A Conjuring of Assassins by Cate Glass

Author:Cate Glass [Glass, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16

ONE DAY UNTIL THE PRISONER TRANSFER

EARLY MORNING

“Begin now,” commanded Egerik. “Your interpretation.”

“Monette, what are you thinking?” snapped Papa. “His Excellency has no time for your foolishness. We have business.”

“You will stay silent or leave the room, merchant.” No mistaking the command in the ambassador’s quiet word. “And you, damizella, will clarify this warning your needles speak. You’ll need candles and…?”

“Yes, candles. Nine. Of beeswax, set in a ring around us.”

I clutched my bleeding hand—my right hand—to my breast. Could the urgency of Lady Fortune’s work be any clearer? The right hand belonged to Lady Virtue. The left—my uninjured hand—belonged to my mistress, Lady Fortune.

“And a towel of clean white linen.”

The ring of candlelight would separate the Lady’s influence from common concerns. The linen would hold the needles as I removed them from their positions.

Egerik stared at the bloody needles as if they might stand up on their tips and speak.

Papa hobbled back and forth, seething. But he knew any hope of profit now rested with me. Who could have imagined the Lady would use our scheme to deliver a true warning to our mark? Certainly not Papa, who believed in neither luck nor virtue.

The soft sound of a closing door brought Cei with an armful of candles, holders, and a rolled towel of white linen. With fluid motions, he set the candles in elegant brass holders—each an image of a different screaming mouth—and gestured for me to approve the positioning as he placed each in the circle.

When the last candle was set, Cei folded wooden shutters over every window and brought me a burning taper. Then he withdrew. Egerik had neither spoken nor even looked at him.

I turned my attention to the needles. Please, divine Lady, let me not falter.

Lighting the nine candles one by one, I contemplated each of the nine Mysteries—Jeopardy, Judgment, Mysticism, Order, Presence, Reason, Relationship, Power, and Substance—and their eighteen manifestations. Each Mystery had a primary manifestation and an obverse, represented by opposing tips of its needle.

When the candles were lit, I returned to my place on the floor. A halo of light surrounded Egerik and me, the needles, and the blood. Papa remained a shadowy bulk behind the fire. Perhaps he would believe me after this.

I carefully examined the lay.

The sharp tip at each end of the thin bronze needles signified the equal importance of the primary and the obverse. A single embossed ring marked the first third of the length from the primary tip and a double ring the second, so there was no mistaking which end was which. The symbol of each Mystery was embossed exactly in the center of its needle: the arrow for Presence, the crescent for Reason, the starburst for Order, and so on.

The needles had dropped from my hand into three distinct piles of two, two, and five. Easier to interpret than all nine in one tangle. The candlelight set the bronze aglow, the symbols and the rings easy to recognize. Though I had never performed a reading for a stranger, I felt ready.

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