No.
But how did Inshara’s people steal the scroll I need so badly? A cultist would have had to infiltrate the temple and escape again without being seen.
Or they already had someone inside.
“We have to get out of the walls,” I gasp, pausing just far enough ahead of North to give him time to stop before crashing into me.
“What?” North gasps, doubling over to rest his hands on his knees. “Go out into the open?”
“She must have someone inside the temple. They would know about the passages. We have to get out before they cut us off.”
North doesn’t groan, doesn’t pause to complain. “I’ll follow you” is all he says.
I have a destination in mind. The only place in the temple not accessible via these hidden places: the archives.
I keep us inside the walls for as long as I can, until we reach a corridor that dead-ends at an intricately carved grille. I pause there, listening hard, cheek pressed against the ornate leaves and vines. Then, touching the stone mechanism above me, I swing the panel noiselessly open.
North and I emerge in a small reception room, the grille discreetly hidden behind a silk drape. I inch around the edge of the fabric, scanning the darkened room, and then gesture for North to follow me, our feet silent on the thick carpet.
From the doorway, I can see an intersection. On the far side of it is a jumble of activity, servants running this way and that, and even a number of the city guard as well. The clanking of their armor and weapons as they march through the corridors rings hollow and painful in my chest. They aren’t allowed here, in the sanctity of my temple—no armed person is, save for the half dozen or so of my own personal guard on duty at any given time.
But all that’s changed—we’re under attack.
The archway that opens onto the hall I need is clear, though, and I’m about to sprint across when North hisses at me. I turn in time to see one hand half-lifted, as if his instinct was to reach out and grab me before I could go—but he remembered. There is a tiny comfort in that—that this person, at least, is safe.
“The cat,” North whispers, face still tinged with shock and fear in equal proportions. “He was with us in the corridor—he’s gone now.”
“He will find me,” I tell North with more confidence than I feel. “He always does. Now, quickly,” I whisper—and then dart across the hall and through the archway.
It leads to a long, downward-spiraling corridor, and momentum does half the work as we run the rest of the way toward my destination. I half skid to a halt when I see that one of the tall doors to the archives stands open, for Matias would have had them both closed against the noise of the celebration raging above all night.
I sidle closer, North on my heels, and peer around.
All looks quiet, although I cannot see the archivist’s desk without opening the other door or stepping through. The pool of light always illuminating his desk is there, and while I watch, a ghastly shadow stalks back and forth through it, monstrously huge and distorted where it’s thrown back against the shelves. I’m gripping my spearstaff so tightly that my hand aches.
Then the shadow turns, and suddenly it’s old and familiar—Matias.
He’s standing with one of Daoman’s acolytes, the younger man breathing hard, winded and doubled over where he leans against the stacks.
“Nimh,” the archivist cries when he turns and sees me, more emotion and animation in his tone than I’ve ever heard. He wobbles around the edge of his desk. “I’d hoped you’d have the sense to come here.” His keen eyes take in North as well, and if he’s surprised, he gives no sign of it.
“Inshara knows about the tunnels,” I gasp, still catching my breath. Then, in a rush of confusion, I remember that Matias has been here all night—that he might not know what happened, that I’ll have to explain, that I’ll have to tell him about Daoman—
My throat closes.
Matias shakes his head, making a slicing gesture with his hand. “I know,” he says, voice softening. He tips his head at the acolyte, who’s watching me with wide, tear-filled eyes. When my gaze shifts toward him, he drops to his knees and raises his shaking palms to his eyes.
“Thank you,” I tell him, both touched and baffled that anyone would have thought, in the chaos, to bring the information to the archivist, of all people.
Maybe Matias isn’t as wholly separate from the politics of this place as I’d thought.
Matias tips his head to the side, and, after drawing himself to his feet, the acolyte bows again and then stumbles out.
“We have to get out of here,” I blurt, glancing from Matias to North, who is silent and watching, his whole body tense and ready for action. His eyes meet mine brief ly, then slide away, his jaw clenching. “Both of us,” I add.
Matias nods. “On that we agree. Come. All is ready.”
He’s left his cane leaning against his desk, urgency giving his unsteady legs strength as he leads the way toward the back of the stacks. On a trolley ordinarily used for transporting books and scrolls around the archives is a rough-spun cloth, heaped over something lumpy. The archivist whips back the cloth to reveal two packs and a belt of tools—
Not a belt of tools. My chatelaine. The sash full of spell reagents that I carry everywhere, but of course had not worn to the ritual or the party. I’m speechless with relief, but I look up at Matias, my question in my eyes.
“I sent Pisey for your things,” the archivist says, nodding after the acolyte. “He told me what was happening.”
I slip my chatelaine over my head and across my shoulder and take one of the packs. When North steps forward, one hand half-stretched toward the other pack and a look of query on his face, Matias gives him a tight little smile.
“I took a guess. Yes, that one’s yours.”
North slips the straps over his shoulders, movements still jerky.
“North …” I get no further. His head snaps up so he can look at me.
His eyes are full of hurt, the depth of emotion catching me off guard. “Why didn’t you tell me you believed I was this … this destroyer? Some kind of mythical character in one of your stories?”
“It is no story!” I blurt, a flicker of anger rising to match his. “It is prophecy—and it’s coming true.”
He draws himself up. “It was one thing not to tell me who you were. Why couldn’t you tell me who I was, or who your people would think I was?”
“Because I didn’t know you! Because I couldn’t be sure I could trust you. Because—”
“It wasn’t your decision to make!” he spits. “People are trying to kill me, Nimh!”
“I know!” My voice comes quicker and more heated than I intended, and the sound of it rings in the sudden silence. I take a breath. “I know. That is why no one could know. Because the moment they knew you and I might be connected, they—they’d—”
My mind fills again with the image of Daoman lying still, the pool of blood beneath him stretching long spindly fingers along the grooves between the tiles on the floor. My throat closes so abruptly that I make a strangled sound before I realize I can’t finish what I’d started to say.
North doesn’t answer immediately, though I hear his breathing calm, and the soft shift of fabric that tells me he’s taken a step closer to me. “You’re going to need to tell me,” he says in a low voice. “About this Lightbringer, about your prophecy, about what your people—and hers—want from me.”