Seven: A Coin

When Dela woke up in the schoolroom just like she always did, it took her a moment to remember that life had been turned upside down.

Trying to shake off the fog of sleep, she sat up, frowning. Something rattled in the corridors; then she remembered there were guards in the temple now. Harkenn's guards, in their ram skull livery, all looking very severe. It unnerved her to pass them when they stood guard outside the vaults, completely still and expressionless under their visors, with long, sharp swords at their hips. She wished they would go away and everything would go back to normal.

Lin stirred on the next pallet along, and grey eyes stared blearily at her. "Is it dawn?"

Dela looked around. Most of the other girls were still asleep, and the candles were still unlit. She didn't know what had woken her.

"Go back to sleep," she muttered. She never managed to get back to sleep once she was awake, but Lin could sleep like the dead on command.

Sure enough, when she next looked over, her friend was snoring again.

The schoolroom wasn't her favourite place in the temple. It was bare, with hard floors and little decoration except for the big blackboard mounted on the wall. While there was an investigation going on, the dormitories were off limits. A sleeping person, she supposed, might go missing just as easily as a dead one.

She couldn't judge by the light how close it was to dawn – there was still little difference between day and night – but going back to sleep would be impossible. Her bladder urged her to get up, and the tinny sounds of patrolling guards unnerved her. Rain battered the windows of the schoolroom like rolling drums.

She stood up and crept among the sleeping forms of the other acolytes, trying not to lose her balance. They were all squeezed in tight; it was easier to fit everyone in when they were sitting rather than lying down. She let out her breath as she reached the tiny closet in the corner and ducked inside. Shelving rose to the ceiling around her, stacked with boxes of chalk and writing tablets and abaci. The Clerics had left a chamber pot on the floor in the middle.

When Dela emerged, a Cleric was lighting the candles. She breathed a sigh of relief that she had not lost too much sleep. There was supposed to be a practical lesson today, and they didn't tend to go well if she hadn't slept much. Scalpels and insomnia rarely mixed.

Some of the other girls stirred as Dela hurried back to Lin's side and shook her gently. "It's dawn."

Lin blinked at her, then groaned and closed her eyes again. Without opening them, she rolled up into a sitting position and yawned. "I'm opting out of today."

Dela snorted. "I'm sure Maniel will be very understanding."

Lin opened her eyes wide, looking around the room for the stern Cleric, then grinned and nudged Dela so that she swayed where she squatted. "Don't scare me like that."

They dressed and lined up at the schoolroom door. Dela stuck close to Lin, as she didn't want to admit how much the guards frightened her. The Cleric scurried up and down the row, organising them into a neat column, and then three guards marched in to escort them to the dinner hall. Though the second instance of bodysnatching had occurred in another temple, security had buckled down tighter than ever. Nothing Dela had overheard the priests whispering about had suggested that anyone had any idea who they were dealing with yet.

They ate a thin porridge of grain and goat milk. Dela had heard rumours that the dairy had lost so many livestock to demons over the dark season that there was a severe shortage, which had some weight now that the acolytes were only receiving milk from the temple's own goats. When she was halfway down her bowl of mush, Lin nudged her elbow and indicated the priests' bench. Dela's heart caught in her throat when she saw Lady Kerrin sitting there, beautiful as ever. None of the priests were eating.

"I feel bad," she muttered, pushing her porridge around the bowl. She was no longer very enthusiastic about it.

"They've got to be eating something," Lin reasoned. She had already scraped her bowl clean. "They'd collapse otherwise."

Dela looked again at the slightly strained look on Kerrin's face. She wasn't entirely convinced.

She started when the Lady met her gaze from across the room. They weren't sitting far away from each other, but they were not so close that Dela might have expected to meet her eye. The small smile the Lady offered her was warm, and made Dela tingle with disbelief from her scalp down to her feet.

"She smiled at me," she whispered to Lin, feverishly excited.

"She smiles at everyone," Lin replied, not sharing her enthusiasm. She pointed at Dela's porridge. "Are you gonna finish that? It's taunting me."

Dela was still preoccupied with her excitement when she filed into the demonstration room with the other acolytes of her order. She regretted giving Lin the rest of her food now that some of the buzz had worn off, but it still sat like a warm knot in her stomach as she sat down at her table. She had always admired Kerrin from a distance, but an acknowledgement...

Lin seemed to think she was reading too much into it. "You're not still thinking about it, are you? If you're too busy grinning into the middle distance, you won't fetch the bucket in time for me to puke."

Dela sighed. Though she was glad Lin was with her in all her classes, she sometimes wondered why in Kiel's name she hadn't been transferred to another order.

"Maybe don't eat so much at breakfast next time," she said.

"You gave it to me. That makes you responsible."

"I didn't put it in your face."

"As good as."

A throat clearance from behind made them both freeze. They turned, smiles already plastered on, to face the Cleric at their shoulders, eyebrow arched and lips pinched. Dela had been so preoccupied she hadn't noticed the lesson start.

