Sister Leda offered no balm for Charlotte’s fresh anxiety. The priestess was occupied with unlocking the ebony door. The sound of the bolt being turned made Charlotte’s throat dry. Lieutenant Redding huffed out the breath of one who’d been unnecessarily delayed. Charlotte couldn’t see what lay beyond the doorway, but she had little choice other than to follow Redding.
Unlike the straight, smooth walls of the corridor they’d just left, their new path was more like the entrance to a cave: a misshapen circle carved from rock.
They were descending. Other than that, Charlotte could discern little.
It made sense, and yet it didn’t. The layout of the Temple of Athene was quite straightforward: the porch at the top of the steps, beyond that the cella where petitioners were received, past the cella was the opisthodomos—a chamber rarely seen by any but denizens of the Temple. If rumors were to be believed, an even more restricted place, the adyton, was set behind the opisthodomos. Only speculative whispers conveyed what transpired in the adyton, if it did indeed exist.
The Temple was made up of rooms within rooms laid out along a straight line. But this new path Sister Leda had taken reflected none of the intention or formality of the Temple’s design. The spiral upon which they trod was built from rough-hewn stone. Charlotte’s senses were suffused with the richness of ancient bedrock and the pungency of subterranean streams.
I must be deceived, Charlotte thought. This is some magic. Illusion or glamour.
Because the notion of depth was an impossibility. The Temple of Athene hadn’t been built upon soil. It was erected on the Arts Platform of the Floating City. There were no depths to be plumbed here. Any tunnels spiraling down would pass through a labyrinth of metal and churning gears, their courses punctuated by blasts of searing steam and boiling water. She should have been seeing markers of industry, not the earth’s organic foundations of rock and root.
The question Is this real? danced on the tip of Charlotte’s tongue, but she dared not speak. She stole a glance at Lieutenant Redding, hoping to glimpse marvel or dis-belief, but Redding’s face was an unreadable mask.
As they drew farther down the spiral, darkness threatened to engulf them. Charlotte found herself wanting to reach out and follow the path of the walls with her hands, and to stop herself from falling should she stumble. Strange that Sister Leda had brought no source of light to guide their steps. But just as Charlotte believed they were about to pass from shadow into pitch, the path leveled. As they continued forward, impending night retreated into twilight. The corridor widened, and Charlotte could see light just ahead of Sister Leda. The walls continued to curve away from each other, and soon they were no longer passing through a tunnel but standing in a cavern.
A dome-shaped ceiling arched above them, and for some reason gave Charlotte the sense of being shielded from the outside world. Apart.
The center of the cavern featured a round pool, elevated by three steps that ringed its circumference. Pleasant light filled the space, as though a full moon shone on them. But Charlotte could find no source of the light; it seemed to come from the pool itself. A woman sat on the edge of the pool. She was robed in a color that could have been black, midnight blue, or deep purple—the fabric wasn’t illuminated enough for a clear distinction. Her hair hung in a long, thick braid that touched the floor. Its radiant white hue rivaled that of fresh snow.
“Come forward.” The woman spoke without turning to look at them.
Sister Leda didn’t move, but the look she gave Charlotte indicated that she was meant to.
Cautiously, Charlotte approached the pool steps. She sensed Lieutenant Redding close behind.
Something skittered along the highest step. A spider as large as Charlotte’s hand.
With a gasp, Charlotte drew back, bumping into Lieutenant Redding.
“You needn’t fear them,” the woman at the pool said.
Charlotte paid little attention to the word fear, instead hanging on to them.
She looked around the room more slowly. In the pale light, along the walls and up the curving ceiling, was movement. Constant movement. Arachnids scurried hither and thither, tending to their business and showing little interest in the visitors. Despite their passivity, Charlotte’s mouth had gone dry. There were so many. And of a distressing range in size. Charlotte thought it likely she couldn’t see the smallest of them, given the low light in the chamber, but the largest were the size of cats. She also noted dark pockets in the walls, some of which were large enough for her to crawl through. Surely there weren’t spiders large enough to fill such holes.
