Sidney stood unmoving.
Would he have to be dragged? We all lived in horror of it, that we would start screaming, that we would have to be dragged.
The Swan Rider lifted her eyebrows, startling eyebrows like heavy black slashes. Sidney was frozen. It was almost too late. The Swan Rider began to move—and then, hardly knowing what I did, I stepped forward. I touched Sidney’s wrist, where the skin was soft and folded. He jerked and his head snapped round. I could see the whites all around his eyes. “I’ll go with you,” I said.
Not to die, because it was not my turn.
Not to save him, because I couldn’t.
Just to—to—
“No,” croaked Sidney. “No, I can do it. I can do it.”
He took one step forward. His hand slipped free of mine and struck his leg with a sound like a slab of meat hitting a counter. But he managed another step, and then another. The Swan Rider took his elbow, as if they were in a formal procession. They went out the door. It closed behind them.
And then—nothing.
Nothing and nothing and nothing. The silence was not an absence of sound, but an active thing. I could feel it turning and burrowing inside my ears.
The seven of us—or rather, the six of us—stood close together and stared at the door. There was something wrong with the way we did it, but I did not know if we should stand closer together or farther apart. We were trained to walk out, but we got no training for this.
At the front of the room, Brother Delta clicked. “Our topic was World War One, I believe,” he began.
“Never mind, Delta.” The Abbot tipped his facescreen downward and tinted it a soft grey. “There will be bells in a moment.”
The Abbot has been doing this longer than any of us, and he is kind. We stood and stood. Three minutes. Five. Ten. Cramps came into my insteps. Sidney—was he already dead? Probably. Whatever happened in the grey room happened fast. (I’m not a cruel man, Talis is recorded as saying. Only rarely is the next bit quoted: I mean, technically I’m not a man at all.)
High overhead, a bell tolled three times.
“It’s your rota for gardening, I think, my children,” said the Abbot. “Come, I can walk you as far as the transept.”
“No need,” said Da-Xia. She’d told me once about the Blue Tara, fiercest and most beloved goddess of her mountain country, known for destroying her enemies and spreading joy. I had never quite shaken the image. There were ten generations of royalty in Xie’s voice—but more than that, there were icy mountains, and a million people who thought she was a god.
The Abbot merely nodded. “As you like, Da-Xia.”
The others went out, huddling close together. I wanted to go with them—I felt the same desire for closeness, for a herd—but found myself staggering as I tried to walk. My knees were both stiff and shot with tremors, as if I had been carrying something heavy, and had only now set it down.
Sidney.
And so very nearly, me.
Xie’s hand slipped into mine. “Greta,” she said.
Just that.
Xie and I have been roommates since I was five. How many times have I heard her say my name? In that moment she lifted it up for me and held it like a mirror. I saw myself, and I remembered myself. A hostage, yes. But a princess, a duchess. The daughter of a queen.
“Come on, Greta,” said Xie. “We’ll go together.”
So I made myself move. Da-Xia and I went slowly: two princesses, arm in arm. We walked out together, from the darkness into the summer sun.
2
A BOY WITH BOUND HANDS
Da-Xia laced her hands behind her head and tipped her face upward, contemplating. “Do you know, I will one day rule the fate of a million people. I will be as a god to the robed monks of three orders. I will command an army of ten thousand foot soldiers and five thousand light cavalry. But in this moment I do not know how to get that goat down from that tree.”
“Bat Brain! Get down!” Thandi shouted, because shouting at goats is always the answer.
The goat, whose name genuinely was Bat Brain, lifted her tail. Droppings fell like rain. Thandi leapt backward.
“I think she’s stuck,” said Han. We all paused and craned our necks. The ancient apple tree was pruned into a stoop, its gnarled branches tipping down. In the open crown the goat was perched like a squirrel.
“They’re rarely as stuck as they seem,” I said.
“My question is not whether or not she’s stuck,” said Xie. “My question is, would the world be better off if ruled by goats? They seem to have a knack.”
“Goats are a scourge,” said Thandi.