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  Mia nodded. “I met him on the ship over here.”

  “Oh, do tell,” she said, bouncing slightly in her chair.

  Mia’s face grew warm. It wasn’t that big of a deal really. Her mind wandered back to the ship, and she told Taryn an abridged version of the story.

  “That sounds just like him,” Taryn said with a smile, referring to Cedar’s warning about touching the boat’s trees. “Scoot over,” she added, and made a shooing motion with her hands.

  Mia shoved toward the wall, and she flopped down next to her. They lay side by side, looking up at the ceiling for a long while, each lost in thought.

  “You know,” Taryn finally said after a long while. “Getting such an easy audience to the Dominus is rather peculiar. We do have a pecking order here, and acolytes aren’t high on it. Potential acolytes even less so. I myself have never been privy to a meeting of the general assembly, and I’ve been here almost two cycles. Are you sure there’s nothing your father may have neglected to tell you?”

  “All my life he’s been my guidepost, but now I really don’t know anymore.” When Mia frowned and bit her lip, Taryn grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  12 The Brig

  Lumin Cycle 10152

  “This would be perfect to slip inside my pallet at night to keep my feet warm against the deep chill of the Compound,” Mia Jayne said, as she handed Brother Cornelius a bowl of stew, a crusty loaf of bread, and a spoon.

  She was referring to yet another of the cleric’s ingenious gourds that he called cakes. This one was flat and mimicked a miniature hearth. When agitated, it warmed instantly and remained so for hours as the heat slowly dissipated.

  More than a month had passed since she had arrived at the Order. She had largely settled into a routine at the Archives, but Brother Cornelius was still able to surprise her with his ingenuity.

  “My child, what an excellent idea,” he replied, beaming with disproportionate pride. “These old toes are practically numb as it is. How could I not have thought of that myself?”

  “Well, I came here from the tropical hammocks,” she said with a shrug. “I’m quite unused to this chill, and I fear I won’t ever adjust. I cling to every scrap of warmth I can find!”

  Brother Cornelius chuckled. “I promise to bring you a cake on the morrow then. We shall both be testers for this new idea of yours. The cakes have only a few good uses in them. The chemical reaction required is quite strong, even though the heat is fairly mild.” He patted the cake to gauge its warmth. “This one here is on its last use, I daresay.”

  “So you’ll toss it then?” Mia thought about cutting it open to look inside.

  “No, no, cakes are also excellent for eating,” he said, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. “Under the tough exterior is a tender, spicy meat. If you’ve been wondering what gives our stew that special kick, I slip all my exhausted cakes to Brother Borus, and he uses them in his recipes.”

  Mia raised an eyebrow at that confession. She actually had been wondering how they got that deep, hearty flavor into the stew. It settled into her stomach and sank into her bones, warming her from the inside.

  “Don’t be telling anyone that bit of trivia now.” Brother Cornelius’s eyes twinkled at her. “Brother Borus likes to pass that off as a secret of his cooking prowess.”

  She laughed heartily. She certainly enjoyed the old man’s company, but her good cheer hinged more on the fact that, for the first time since she’d arrived at the Compound, the acolytes were going to be allowed outside tonight.

  “Are you attending the Gathering?” she asked Cornelius. A smile still played at her lips.

  He swallowed a bite of the stew he’d been enjoying and shook his head slowly. “Even with the night lights at their apex, it’ll be too dark for my old eyes, child. I have some of the other clerics gathering on my behalf, I’m afraid.” He spoke with a wistful tone. “I do miss the bountiful variety of foliage, but at least I still enjoy the night lights from my laboratory on clear evenings.”

  The night lights were magical, but Mia truly missed the forest’s dense press of life teeming all around her. That was the true source of her excitement.

  “Well, if there’s anything else you forgot to instruct the clerics about, I’d be glad to assist,” she said, as she tidied the surrounding table, putting away the wands and readying to leave. “If not, I think I’ll be off so I can prepare for the festivities. Taryn, Cedar, and I have made plans to attend together.”

