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There’s a knock on the half-open door.
“Come in,” I call, and Tess peers into the room, face scrunched into a frown.
She kicks the door shut behind her and flops onto my bed. “Everyone’s staring at me,” she announces, her jaw set. “I’d like to throttle Sister Inez. Maura, too. ”
“I ought to be first in line. ” I sigh, twisting my hair up into a chignon. “Maura had no right to tell anyone without your permission. But neither did I. ”
“No, you didn’t. ” Tess scowls. “Still, I forgive you. It was under awfully extenuating circumstances. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. ”
“I would never,” I promise, skewering pins through my hair.
“Maura had time to think about it, though. And Inez made me look like such a child. ” Tess’s eyes narrow. “This is why I wasn’t ready to tell. Bekah and Lucy are acting differently around me already. Careful. Like I could break at any moment. ”
“You won’t break,” I assure her. “They just found out. Give them some time to get used to the idea. ”
Tess groans. She’s more patient than I am, but that’s not saying much. “Don’t you see? I won’t be just Tess anymore! Everyone will see me as the Oracle now. The Prophesied One. ”
“It won’t be that way forever. ” I hope not, anyway. I step into my sturdy boots. “I’m going out. Would you like to come with me? Escape the staring for a bit?”
“We have class,” Tess reminds me, picking up the history book at the foot of my bed.
“I’m not going. I need to find out whether the Brothers have elected a new leader. And I’ve got an important errand to run. Sisterhood business. ” I pick up an ivory envelope lined with green birds—part of a set Tess gave me last Christmas, though who I had to write to then, I don’t know—and wave it at her.
She snatches it from me and withdraws the matching ivory paper. A green and blue hummingbird is embossed at the top, and the note itself is written in code—a Caesar cipher of three shifts to the left. “Did you do this yourself?”
I nod. There wasn’t much else to do at quarter to five this morning, while Rilla was snoring and I was trying not to think of Finn, so I took a candle down to the library and wrote the note. It took three tries to get it right and then I copied it onto my best stationery. A man like Brother Brennan might appreciate such niceties. Having never met him, I don’t know.
“Does it sound all right?” I ask.
Tess skims the short letter: Sister Cora has died. I do not trust her successor, who led the attack on the Head Council. It is my hope that you and I can work together for peace. I have Cora’s key and look forward to meeting you at tomorrow night’s gathering.
It’s unsigned. Even using a code, I’m not fool enough to leave my name for anyone to see.
“It’s good. ” Tess’s gray eyes meet mine. “You’re going out to deliver it now? Did you already talk to Sister Gretchen?”
I nod. “I’m to leave it with the proprietor of a stationery shop. And Christmas is coming up. Too bad I haven’t any idea what you might like. ”
Tess’s smile is its own reward. She could spend days in a stationery store, same as a bookshop.
“I’ll miss class for this,” she decides, jumping up.
“Good. You can help me figure out how to buy an illegal newspaper, too. ”
Chapter 3
TESS AND I SLIP OUT THE FRONT DOOR unnoticed and make our way through the quiet residential streets. Above us, the sky is shrouded in gray; the roses are withering on our neighbors’ gate. After a few blocks, the lawns shrink, the trees become sparse, and the houses grow closer together. Narrow two- and three-story brick buildings are the norm in the market district, with shops on the ground floors and living quarters above. Men of all classes hurry along the cobbled sidewalks. Vendors hawk meat pies and fresh hot bread, offer to shine gentlemen’s shoes—and sell newspapers.
I make a beeline for the nearest shouting paperboy. “Witches attack the Head Council! Brother Covington in Richmond Hospital! Jailbreak at Harwood Asylum!” he chants. “Read the horrible news for yourself! Two pennies!”
I fumble in my pocket for coins. “This is the Sentinel?” I can’t see the masthead because he’s waving the paper so furiously in the air. He looks respectable enough, but Mei swore her brother gets the Gazette from regular paperboys, bold as you please.
The boy gives me a cheeky grin, black hair falling into his eyes. “Course it is, Sister. What else would I be selling?”
I step closer, lowering my voice. What will he do, arrest me for asking? He can’t be older than Tess. “Do you know where I could get the—other paper?”
“I don’t know anything about any other paper, Sister. ” He edges backward, dark eyes darting sideways. “I work for Brother Augustus Richmond, publisher of the New London Sentinel. That’s the only legal paper in town. ”
“Of course it is. ” I smile with a conspiratorial air. “But perhaps you would know where I could procure a copy of—?”
“No, I wouldn’t! What kind of trouble are you after?” The paperboy stalks away.
“For heaven’s sake, Cate. ” Tess plucks at my sleeve, sighing. “You’re going about it all wrong. He thought you were trying to set him up!”
My face flushes. “Well, what should I do, then?”
“Think. Who reads that paper? Not Sisters or upper-class girls. ” She tucks her arm through mine, and as we walk through the crowded street, her black cloak turns gray. A moment later, the pink lace hem of her skirt turns into tattered blue wool. Her nice fur muff morphs into worn blue mittens.
“Tess!” I hiss, terrified. I scan the block ahead of us. I don’t spot any Brothers, but two of their guards are lounging outside a café. They could have seen her. Anyone could have seen her. My heart is racing. It’s not like her to be this reckless; this is the sort of thing Maura would do.
“I’m not a child,” she snaps.
“I know you aren’t!” I run a black-gloved hand over my chilled face. “You’re very powerful. And very important. Too important to risk your safety like this. ”
“Because of what I am?” she challenges, coming to a halt outside a flower shop.
“Yes,” I admit. But that wasn’t my first thought. “And because I love you and I would be lost—utterly lost—if anyone tried to take you away from me. ”
Tess bites her lip, staring at the imported tulips in the window. “Sometimes I think it would be better for everyone if I were arrested. ”
I grab her arm. “What? Why would you say that?”
Tess doesn’t respond. She just tilts her head to the opposite street corner. There’s another paperboy lounging against a grocer’s window, talking animatedly with three working-class men in jackets and suspenders and blue jeans. “I think he’s the one you want. ”
He’s got a bag full of papers slung over his shoulder—a bag with SENTINEL printed on it in wide white letters. “Why do you think that?”
“He’s doing a particularly brisk business. Look. ” Another man comes out of the grocer’s with a pouch of tobacco. He lights a pipe and leans against the wall with the others. When he hands the paperboy his pennies, the boy hands him a paper—but even from across the street, I can tell it’s thicker than the one I was offered earlier. “The Gazette must be tucked inside. ”