the Nasuud–”
“I know who she is,” he cut her off. In that moment, Thessa could have sworn the overseer’s eyes softened. “You’re a Rennite?”
“Yes, sir. My parents were Rennite priests, sir, before they died in the accident.”
“Why are you praying here?”
“I couldn’t find an omnichapel, sir, and this alley seemed quiet. None of the laborers bring their woodcarts through.” She kept her eyes fixed on the ground, daring only the occasional glance up at the overseer. He was deep in thought now, his expression turned down in a scowl.
“You insult Renn with such a rudimentary altar. And with nothing to offer!” He sniffed and turned away. “See that you stay out from underfoot.”
Thessa cursed silently as he began to walk back toward his carriage. She’d thought the bait would be too much for him to resist. On an impulse she called after him. “Sir!”
He paused and turned back, clearly impatient. “What is it?”
“I understand I’m a prisoner, sir, but is there an omnichapel somewhere nearby I can visit? Even just once? This” – she hefted the little altar – “does not bring me as close to Renn as I’d hoped.”
“Hah! What are you praying for, little Rennite?”
“The end of the war, sir. So that commerce may return to normal.”
“And your release, I assume.”
“If it pleases Renn.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Craftsman Magna. “It will be months until you are eligible to earn a town pass,” he replied. “You will have to be patient.…” Thessa hefted the little rudimentary altar and his eyes darted to it. He flinched. “Bah! Come with me.” He whirled and strode back toward the administration building. Thessa shoved the stones back in her pocket and hurried to follow. She had to force herself to breathe evenly, wondering if her luck – or Renn’s blessing, whichever it was – would hold.
The overseer led her inside through the front door, past a couple of curious Magna guards and down a long hall. They went up a rickety flight of stairs, doubled back down another hall, and then entered an office that was in surprisingly tidy shape. It didn’t look all that different from Master Kastora’s office: desk in the middle, chairs for receiving visitors, a heavy Purnian rug, and a pair of drafting tables off to one side.
Thessa did not have time to make a thorough examination. Craftsman Magna thrust his arm out toward a shrine tucked back in the corner of the room. It looked like a small wardrobe, opened at the front, papered over with a glittering sheen. On top was an incense holder – well used and, by the smell of the office, quite recently. Inside the shrine was a gold pyramid just too big to fit in the palm of Thessa’s hand.