Charlotte looked at Lieutenant Redding. The officer’s face was pinched, but she showed no other signs of distress.
The woman beside the pool stood, descending the three steps to stand beside Charlotte and Redding. She stretched her arm out, her long, spindly fingers gesturing to the walls.
“They weave stories for us,” she said. “Some true. Some false. All have something to teach.”
She looked directly at Charlotte. Her gray eyes were like roiling thunder clouds. “You have a story to tell me today. I wonder if this story will be true.”
Lieutenant Redding spoke. “The Empire has no interest in deceiving you, Sister . . .”
“Penthesilea,” the priestess answered.
“Thank you for seeing us, Sister Penthesilea. I’m Lieutenant Redding, and this is Charlotte Marshall.” Lieutenant Redding’s tone was polite, but the set of her mouth indicated her disapproval of the meeting’s location.
Charlotte couldn’t find fault in that assessment. Though she couldn’t tear her gaze from Sister Penthesilea’s stormy irises, part of her mind was still panicking about the excess of spiders all around them. Her skin was prickling with the knowledge that the eight-legged beasts were everywhere, quite possibly about to drop from the ceiling onto her head. She barely repressed a convulsion of instinctive disgust.
Sister Penthesilea made a quiet sound that might have been a chuckle, giving Charlotte the distinct impression that the priestess had plucked the fearful thoughts right out of her mind.
“There is a troubling matter that we believe can be assuaged by the wisdom of the goddess and your guidance,” Redding said.
“As I said,” the Sister replied. “You have a story.”
“Charlotte.” Lieutenant Redding nodded at her.
Charlotte glanced at the officer in alarm. She’d expected at least some introductory remarks from Redding. Now Charlotte was tongue-tied because the lieutenant wanted her to lie, at least in part, and surely Sister Penthesilea would know any untruth that passed Charlotte’s lips. What was she to do? Tell the truth, but not the whole truth? Should she sidle around the parts of the story that would reveal the fact that she was here as a prisoner, not a collaborator?
“You look distressed, my child,” Penthesilea said to Charlotte. “Perhaps I can be of help.” The priestess folded her hands and rested them on her abdomen. “There was a boy named Timothy. A boy whose life was painful and brief. Then there was a father, an inventor, who used his skills in the hopes of regaining what he had lost.”
Lieutenant Redding drew a sharp breath.
Penthesilea smiled at her. “Surely you know the boy’s mother now serves the goddess.” Her gaze turned to Charlotte. “And this is not the first time you’ve visited Athene’s Temple.”
“No.” Charlotte’s voice was little more than a whisper. “The boy is my friend. I was trying to help him.”
Penthesilea nodded, and Charlotte was again filled with the sense that the priestess understood far more than the words Charlotte spoke aloud.
“Are you trying to help him now?” the Sister asked Charlotte.
Charlotte was suddenly aware of a great stillness in the room. The spiders had stopped moving, as if waiting for her answer.
“Yes.”
It was true enough. Ch
arlotte was trying to help Grave, just not in the way that Lieutenant Redding believed.
Sister Penthesilea regarded Charlotte for a moment, then reached out and touched the girl’s cheek. “You’ve made sacrifices for this friend. They have not gone unnoticed.”
By whom? Charlotte dared not voice the troubling question.
She was surprised that the priestess’s touch was cool and soothing. Her long fingers seemed to draw out some of the anguish Charlotte had carried since leaving New Orleans.
“More suffering will come before the end,” Sister Penthesilea murmured. “But not without reprieve.”
“Please explain the particulars of our problem, Charlotte.” Lieutenant Redding’s voice was like the crack of a whip.
Charlotte shook her head, feeling as if she were being drawn out of a deep, restoring slumber. “I . . . uh . . . Grave.” She paused, clearing her throat. “Grave lives, even though the boy Timothy died from illness.”
Penthesilea nodded.
“How could his father, the inventor, accomplish such a feat?” Charlotte glanced at Redding, hoping the question met the officer’s expectations. Redding’s expression was neither approving nor disapproving.
