Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(84)

Anastasia, in her own scythely arrogance, had thought there’d be much more conversation about the attempts on her and Marie’s lives, but it was barely on most scythe’s radars.

“Didn’t I hear something about you both going into hiding?” Scythe Sequoyah asked. “Was it about this Scythe Lucifer business?”

“Absolutely not,” Anastasia said, far more adamantly than she had intended to. Marie intervened to stop her from digging a deeper hole.

“It was just a group of unsavories. It behooved us to be nomadic until they were ferreted out.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s all resolved,” said Scythe Sequoyah, and he went back to the buffet for seconds.

“Resolved?” said Anastasia, incredulous. “We still have no idea who’s behind it.”

“Yes,” said Marie, calmly, “and whoever it is could be right here in the rotunda. Best to feign nonchalance.”

Constantine had informed them of his suspicion that a scythe might be behind the attacks, and now he was working that angle. Anastasia looked around the crowded rotunda for him. He was not difficult to spot, as his crimson robe stood out—although, mercifully, it had no jewels upon it. Constantine was still holding his position of neutrality, for whatever it was worth.

“I’m glad you have your eyes back,” Anastasia told him as she approached.

“They’re still a bit sensitive to light,” he said. “I suppose they must be worked in.”

“Any more leads?”

“No,” he told her honestly, “but I have a suspicion that fecal matter will be floating to the surface during this conclave. We’ll see how badly it stinks of conspiracy.”

? ? ?

“So how would you rate your first year?”

Anastasia turned to see another junior scythe in a robe of worn and intentionally frayed denim. This was Scythe Morrison. He had been ordained one conclave before she was. He was good-looking, and tried to negotiate the scythedom using high school rules, which, amazingly, got him much further than Anastasia thought it would.

“The year was . . . eventful,” she said, not really wanting to get into it with him.

He smiled at her. “I’ll bet!”

She tried to slip away, but found herself engulfed by an elegy of junior scythes that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

“I love the way you give people a month’s notice,” said one girl, whose name she couldn’t remember. “I might try that.”

“So, what’s it like gleaning with Scythe Curie?” another young scythe asked.

Anastasia tried to be polite and patient, but being the center of their attention felt awkward. She did want to have friends closer to her own age within the scythedom—but many of the junior scythes vied too hard to curry favor with her.

“Careful,” Marie had said after Harvest Conclave, “or you’ll find yourself with an entourage.”

Anastasia had no desire for an entourage, or to associate with the kind of scythes who did.

“We should go gleaning together,” Scythe Morrison suggested with a wink, which just annoyed her. “It’d be fun.”

“Fun?” she asked. “So you’re going new-order?”

“I go both ways,” he said, then did a quick course correction. “I mean, I’m undecided.”

“Well, when you decide, let me know.”

And she let that be her parting shot. When Scythe Morrison was first ordained, Anastasia thought it was admirable that he had chosen a female historical figure to name himself after, and asked if she should call him Toni. He had gone on to tell her, with a fair amount of distaste at the idea, that it was Jim Morrison he had named himself after—a songwriter and performer from the mortal age who had overdosed. Citra recalled some of his music, and had told Scythe Morrison that his Patron Historic got at least one thing right when he wrote “People Are Strange.” Meaning people like Scythe Morrison. Ever since then, he seemed to have made it his personal mission to win her over with his charm.

“Morrison must hate it that more of us junior scythes want to hang out with you than with him,” Scythe Beyoncé said to her a few minutes later, and Anastasia nearly bit her head off.

“Hang out? Scythes don’t hang out. We glean, and we support each other.”

That shut Scythe Beyoncé up, but seemed to put Anastasia on an even higher pedestal. It made her think back to what Scythe Constantine had said before the last attack. That she was as much a target as Marie, because Anastasia was influential among the junior scythes. She didn’t want that influence, but she couldn’t deny it was there. Perhaps some day she’d grow into it and find a way to properly make use of it.

At 6:59 a.m.—right before the brass doors opened to admit the MidMerican scythes to conclave—High Blade Xenocrates arrived, putting to bed the rumors that he had self-gleaned, or was a toddler.

“It’s odd for Xenocrates to arrive so late,” Marie pondered aloud. “Usually he’s among the first ones here, and spends as much time as he can talking up the other scythes.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to answer questions about Scythe Lucifer,” Anastasia suggested.

“Maybe.”

For whatever reason, Xenocrates avoided conversation in the few moments that he had—then the big brass doors swung open, and the scythes filed into the semicircular conclave chamber.