  “You’ve done enough for one day, my child,” Brother Cornelius said, as he scooped up a bit of stew on a piece of crusty bread. He smacked his lips in anticipation but paused. “That said, I’m glad to hear you’re getting on with some of the other acolytes.”

  Mia smiled again at the old brother, nodded in a slight bow, and departed out the great wooden entry to the corridor beyond. As usual the hallway was empty. The Archives were situated in a low-traffic area of the Compound.

  She walked slowly along the corridor, as she often did on her way back to the barracks, savoring her last moments of privacy before coming under the scrutiny of her peers. She ran her hand along the cold stone, looking for warm patches. She’d been taking private moments when available to seek out the elder grove.

  In the last four weeks, she’d managed to extract a little bit of information from Cedar regarding how the root system conduits functioned. She was certain the major corridors joined ancillary ones accessible by tunnels. The ancillary corridors were well hidden; she supposed it was to preserve the stark aesthetics of the Compound.

  She sighed. Aesthetics was subjective, and her tastes differed drastically. The Order wouldn’t stand for greenery, though, at least not in any corridors she’d been down. She approached a fork in the corridor. The left fork led to the barracks, and the right led down a dark hallway to a part of the Compound she hadn’t yet explored. As she approached the fork, she peered down the right corridor. It was a black hole descending into the earth. After stopping to listen for any footsteps or other telltale noises, she ducked down the right corridor. Now was as good a time as any to have a peek.

  She pulled a small, old gourd from the pocket of her sash and tapped it against the corridor wall with a slight thrum. The gourd hummed, the noise thin in the stone hallway. A weak yellow light emanated from the fruit. It would have to do. She urged her eyes to adjust by closing them briefly and felt along the edge of the wall. She stepped carefully down the decline of the tunnel, her eyes slowly acclimating to her surroundings.

  With the rhythm of her downward steps, Mia gained confidence and walked quickly toward the bottom, her slippers almost noiseless on the stone floor. The stone walls grew warmer against her hand as she descended into the darkness. The farther she walked, the more the walls took on a sheen not present in the higher levels. Some sort of film covered them. She felt it as well as saw it; it was almost like a fine moss against her fingers. She brushed her hand lightly over it and paused. There it was. A very faint hum. She pressed her ear close to the wall, and the noise grew stronger.

  Mia marveled at the texture and fine quality of the moss. It was completely unlike anything she’d seen or felt before. By the time she reached the bottom of the descent, the moss had thickened and now covered the walls and ceiling of the corridor. It hummed ever so slightly in every direction, the sound comforting her.

  She continued along the corridor, cautious in her movements, waiting for the tunnel to open into a room or split off, but it continued on as it was for quite some time. Then, suddenly, the hum grew louder. It deepened and reverberated through her body, squeezing her heart gently and relaxing her muscles.

  It almost sounds like the forest. Almost.

  She stopped and stood with her ear close to the mossy wall. At the point where the hum was the strongest, she rapped her knuckles lightly along the wall, methodically from side to side, starting near her head and moving back and forth and slowly downward along the point of concentration. There
was no discernible change in the feel or sound of the stone. She was almost ready to give up in frustration when one of her slippers came in contact with a particularly squishy piece of moss near the ground.

  Crouching near the stone floor, careful not to step on her robes, Mia pressed her hand along the mossy bottom of the floor. Where her slipper had given, her hand did as well. It sank into the moss with an odd sensation, and she rooted around among the slick green until she found a hole in the stone wall. She groped urgently and felt out the edge of a square shape in the corridor wall.

  It was a bit larger than the width of her shoulders, slightly taller than her crouched figure, and completely disguised by the spongy moss. Ingenious! She pushed on the moss at the center of the hole experimentally, tentatively at first then with greater force. She squeezed her eyes closed, expecting to hear a ripping noise. Instead the moss gave way under her fingers. As if burrowing through a thicket, her hand slipped past the moss, and warm air swirled past her elbow on the other side. Mia stared at her arm, which was stuck in the moss, and twisted it back and forth. It moved freely. She pulled it out slowly, expecting to leave a hole. To her surprise, when she’d fully extricated her arm, the hole sucked itself closed. She saw no sign that anything had passed through it at all. She touched the surface of the moss again, and it sprang against her palm just as before.