"Perhaps a night in contemplation will help your focus," the Cleric said. Lin's smile slid off her face like cold pudding, but Dela couldn't be upset. She wouldn't hear the guards from inside a cell.

Lin whined about the punishment all through the lesson, whenever she thought the Cleric wasn't listening. She only paused to gag into a pail as they dissected shadelings on the table, removing each organ as intact as they could manage. Buoyed by Kerrin's encouragement, Dela took extra care over her work, and by the end had a line of tiny organs neatly severed. She'd accidentally ruptured the stomach with her scalpel, letting up a lethal stink that she was getting used to in the course of her training, but other than that she thought she had done a good job. Even the Cleric looked grudgingly impressed, and took a few hours off of her contemplation for her efforts.

"Why couldn't I have just been in confessional?" Lin grumbled as they filed from the class, again in their escorted column. "Listen to everyone's juicy gossip instead of poking at bodies."

"Probably because you see it as 'listening to everyone's juicy gossip'," Dela replied.

Lin just grunted.

Dela didn't see Kerrin again for the rest of the day. The afternoon's lessons in scripture and reading passed in a blur of cold classrooms and droning voices. The rain was a constant, beating at every window of every room she entered. She had settled into the familiar rhythm of copying script in her last lesson of the day when a priestess tapped her on the shoulder and curtly beckoned her to follow.

She froze for a moment, quill suspended. It was rare to be called out of a lesson, and it didn't always mean anything good. She thought back, to remember if she'd done anything to warrant losing her place in the temple, but she hadn't. Unless someone had worked out that she had eavesdropped on Lady Kerrin and Maniel – that would warrant more than a Contemplation cell.

Shaking, wishing she'd never let Taria talk her into it, she capped her ink, wiped the nib of her pen, and followed into the corridor, exchanging a terrified glance with Lin as she passed.

Please don't let me lose my place, she silently begged Kiel. I don't want to go back.

She knew better than to question the priestess unless they offered the information, but her curiosity burned on her tongue as she hurried to keep up. The priestess led her along the school corridor and along the back of the sermon hall, through a partially concealed doorway on the other side. Dela's heart seized when she realised where they were going – Kerrin's quarters were down this way. She was equal parts terror and excitement – on one hand, the Head of House Kiel had summoned her, but on the other, the Head of House Kiel had summoned her. If this meant she was in trouble, she was in some deep trouble.

The priestess knocked on the ornate wooden door in the furthest reaches of the wing. They had passed all the Clerics' quarters, which meant Dela's misgivings had been correct.

"Come in." Kerrin's voice was muffled through the door.

"The acolyte for you, my Lady." The priestess nudged Dela through the open door. She stumbled inside, her feet reluctant to move, and found herself in a comfortable office. Lady Kerrin sat behind a large desk, and with her were two men in hooded cloaks.

Dela eyed them, skin prickling with the Unspoken magic. Her mother had taught her a healthy respect for Unspoken, and not all her teachings had been positive.

"Deladrina, correct?" Kerrin asked.

She didn't look angry, but Dela still stumbled over her words as she replied, "Y-yes, ma'am."

"I'm told you have a good eye for detail." The Lady smiled, and Dela was too stunned at the unexpected shift in subject to think of anything to say in response. "You were observing on the night of the first disappearance. These gentlemen are here to check our wardings, and I'd like you to be present in case you notice or remember anything that might be of use for our investigation. Is that alright?"

Dela could only nod. She'd been bracing herself for a flogging. This had taken a very different turn; Lin was going to pay attention to this at dinner time.

"Koen," one of the Unspoken said, very cheerfully, and making Dela jump. "This is Hap."

Dela just stared. The disembodied voice from inside the deep cowl made her shudder. She'd never spoken to a demon hunter before, and the experience was almost as terrifying as she had imagined it would be; only instead of the glowing beams for eyes she expected to see in the darkness of the cloak, there was only a faint green glimmer. Hap, in the black cloak, was much shorter than his apprentice and leaned on a cane. Dela wondered how he fought demons if he needed a cane to walk, but she would never have the guts to ask.

"Never met an Unspoken before, eh?" he said. His voice was friendly, but not nearly as exuberant as his apprentice. Dela thought he needed that cane more than he was letting on.

She shook her head, pulling her hands up inside her sleeves to hide their trembling. When she had woken up that morning, she would never have guessed she would end up here – in the presence of the Lady Kerrin and two Unspoken - because Kerrin had heard she had a good eye for detail.

She squirmed, some of the fear in her heart giving way to happiness that she'd been noticed. And to think she had been afraid of losing her place in the temple.

"Shall we go, then?" Kerrin asked, rising gracefully from her chair. Dela hurried along behind her as she drifted out. She didn't want to be left alone with the demon hunters. They conversed in quiet voices as Kerrin led them along the corridor again, back out into the sermon hall and into the tunnel leading to the catacombs. Dela relaxed at the familiar environment, and strained to hear what the two Unspoken were saying, but they were too quiet and too far back. She thought she heard mention of a graduation and a man called Thorne, but couldn't glean much else. She wondered if Thorne was another Unspoken.