Something flickered in Penthesilea’s irises. Anger?
Charlotte dreaded the priestess’s next question. What could it be other than why she wanted to know?
Instead, Sister Penthesilea looked at Lieutenant Redding. “The inventor could not provide you these answers himself?”
Her query startled Redding. The officer blanched, but quickly recovered. “No. He could not.”
Penthesilea watched Redding for another moment. “The inventor wielded a weapon as if using a tool. He did not comprehend the gravity of his actions because he was driven by grief and desperation.”
“What do you mean he wielded a weapon?” Redding’s eyes narrowed.
“Forbidden words. Words of power.” Penthesilea shook her head, her face filling with genuine sorrow.
“The Book of the Dead,” Charlotte murmured. Then her eyes went wide. She hadn’t intended to voice her thought.
But Penthesilea turned a benevolent smile on Charlotte. “You’ve seen it.”
“Yes.” Now Charlotte’s heart began to race, fearing not Penthesilea’s wrath, but Redding’s.
“What is this book?” Redding’s attention was on the priestess, not Charlotte.
“It was very old,” Sister Penthesilea said, though she seemed to be speaking to the room, to the spiders on the walls, rather than to the officer. “And the words it contained were older still. Older than time, perhaps.”
Lieutenant Redding could barely contain her contempt. “We found no such book among Bromley’s possessions.”
Penthesilea’s smile held a spark of mischief. “No. You wouldn’t have.”
“Do you know where the book is?” Redding asked.
“It is no more,” the priestess replied. “Or rather, it is transformed. To ashes and dust.”
Redding clenched her fists, her knuckles bone white. “You burned it?”
“The Book of the Dead has no place in this world.” Sister Penthesilea’s face was serene. “To serve the goddess is to rid the world of evils that threaten her people.”
Charlotte’s stomach tightened. That was why they’d sent the Order of Arachne after Grave. They believed that, like the book that brought life into a boy’s dead body, the resurrected life itself was also evil. Did they believe that still?
“And this book was the only thing that enabled Bromley to bring his boy back to life?” Lieutenant Redding asked.
That’s not what he did, Charlotte thought, and Penthesilea smiled at her.
Then the priestess answered Redding. “Yes. It was.”
Sister Penthesilea turned away, climbing the stair and resuming her poolside repose. “Lieutenant Redding,” she said, trailing her fingers through the water, “some mysteries are best left in shadow.”
Charlotte followed Penthesilea’s gaze to one of the largest crevices in the wall and saw movement, the hint of an appendage black and bristling with spikes of hair, an appendage that rivaled Charlotte’s arm in size. The blood drained from Charlotte’s face, and she looked at Lieutenant Redding, hoping the officer had taken Penthesilea’s admonition to heart. But Redding hadn’t bothered to follow the priestess’s line of sight; she simply glared at Penthesilea.
Without prompting, Sister Leda stepped out of the shadows where she’d been waiting in silence.
“This audience has concluded,” Sister Leda said. “Please follow me.”
16.
LIEUTENANT REDDING SEETHED from the moment they left Sister Penthesilea and her spiders. She didn’t speak as Sister Leda retraced their path from the depths of the Temple to the perimeter of the cella, but the fury radiating from her body was palpable. For her own part, Charlotte felt as though she was caught in a state between dreaming and waking. She still couldn’t grasp the possibility of the place they’d just visited. There were no caves in the Floating City’s platforms. Charlotte wondered if they’d actually been in a cavern at all, or if the Sisters had somehow willed that place into existence, ensnaring Charlotte’s and Lieutenant Redding’s senses for the duration of their visit.
They weave stories for us. Some true. Some false. All have something to teach.
Charlotte was so transfixed by their strange encounter that only the light of day spilling through the columns of the Temple startled her back into full awareness.
Sister Leda had begun to make an attempt at a gracious farewell, but Lieutenant Redding was having none of it. She grabbed Charlotte’s arm so tightly that Charlotte winced. Redding marched out of the Temple, practically dragging Charlotte along.
