“And the fact that it’s not screaming right now…”
“It means I don’t know,” said Sancia. She slid the lever down, making the imperiat less sensitive, and hopefully less loud. If they did walk up on anything hierophantic, she didn’t want it to start screaming and let everyone know where she was.
“And…the imperiat,” he asked. “If he’s really on the ship with us right now, Sancia, can it…can it kill him?”
“Again…I don’t know, Gregor.”
She looked into the darkened hatch before her, flexing her sight. She kept looking up, and up, and up, until she saw a scrived light burning two decks above them, moving back and forth, and back and forth.
“Someone’s up there,” she whispered.
“What?” said Gregor.
“I see a light moving around, like someone is…like they’re holding a lantern and pacing around. Someone’s alive on this ship.”
“And…And is it…”
“I don’t know.” She stood. “But we need to go see. We have to find out if he’s really back, if it’s really him, and…and what he plans to do.”
* * *
—
They turned out their lanterns and climbed the stairs in total darkness, moving as slowly as possible, trying to make no noise. Finally they came to the deck with the scrived light, and they crept forward until they came to a closed door. Sancia flexed her sight, saw the light was just beyond, and she tapped Gregor’s shoulder twice and pointed.
He swallowed hard enough for it to be audible, then pressed his ear to the door, his breathing so fast and panicked it seemed as loud as a scream.
The scrived light within the room stopped pacing. Then it lowered itself and hovered there—sitting on a table, she thought.
Imperiat? he mouthed to her.
She checked the rig again. It was still and silent. She shook her head. “There’s nothing on the other side of this door but the light,” she whispered.
Gregor nodded, then stood, readied his espringal, and placed his hand on the knob. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and shoved the door open.
He moved inside swiftly, espringal raised, and Sancia followed him. She had no idea what they would find within—perhaps some unimaginable monster, or another scene of horrid gore—but what they found was a tall, dark-skinned, rather handsome woman seated calmly at a table with a scrived lantern in her lap.
“Gregor,” she said softly. Though her face was steady, her voice was very hoarse, and shook badly.
“Mother?” said Gregor, stunned.
Sancia stared at the woman, her face eerily lit in the light of the scrived lantern, and slowly realized this had to be Ofelia Dandolo—one of the most powerful people in all of Tevanne. She was grandly dressed, wearing a richly designed bodice and full skirt, and she was of an age that was just on the border between upper-middle and elder years.
“What…What are you doing here, Mother?” asked Gregor.
“He said…He said you might come,” she said faintly. She blinked a few times. Sancia could tell she was in shock. “I didn’t really believe him. But here you are.”
“Mother—why are you here? What’s going on? Did…Did you kill those slaves?”
“He…He said she would try to stop us,” whispered Ofelia Dandolo, her eyes wide. “So we had to do it fast. But it would take so many lives, to make the world think it was midnight…”
Gregor let out a shuddering breath. “My God…”
She looked at him pleadingly. “But he’s back now. He’s back, and he can fix you, my love, and fix the city, fix the world, fix everything, and…and all the things I’ve done to bring us here. He can take it all ba—”
“Where is he?” asked Sancia.
Ofelia Dandolo looked at Sancia like she’d only just now realized she was there. “W-What?” she said.
“Where is he? Where is he now?”
She looked around dimly, then gestured at the open door on the other side of the room. “I think…I think he went through there.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you not know?”
“When…When he first was here, I was waiting, and…and I heard the scrivers screaming, screaming that no one was allowed to see him, and…and so we shut off all the lights. I had them shut off all the lights in the ship and send the crew abovedecks. And I sat here in the dark, waiting, and then I…I heard footfalls, coming closer to me, and then there was a voice. A voice in the dark, Gregor. I heard a voice talking to me, close to me, and it was like…it was like…” She trailed off, unable to even describe it.
“What happened then?” asked Sancia.
Her face tremored, and she swallowed. “He said he needed to…to calibrate himself. To understand which privileges and permissions he still retained. And to find something to hide himself in, he said. Something to, to veil his form. And he walked away and…and…I heard these sounds. This tremendous cracking, and crashing, and…and then it stopped.”
They stared at her for a long while, unable to speak.
“How long ago did it stop?” Gregor asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know.”
Sancia’s eye stayed fixed on the open door on the other side of the room, keenly aware of the darkness beyond—and what could be over there, watching.
“Damn it, Mother,” whispered Gregor. “What have you done? What have you brought upon us?”
She blinked, and tears ran down her cheeks. “He apologized, you know. About my scrivers. He said he was sorry. Had not foreseen the issues that his form proposed, he said. He said he…he would make it up to me.” She shut her eyes. “He said he was so sorry, Gregor.”
She sat there with her eyes shut, breathing in and out. Sancia wondered if she’d gone mad from shock.
“Sancia,” said Gregor, espringal still trained on his mother. “What do we do now?”
Good scrumming question, she thought. She looked into the darkened doorway with her scrived sight. Usually when she spied a hierophantic rig—like Clef, or the plate in Gregor’s head—her sight interpreted it as a tiny, blood-red star. But she saw no such thing before them now. “I still don’t see anything.”
“Do you think he’s…left?”