Between bites, I tried to figure out what made excursion so special. Singers left the Spire all the time. The words escaped before I even realized I’d spoken.
Wik laughed. “Before they take their wings, before they are marked with tattoos, some Singers are allowed a special type of excursion. Especially the Spire-born. So we can understand the towers. Just as only a few are given to enclosure — the deep communication with the city that lets us know its needs.” He said this as if the words should make sense to me.
At my confusion, Sellis gave an exaggerated sigh. “We should enroll her in the nests. With the infants.” She faced me. “You need years of training to become a proper Singer. Years. You can’t glide in here and—”
Around us, other novices watched. The room had fallen very quiet.
At a look from Wik, Sellis cleared her throat and held the dirty bowls towards me. She tilted her head and gestured with her chin. Move, acolyte. I found scourweed piled in a corner and scrubbed the bowls until they were no longer sticky and my hands were cut and bleeding again.
When I finished, I rejoined them.
Wik stood. “Let’s walk.” He folded his hands behind his back and paced away. Sellis and I hurried to catch him.
“Tell me about excursion and enclosure.” If I was to learn, I’d need to get started somewhere.
Sellis said, “Enclosure is for those who can listen to the sounds of the city.”
“When it roars?” I shuddered, thinking about those days. And what happened after.
She stared like I’d said the most dense thing possible. “The city speaks all the time. And we speak to it. The Singers who are enclosed tell us what the city wants. What it dreams for itself.”
I realized that the pocket of bone where I’d been trapped until yesterday was not only my prison. The carvings were too beautiful. Too reverential. That was an enclosure.
“Are there many who do this?”
Sellis shivered. “Yes. But not forever. They take shifts.”
“And excursion?”
Wik blushed, confusing me. “Before we take a seat on the council, most Singers are permitted some time abroad. To ensure we do not become too disconnected with our cousins in the rest of the city.”
I raised my eyebrows. “To live among the citizens. In the towers.”
He nodded.
“In secret?”
Wik stilled, like a hunting bird. He watched me as his lips parted in the briefest possible, most silent response, a breath of a word. “Sometimes.”
The thought of Singers prowling invisibly among us made me shiver. I did not know why. It felt safer to think of Singers as gray-robed guardians.
I stayed silent while Wik fidgeted with fuzz on his robe. He wanted to tell me more — this controlled, powerful young man who’d ruined my life wanted to say things to me, I could feel it. But what? And why?
I remembered Ezarit talking about conversations as ways to trade—“They want to share with you. You need to find the right question that gets them to share more than they intend.”
Fine. I mulled the questions I had. I thought about what Wik had already told me. I looked at him and waited until the right question rose to the surface of my mind.
Before it had a chance to do so, Sellis spoke. Her voice was scornful. “Your father nearly didn’t return from his excursion. Imagine. Falling for the towers.”
“It happens, Sellis.” Wik cut her off.
That was interesting. “When can I meet him?”
Sellis snorted. “You would need your wings.”
The look in Wik’s eyes said I must ask no more. I considered shifting the discussion to Naton instead. At least I could finish Nat’s journey for him. But Wik had a question for me instead.
“Do you know why we need you, Kirit?”
I shook my head. “But if I must enclose myself to listen to the city, I am certain I will lose my mind. That isn’t it, is it?”
For once, Sellis was silent. Her face betrayed her: this was something she did not know. She looked to Wik, hoping to learn too.
Wik continued to pace the tier, the two of us hustling to keep up with him. “Several shouters are already too old to fly. We need your voice,” he began.
Sellis snorted again.
“You need training, a great deal of it. This is a skill that you can learn quickly, I hope. Few enough have this ability, and many cannot learn it.”
That shut Sellis up.
She tilted her head suddenly, as if she’d heard something I could not. “Rumul requires me.”
Robes swishing behind her, she was gone without another word.
Wik remained. He slowed his pace.
“She does not like me,” I said.
Wik nodded in agreement.
“You and Sellis are not friends either,” I ventured again. He didn’t react. “Were you born in the Spire too?”
He chuckled. “I was. My mother serves on the council.”
“And Rumul?”
“He respects my opinion, and my mother’s. She saw you fly at wingtest. She argued your case.”
“The woman with the silver patch of hair?”
Wik gave me a look, but didn’t continue. I tried a different line of questioning. “What happened to my father?”
Wik cleared his throat, but kept quiet. His discipline, especially with what he said and did not say, was clearly well practiced. But without his saying another word, I knew. I knew everything and still nothing at all.
“He didn’t want to give up Ezarit.”
“It nearly cost him everything to return to the Spire. He was enclosed until he could hear the city again. Then he had to fight a challenger in the Gyre, and he was gravely wounded.” Wik increased his pace, until he walked ahead of me.
Could a Singer fall in love? That was not the right question to ask, not now. I caught up to him.
“Why didn’t they throw him down?” Suddenly I wanted to know everything.
“Why? Because his challenger spared him. And he is useful. Much like you.”
“He was spared and is a windbeater? He’s like the Singer you challenged? Mariti?”
Wik answered slowly. “I cannot discuss it further.” Some sound I could not hear caught his ears. “Time for your class.” He was obviously relieved.
Wik was a puzzle. We walked the novice tier, drawing the attention and whispers of younger students. What to make of him?
“Singers and their secrets and machinations, Wik. How do you bear it?”
He stopped and looked at me. “We.”
I was suddenly aware of my arms and legs sticking far beyond the sleeves and hem of my robe. My skin went goose pimpled. “We. How do we bear it?”
He pointed to a large alcove. We’d walked halfway around the tier. “It is our sacrifice for the city. We will talk later,” he added before he turned and headed towards the ladders.
A Magister standing inside the alcove watched me, her eyebrows raised. I looked past her to the youngest of the novices, all wearing robes like mine. They stared back at me. One near the back squelched a giggle: Ciel.
* * *
I ducked into the alcove, where the tallest student’s head was level with my waist. The room was dim compared to those above, but still ornately carved. Silk cushions lined the floor, and bone benches banked the outer wall.
The Magister spoke slowly, as if I might not comprehend. “Our new novice. You will sit and learn the songs as best you can at your…” She paused and looked down her nose at me. “Age.”
She seemed only a few years older than me. Her skin did not show the wind wear that Rumul’s did.
“I know the songs, Magister.” I spoke quietly, hoping to gain a stay, or a quick escape.
“Silence,” she said, and her words sounded like a thunderclap in the hush of the Spire.