Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(58)

She is falling—into the divide between before and after. Her world is changing again, no longer simply with the miracle of touch but this new discovery of how touch can have meaning. She feels the kiss everywhere: a tingling ache in her fingertips, a sigh against the backs of her knees—the kiss she didn’t realize she’d been waiting for, ever since meeting Heath, even when he had a dagger pointed at her throat.

Her first kiss.

The word “oh” drifts into the air around them as if on a swirl of fog.

Aurora pulls away, enough to take a breath.

“Oh.” A soft voice. Not hers, and not Heath’s either.

She turns. Wren. The girl stands framed in the entrance to the gallery, her face pale, her fingers clenched together. “Forgive me,” she says, backing away. And then she’s gone.





26


Isabelle


Reverend Mother Hildegarde keeps Isbe and William busy for most of the morning. It turns out there are many grueling chores to be done and too few hands to do them all. But Isbe hasn’t stopped wondering about Sister Genevieve’s appearance last night, that uncanny scent of blood and dirt and rust. She keeps imagining different scenarios: Sister Genevieve cutting her arm on a gardening hoe as she tends to vegetables, for example. Or perhaps Sister Genevieve discovering a rat in the granary and killing it with the sharp end of a pickax. Surely there are any number of possible explanations for her being out so late. . . .

And for her tending to the granary despite what the prioress said about it being empty.

Still, Isbe knows a lying voice when she hears one.

Finally, during a break for the nuns to have their midday meal, she finds a moment to pull William aside. They pass the dorter, the refectory, and the bell tower, turning the corner through the cloisters and moving across the graveyard to the granary at the far side of the complex. William throws open the double doors to the large grain storage room, and Isbe holds her breath.

“So . . . it is empty, then,” she says after a pause.

“Quite so. Hardly even a trace of wheat on the stone floor,” William confirms. “It looks as though the floors have been recently swept, in fact.”

“Perhaps to keep the vermin away,” Isbe says, thinking. She’s, truth be told, a little disappointed, though she’s not sure what sort of secret she thought she’d discover.

They decide to return to the refectory, hoping to catch a scrap of bread before the meal has been cleared. But upon passing once again through the graveyard, its scent of sage and cypress and new-turned dirt gives Isbe pause. She pulls back on William’s arm, and they stop out in the open. She can feel the sun on her wrists and face.

“Is there another fresh grave?” she asks.

William hesitates, scanning the area. “Possibly.”

“Weren’t the sisters digging one just yesterday when we arrived? Is it the same plot?”

“I’m not sure.”

Isbe sighs, frustrated. She knows she should let go of the apprehensive nag in the back of her mind, but it’s like a piece of snagged cloth that won’t come loose.

William clears his throat. “Isabelle, what are you really after here? Why are you so curious about Hildegarde and the others?”

She shakes her head, feeling a lump of annoyance lodge in her throat. She doesn’t want to explain it to him. And yet the words begin to form of their own accord. “She knew the king, my father.”

“Sure, but what’s in that? Many people knew the king well, I can only assume.”

“I thought she might be . . .” Her voice is a ragged whisper. “I thought perhaps she might know something about who my mother was. Just take me to the fresh grave. Please.”

She hears William sigh quietly, as though he’s attempting to hide it. “Very well,” he says, leading her there.

She kneels down in the soft earth. She is not very accustomed to praying. She closes her eyes because that’s what one is supposed to do. She puts her hands together, and her head down. She knows she needs to stop trying to find answers. This journey isn’t about her, or finding out who her mother was. This is about saving Aurora—her sister, her closest friend, the person who knows her better than anyone in the world. The only person, in fact, who has ever cared about what happens to Isbe.

Failing her is not an option.

Isbe places her palms into the earth. Whatever soul is buried here, Isbe hopes he or she is in peace. She gives the damp ground one final pat and is about to get to her feet when she reconsiders. There had been a touch of something cold, something hard. . . .

She pats the earth near the grave again, then pushes aside loose dirt. “William,” she gasps. “There’s something under here . . . there’s . . .” She begins eagerly moving clumps of dirt aside with both hands. She feels metal. She feels . . . a handle.

She lifts her hand, dirt now caked into her fingernails. She is holding a dagger.

“Now that is odd,” the prince says, kneeling beside her.

She runs her fingers rapidly over the hilt, feeling the careful carvings in the wood. “William, it’s not just any bodkin. It’s got an insignia imprinted on it. It’s . . .” A hawk perched on a sword . . .

“The Aubinian seal.” The prince’s voice has gone cold as the blade in her hand.

“How would this have gotten here? Why would it be buried in the ground like this?” Isbe’s fingers tremble with a mix of excitement and dread.