  “Amazing,” she uttered quietly. “Just brilliant. This must be one of the access tunnels.”

  Her heart thumped in her chest at the prospect of getting a peek at the complex system that ran the Compound. She took a deep breath and leaned her head and shoulders into the moss. As with her hand, it stretched against her cheek. It was soft and fresh smelling, like when she had rubbed her face into the grass as a child. The moss gave way, but before she was able to open her eyes on the other side, footsteps resonated along the passage.

  Nervous excitement dissolved instantaneously into panic. Mia wasn’t sure where the footsteps were coming from or where they were going, but she retreated back into the corridor. She pushed herself with such force that she came out of the moss too far on her heels and lost her balance, collapsing hard on her rear end with a thud. The footsteps quickened, and to Mia’s horror, Brother SainClair’s face appeared around the corner. She tried to scramble to her feet, but it was too late. He’d already spotted her.

  She cringed as the roar emanated from SainClair’s lips. His boots slammed on the hard stone as he bored down on her. She braced herself for the impact of a blow. Instead he grabbed her by the neck and dragged her to her feet.

  “You! What are you doing snooping around this part of the Compound?” he yelled into her turned face then shook her roughly.

  Mia instinctively tried to squirm away from his grip. “I was lost,” she said quickly, trying not to stutter. Her eyes were still averted. She had to think quickly. Saying that she was trying to head back to the barracks wouldn’t work. Everyone knew where those were. Think, Mia.

  SainClair sneered, shaking her again. She was already wary of him, already hated him for how he had alienated her from the others, but now she was terrified of him. His eyes held a manic glint, and his hair was wild. There was something not right about him.

  “You expect me to believe that, pretender?” he said with another growl, squeezing her neck tighter. “Do you know where you are stumbling about?”

  She didn’t for certain but had every intention of finding out.

  “I was looking for Brother Cornelius’s laboratory.” The thought popped into her mind with relief. “He sent me to fetch him some additional wands for tomorrow.” Her voice wavered, but she pressed on. “I’ve yet to visit the laboratory, so I got mixed up. Where are we exactly?”

  She immediately regretted that last bit, which engendered nothing but additional rage. Brother SainClair’s grip on her neck didn’t loosen even a fraction of an iota.

  “The laboratories are higher in the Compound,” he growled. “Are you a half-wit as well as a liar?”

  Sweat trickled slowly down her sides under her robes. “I must have gone down instead—” Her voice was cut off as his viselike grip on her throat tightened. She tried to breathe, but nothing filled her lungs.

  “You know what I think?” he asked casually, as if he weren’t choking the life out of her. “I think you were down here snooping around, trying to figure out a way to bring the Order down. I think you were spying on us.” His harsh, sharp face appeared ghostly white in the dim light. His scruffy jaw looked like that of weird bird with blond hairs protruding from around its angular beak, and the cold fire in his pale-blue eyes made it clear that he wasn’t jesting. He really thought Mia was a spy.

  There was no way for her to contain the quaver that shuddered through her body.

  Brother SainClair narrowed his eyes as if he took her shaking as a sign that he was correct. “You know what we do to spies, don’t you?”

  “Yeh…” She tried to speak but was still unable to draw a breath. His grip loosened only enough to let her lungs fill with air. She took a few ragged gulps but still was unable to form words.

  “You’ll soon find out.” He didn’t elaborate.

  Mia’s dizziness ebbed with each gasp. At least he wasn’t going to kill her right here in the hallway.

  “The Order required my presence at the Compound,” she said through gulps of air, regaining her composure and trying to add a bit of logic to his outlandish claims. “I didn’t choose to be here. Whether my father really did write that letter or whether Dominus Nikola made it up, being here wasn’t my wish. Why would I be spying?”

