in the halo of threads around each girl but the solution lay beyond her skill. In the serenity trance she could see connections that must be undone or loosened. And in the clarity trance she could see entanglements on the smallest scale that would need to be unravelled. But working on either problem would make the other worse. They needed to be worked on together. Which required two people. And the only thread-worker she trusted to help, Ara, whose skills were pretty basic, was also one of those who needed fixing.
Sister Pan might be able to solve the problem but she clearly didn’t bother herself with thread-work on novices or she would have noticed Zole’s peculiar lack long ago. Nona could draw Sister Pan’s attention to the area of damage but the old woman would ask questions, and as she said: ‘everything’s connected’. Give Sister Pan one corner and she would soon pull out the whole story, and that would be the end of their adventuring.
Shade lessons focused on disguise. A whole week passed without mention of poisons, save to note some that were useful in small doses for altering the hue of a person’s skin or the colour of their eyes. Sister Apple likened the business of disguise to an extended lie told with the body, with the tone of one’s voice, and with the clothes that wrapped you. In Mystic Class every novice took the first of the Grey Trials, which involved crossing Thaybur Square undetected by other class members. Good disguise skills were a must!
In Academia Sister Rail made a spirited attempt to bore the class to death with mathematics. Nona felt she had achieved under Sister Rule, at great personal cost, a tenuous grip on arithmetic. A triumph, considering there were few people in her village who could count past twelve with confidence. Sister Rail introduced her to algebra, and not gently. The only moment of interest came when Darla, despairing of letters that were numbers but not any particular number, demanded to know what use such things were.
‘Our forebears used algebra to build the moon, novice!’ Sister Rail drew herself to her full height, which wasn’t much more than Darla’s when seated. ‘The curve of its mirror is governed by equations like these.’ A gesture to the chalk scrawls behind her. ‘It’s how they tightened the focus as the world grew colder. Other equations allow it to be steered as it was in the past, tilted to deal with the uneven advance of the ice.’
Nona frowned. Jula had mentioned something about changing the focus of the moon. Something she’d read about the Ark years ago: whoever owned the Ark could speak to the moon. ‘It could be a weapon.’
‘What’s that, Nona? Your expertise extends past assaulting classmates and reaches the moon now?’ Sister Rail tilted her head in inquiry.
Tittered laughter around Joeli.
‘It could be a weapon. If the focus was narrowed further it could burn cities.’
‘Nonsense. The moon is not a weapon of war. There’s no reason to believe the focus can be narrowed to that degree even if someone wanted to do it.’ Sister Rail waved the suggestion away with a bony hand.
‘If it can be tilted it could be steered from the Corridor entirely then returned,’ Nona said, staring at the glistening white of the globe on Rail’s desk. ‘Whole nations could be denied the focus and the ice would swallow them. It could melt vast lakes on the ice then connect them to the Corridor, washing away armies and cities …’
‘We were discussing the formula for a circle.’ Sister Rail banged a heel to the floorboards and the lesson sank back into a confusion of letters and symbols.
Nona had let the nun’s words slide past her and sat gazing at the distorted sky offered through puddle-glass windows. Memory filled her vision. Yisht stumbling away chased by shadow, the shipheart in her hand. Four shiphearts to open the Ark? One Ark to control the moon. One moon to own the world?
By the seven-day nothing had changed in the others’ reaction to talk of returning to the caves. Not ready to explore alone, Nona agreed to accompany Ara on a visit to Terra Mensis, a distant cousin of hers.
‘It’ll be great to get you off the Rock for once!’ Ara grinned, hugging her range-coat around her.
‘I don’t think the abbess plans to let me out on my own even when I’ve got the Red.’ Nona peered around the pillar, squinting against the ice-wind. The Mensis escort was late. They were sending a dozen of their house guard, enough to satisfy Abbess Glass that neither Ara nor Nona would be at risk from kidnap or assassination.
‘There is no point to strength if it is never tested.’ Zole stood in the open before the pillar forest, scowling at the world. Nona had been surprised when Ara extended the invitation to the ice-triber, more surprised when she accepted, and astounded when Abbess Glass permitted it. Nona supposed that Zole felt as trapped as she did on the Rock. Perhaps if the abbess worried that if Zole felt too trapped, she would simply run away.
Sister Kettle leaned against the pillar beside Nona and rolled her eyes, grinning. When Nona had heard the abbess was demanding an escort of her own in addition to the house troops she had worried they might get stuck with Sister Scar, Sister Rock or someone equally joyless. Perhaps even Sister Tallow. Nona respected Tallow but didn’t imagine she would be a particularly lenient chaperone in Verity. The arrival of Sister Kettle to watch over them had been a pleasant surprise. She still looked too young to be a nun. In the bathhouse with the black shock of her hair shaved to her scalp she could easily pass as a novice.
‘They’re coming.’ Kettle kept her back to the pillar.
Nona leaned out again. ‘Don’t see them.’ She spat an ice-flake. ‘Zole?’
Zole stood silent, leaning into the wind. Then, just as Nona was about to repeat herself, ‘I see something.’
A few minutes later the twelve guards swaddled in black furs that now hung with ice gathered around the nun and three novices. Sister Kettle cast an eye over each of them in turn then nodded and allowed them to lead the way, back towards the Vinery Stair.
‘Your cousin won’t be pleased to see me and Zole with you.’ Nona knew that any Sis would spot her peasant roots no matter how many years of convent education she might be carrying on top of them. ‘Well, she might be pleased to see Zole.’ The Argatha was a novelty. The rich could overlook low breeding in a novelty.
‘The Chosen One can hardly travel without her Shield.’ Ara grinned, face red from the wind. ‘And besides, Terra will like what I tell her to like. The Mensis have been scions to the Jotsis for generations.’ At Nona’s frown she elaborated. ‘We get to boss them about.’
The Vinery Stair led down from the Rock of Faith along a gradient gentle enough for cart and horse, though Nona would not want to be that horse. Below them the vineyards huddled against the base of the Rock, sheltered from the worst of the wind. The vines had their leaves folded tight. They wouldn’t open until the ice-wind relented, although Sister Hoe – who had charge of the wine-making – had told Nona that a heavy dose of fertilizer would coax most plants to open their leaves whatever the weather.
‘They can’t abide to lose the chance,’ the old woman had said. ‘Worried some other plant will thieve it first. They’re not so different from people really. There’s not much most wouldn’t risk to stop a rival having the benefit of something they want.’
At the bottom of the Vinery Stair a turnpike gate offered token resistance to any without proper business up at the convent and it was here that a crowd of perhaps two dozen pilgrims waited.
‘That must be her!’ A shout from the crowd.
Zole lowered her head, pulling the hood of her