She glanced up, wondering if she should try and make conversation with Kerrin, but decided against it when she saw the grim set of her face. It was good enough that she had been asked personally to help.

A cold that had nothing to do with the tunnels ran through her when they reached the preparation chamber where the body had been stolen from. The events of that day had taken on a sinister cast since the news of the theft broke out. All the other girls seemed to have heard some rumour that a figure had been sighted before the soul lamp went out, but since neither Dela nor Lin had said anything of the sort, she suspected Taria might have elaborated the experience. The chamber had been left open, and everything was as it had been on that day, only the priests and the body were gone. Kerrin lifted down one of the burning braziers from a wall bracket and ducked inside.

Dela jumped as her foot caught on something. A length of bandage fluttered as it settled, rucked up where her slipper had caught it.

"We have the doors and walls warded, including inside," Kerrin said. Hap's cane tapped into the room behind Dela, but she kept her eyes on the scene in front of her.

"The door looks alright to me," Koen's voice said from outside. "No marring, no warps. Still seems bonded to the rest of them." His silhouette darkened the doorway. The flickering firelight made the shadow of the Unspokens' cowls look monstrous.

"Nothing is jumping out at me in here, either," Hap murmured. Dela looked around at the walls, wondering what the demon hunters saw. To her they looked like blank stone, and though she wouldn't ever want the Gift, a part of her was curious what the world looked like to those who had it.

Koen entered, looking around. Hap had moved to the walls and made a slow rotation of the room. Dela stayed in the middle, trying not to touch anything or get in the way. Nothing seemed much different, but she looked anyway, eager to be of use.

Something flashed and caught her eye on the floor as Lady Kerrin moved the torch higher. She ducked down and peered at the coin, at first mistaking it for a Cert and then realising it was too small.

"My Lady," she said softly. "There's something here."

Kerrin crouched beside her, handing the torch off to Koen. She picked up the coin and flipped it over, running her thumb over the engraving; a dagger balanced between the points of a crescent moon.

"I've seen this somewhere before," she said, frowning. Dela stayed silent. She'd never seen the symbol before in her life.

"May I see?" Hap asked. He accepted the coin from Kerrin as she straightened, glanced at it, and then turned to Koen. "Didn't Thorne have something that looked like this?"

Koen leaned in. "Yes," he said, "some amulet Ren brought back after he was...attacked."

The two Unspoken exchanged a long look.

"My Lady," Hap said, voice very grave, "This may be more serious than we initially thought."

Even in the warm light of the torch, Dela could see that Kerrin had gone very pale. "It's not..."

"There is a good chance it is," Hap replied. "I would strongly advise consulting Yddris on this front, as he has had the most to do with that particular situation. If it's any consolation, your rune nets are perfectly functional."

Kerrin didn't look like it was very much consolation. She took the coin back and peered at it, and Dela's heart skipped when she noticed the slight tremor in the Lady's fingers. If it had unsettled Kerrin, how bad was it?

"Deladrina," Kerrin said, "Would you fetch Cleric Maniel for me? She will be in the schoolroom."

Dela hesitated. Her curiosity burned, but she didn't want to disobey a direct request, especially not from Kerrin, so she took another look at the two Unspoken, ducked an awkward curtsey, and shuffled out. The silence in the room behind her pressed at her back like another presence.

Maniel was directing workmen to fix a leak in one of the windows when Dela arrived in the schoolroom. The Cleric frowned at her. "What are you doing out of lessons?"

"Lady Kerrin asked me to fetch you," Dela said, fighting against the urge to stammer like she always did in Maniel's presence. Everything about the woman was sharp; she had never been seen with a hair out of place, and her glances could cut. She was skewering Dela with a look that wasn't entirely friendly at that moment, but she made herself stay put. "She's in the catacombs."

That worked; Maniel's whole demeanour changed. She muttered something to one of the workmen, then stalked across the room, bearing down on Dela like a gold-trimmed demon.

"Has she found anything?" Maniel asked, setting a pace down the corridor that Dela could barely keep up with without running.

"I spotted a coin on the floor." She couldn't help the tinge of pride in her voice. "With a symbol on it that the Unspoken had seen before. I don't think it was a good sign, ma'am."

She was running by the time they reached the catacombs, Maniel's urgency seeming to increase with every step. Kerrin and the two Unspoken stood in the corridor outside the chamber when they arrived, conversing quietly, but they fell silent as Maniel reached them.

"My lady?" she asked. In the less forgiving light of the corridor, Kerrin did indeed look rather ill. Dela worried her lip, misgivings climbing. She had never seen any of the priests so rattled, let alone the head of the house.

"I must speak with you," Kerrin said. "Our temples may no longer be safe."