The Girl Who Drank the Moon(20)

“Are you here to take me home?” Rook said, his voice a mixture of hope and shame. “Have I disappointed them, too?”

“It’s nice to see you, Rook,” Antain said, rubbing his little brother’s head as though he were a mostly-well-behaved dog. “But no. You’ve only been here a year. You’ve got plenty of time to disappoint them. Is Sister Ignatia here? I’d like to speak to her.”

Rook shuddered, and Antain didn’t blame him. Sister Ignatia was a formidable woman. And terrifying. But Antain had always gotten on with her, and she always seemed fond of him. The other Sisters made sure that he knew how rare this was. Rook showed his older brother to the study of the Head Sister, but Antain could have made it there blindfolded. He knew every step, every stony divot in the ancient walls, every creaky floorboard. He still, after all these years, had dreams of being back in the Tower.

“Antain!” Sister Ignatia said from her desk. She was, from the look of it, translating texts having to do with botany. Sister Ignatia’s life’s greatest passion was for botany. Her office was filled with plants of all description—most coming from the more obscure sections of the forest or the swamp, but some coming from all around the world, via specialized dealers in the cities at the other end of the Road.

“Why, my dear boy,” Sister Ignatia said as she got up from her desk and walked across the heavily perfumed room to take Antain’s face in her wiry, strong hands. She patted him gently on each cheek, but it still stung. “You are many times more handsome today than you were when we sent you home.”

“Thank you, Sister,” Antain said, feeling a familiar stab of shame just thinking of that awful day when he left the Tower with a note.

“Sit, please.” She looked out toward the door and shouted in a very loud voice. “BOY!” she called to Rook. “BOY, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

“Yes, Sister Ignatia,” Rook squeaked, flinging himself through the doorway at a run and tripping on the threshold.

Sister Ignatia was not amused. “We will require lavender tea and Zirin blossom cookies.” She gave the boy a stormy look, and he ran away as though a tiger was after him.

Sister Ignatia sighed. “Your brother lacks your skills, I’m afraid,” she said. “It is a pity. We had such high hopes.” She motioned for Antain to sit on one of the chairs—it was covered with a spiky sort of vine, but Antain sat on it anyway, trying to ignore the prickles in his legs. Sister Ignatia sat opposite him and leaned in, searching his face.

“Tell me, dear, are you married yet?”

“No, ma’am,” Antain said, blushing. “I’m a bit young, yet.”

Sister Ignatia clucked her tongue. “But you are sweet on someone. I can tell. You can hide nothing from me, dear boy. Don’t even try.” Antain tried not to think about the girl from his school. Ethyne. She was somewhere in this tower. But she was lost to him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“My duties with the Council don’t leave me much time,” he said evasively. Which was true.

“Of course, of course,” she said with a wave of her hand. “The Council.” It seemed to Antain that she said the word with a little bit of a sneer in her voice. But then she sneezed a little, and he assumed he must have imagined it.

“I have only been an Elder-in-Training for five years now, but I am already learning . . .” He paused. “Ever so much,” he finished in a hollow voice.

The baby on the ground.

The woman screaming from the rafters.

No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t get those images out of his mind. Or the Council’s response to his questions. Why must they treat his inquiries with such disdain? Antain had no idea.

Sister Ignatia tipped her head to one side and gave him a searching look. “To be frank, my dear, dear boy, I was stunned that you made the decision to join that particular body, and I confess I assumed that it was not your decision at all, but your . . . lovely mother’s.” She puckered her lips unpleasantly, as though tasting something sour.

And this was true. It was entirely true. Joining the Council was not Antain’s choice at all. He would have preferred to be a carpenter. Indeed, he told his mother as much—often, and at length—not that she listened.

“Carpentry,” Sister Ignatia continued, not noticing the shock on Antain’s face that she had, apparently, read his mind, “would have been my guess. You were always thusly inclined.”

“You—”

She smiled with slitted eyes. “Oh, I know quite a bit, young man.” She flared her nostrils and blinked. “You’d be amazed.”

Rook stumbled in with the tea and the cookies, and managed to both spill the tea and dump the cookies on his brother’s lap. Sister Ignatia gave him a look as sharp as a blade, and he ran out of the room in a panicked rush, as though he was already bleeding.

“Now,” Sister Ignatia said, taking a sip of her tea through her smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” Antain said, despite the mouthful of cookie. “I just wanted to pay a visit. Because I hadn’t for a long time. You know. To catch up. See how you are.”

The baby on the ground.

The screaming mother.

And oh, god, what if something got to it before the Witch? What would happen to us then?