  At her reference to Nikola, SainClair’s face grew darker. “You accuse the Dominus of lying?” He shook Mia again but mercifully didn’t tighten his grip on her neck.

  “Er, I was making the point that I’m not here of my own accord.”

  “I grow tired of your lies and excuses.” He turned her away from him, his hand still firmly on her neck, and forced her along the hallway. Her feet raced to stay ahead of him and avert any further pain.

  Where is he taking me?

  He shoved Mia back up the tunnel, and they took the fork toward the barracks. Maybe he was just sending her there. Her optimistic thoughts were dashed when they took a right turn before reaching the dormitory entrance. This turn led down a particularly narrow passage that was exceptionally long and sloped back downward. After a long while, the ground finally leveled out at a slightly wider tunnel. Spaced along this tunnel were gourds that illuminated metal doors set into the stone walls along both sides. Brother SainClair pushed her along past a couple of the doors.

  They were cells, she realized, her breath catching in her throat once more. Before she could protest, he tossed her into a cell and bolted the door. It was a small, dank cube with a danker, lumpier version of the bean mattresses the acolytes had in the barracks, situated against the back wall. There was also a chamber pot on the floor and not much else. It was a tiny stone cave that made her cubby in the barracks look spacious and comfortable.

  “You can believe Dominus Nikola will hear about this,” SainClair said coldly. “If the Gathering wasn’t taking place tonight, I’d take you there straightaway, but maybe you could do with a good think.” He turned and stalked off.

  “Wait!” she called after his retreating footsteps.

  His long strides didn’t pause or even miss a beat. And like that, his footsteps were gone, and Mia was utterly alone in a mostly dark cell with just the light of the gourd in the corridor. The Gathering. She was supposed to be enjoying a night out with the others. For the first time since she’d left home some weeks ago, she began to cry.

  She held it together for a while, but finally the sobs poured out of Mia with an intensity that surprised her. Father, home, Hackberry, her freedom. Attending the Gathering with Taryn and Cedar was just the last in a long list of what was no longer hers, and she found herself mourning them all simultaneously. She finally allowed her heart to experience the abject pain she’d denied for
so long. She collapsed to a kneeling position, gasped from the sobs, and swallowed hard. Her throat was sore from SainClair’s bruising touch. She hugged her arms to her body as she let the tears roll freely and her chest quake. She stayed like that, crumpled on the ground, for a good long while. It was hard to say how long, but when she finally rolled onto her back on the dirty floor, she was exhausted from crying. Her eyes were almost puffed closed, and everything felt thick. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. A subtle warmth pulsed softly against her stomach.

  It was the small, brown leather book. She had taken it from the Archives more than two weeks ago and carried it with her in her sash. She couldn’t say why it was with her now, except she felt compelled to carry it. She pulled it free from her robes, clambered up onto the dirty mattress, and leaned against the cold stone wall at the back of the cell.

  “How is this even less comfortable than my barracks bunk?” she said to no one.

  Mia held the book in her hands, savoring the warmth it emitted. Although she’d been carrying this book around, she’d never even cracked it open. She breathed in deeply, held it, and breathed out, repeating this process to calm her nerves. She squinted at the volume in her lap and opened it to the index.

  Blast that bloody SainClair for leaving her with no light. Numerous family names graced the first page of the index, none of which she recognized. She flipped to the letter J. There was a Jaynor but no Jayne. Maybe the Jaynor family was a distant relation. This seemed to be an ancient tome after all. She flipped back to the beginning and noticed Draca. Dominus Nikola’s family name was Draca. She turned to the entry for it. The page contained a complex listing of the descendants of the Draca family; it even had a Nikola. That can’t be the Dominus. This book is ancient. Maybe he’s named after that ancestor.

  “We Jaynes don’t have any such storied history,” she murmured. “No seal, no family estate.”

  Clearly she was alone, and at this point, she wasn’t above speaking to herself. The ability to talk openly was actually rather liberating. She flipped again to the index and found another name she recognized: SainClair.