“Burned it!” Lieutenant Redding was muttering. Charlotte had no idea if she was intended to hear or respond. “Hephaestus’s forge, they burned it. No one relinquishes that kind of power. No one.”
Charlotte disagreed. Not everyone clamored for power above everything else, shoving all contenders aside in a race to claim whatever prize was sought. She didn’t think Sister Penthesilea had lied. A certainty resonated in Charlotte’s bones, telling her that the Book of the Dead had been destroyed. And that its destruction was for the best.
But that belief wasn’t something she wanted to share with Lieutenant Redding. If Charlotte’s captors decided that the process by which Hackett Bromley had brought life into a corpse could not be replicated, then she and Grave were not long for this world. For the time being, she had to offer some succor to Lieutenant Redding’s frustration. She just had to figure out how.
They were already at the steps, descending so swiftly that Charlotte almost had to run to match Redding’s pace. In the square below, the military escort that had accompanied them to the Temple stood at attention, ready to receive them. Without slowing, Lieutenant Redding transferred Charlotte to a waiting soldier, who ushered her into the enclosed carriage.
Charlotte was shut off from the world once more, and the reality of her circumstance set in. The experience in the Temple had been so consuming that Charlotte’s foremost hope had been utterly forgotten. When the idea of visiting the Temple struck her, Charlotte presumed that they would be taken into the cella, as were most petitioners. She couldn’t have anticipated the strange journey into a spider-filled underworld. But the difference between the visit she’d experienced versus the one she’d anticipated could mean the failure of her plan. In the cella, priestesses came and went regularly; thus, if Meg had been in the Temple, the cella or the pronaos would have afforded the best opportunities for their crossing paths. Since Lieutenant Redding’s request had been treated so uniquely, their exposure to the rest of the Temple had been terribly limited.
An uncomfortable weight settled on Charlotte’s chest. The likelihood that Meg had seen her was slim to none. Charlotte leaned her head against the carria
ge interior, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. She was alone. Charlotte closed her eyes, trying to quiet her mind.
From that stillness came an unexpected voice.
This is not the first time you’ve visited Athene’s Temple.
Sister Penthesilea had known who Charlotte was.
You’ve made sacrifices for this friend. They have not gone unnoticed.
Charlotte sat up; her heart thrummed not with fear, but possibility.
Even if Meg hadn’t seen her. Even if Meg hadn’t been present at the Temple today, the Sisters knew who Charlotte was. Within Sister Penthesilea’s strange proclamations lay a revelation—that Charlotte mattered. Her life and her choices mattered, for whatever reason, in the divine tapestry that the Sisters wove. They wanted to help her. Whether by conveying intelligence to Meg or some other means, the Sisters not only wanted to help her, they would help her. Charlotte was sure of this.
The desolation that had crept into Charlotte’s heart was pushed aside by a new awareness. She had allies of whom she hadn’t been aware. These strangers had thrown in their lot with Charlotte and Grave. Though she didn’t doubt that the reasons behind their choice differed greatly from her own motivations, Charlotte felt she’d been granted an incredible reprieve. She was not abandoned.
All she had to do now was wait. And survive.
17.
GEMMA USUALLY MEANDERED her way back from the market, but today she’d hurried from the square to return her cart to its storage site. Gemma’s work for the day was done, but Linnet’s was just beginning. She was eager to reach Lady Ott and learn what intelligence she had gathered regarding the strange military visitation at the Temple.
Her preoccupation with these thoughts made Linnet carelessly less alert to her surroundings than she should have been. As she passed an alley, someone’s hands darted out, grabbed Linnet, and pulled her into the shadows. Rather than struggle, she used the momentum of her body against her assailant, letting velocity spin her farther into the alley, dragging her attacker along. Linnet already had her fingers around the hilt of her stiletto when he stumbled and fell against her. She caught his elbow and slammed him into the wall, then pinned him with her left arm, ready to strike with her right.