Page 57 of The Starving Saints
And Phosyne hasn’t lifted even that since Voyne took over her care and feeding.
Phosyne won’t look at her as she asks, “Do you have any better ideas?”
“No,” she admits. Still scowling, she thumps her hand against the rock.
Then she looks over at Phosyne curiously. “The chapel,” Ser Voyne says. She only remembers snatches. Less detail, even, than what she has done for the Lady, if only because it felt like her mind was being teased out through the fault lines of her skull. So many conflicting demands, concepts, desires. But she remembers Phosyne’s hand on her cheek. Her body against the rock. And then—nothing. Just the wall.
Seeing Phosyne outside the chapel, fleeing.
Phosyne, now, swallows thickly, then grimaces. “I already tried,”Phosyne says. “It isn’t working, whatever it was I did. And in the chapel, there was a place to land on the other side. I’ve already thought that one through.”
Voyne tries to follow the logic, what it must mean. Phosyne, inside the chapel, then outside. It’s impossible, but so is her leaving Cardimir’s side voluntarily.
(Was it voluntarily? She remembers a knife in her hand, and—)
The thought is gone, but it leaves her burning again. Ser Voyne splays her fingers out against the wall, slick with algae. “I am not interested in waiting here to be reclaimed,” she says, as much to herself as to Phosyne.
Then she grabs Phosyne’s hand and presses it to the stone in the exact same place. Phosyne is forced to stumble closer, and Ser Voyne cages her in, broad chest against her back, arms on either side of her.
“So try harder,” Ser Voyne growls in her ear.
Phosyne struggles against her, and Voyne’s breath gusts hot upon her neck as she stares at the madwoman’s hand—
And her hand disappears into the rock.
Phosyne goes very still, and Ser Voyne gasps, staring at what is now a stump. No, not a stump, because a stump would not meet so evenly with the wall it presses into.
“Oh,fuck,” Phosyne whispers, and then she’s struggling. Hyperventilating. Her head knocks back against Voyne in her panic, and just as Voyne reaches to steady her—
Her hand emerges from the rock. It’s barely there for a moment, a memory more than a real thing, and then it is flesh and blood and uninjured.
Phosyne flexes it, and every piece moves as it ought to.
Voyne takes a step back, then another. It’s too much. Too much to see, too much to understand. But Phosyne looks over her shoulder at Voyne and her eyes are alight with the same fervor Voyne saw in her when she created her everburning candle, and if Voyne has any hope of untangling what has happened to her, she needs this impossible creature on her side.
Phosyne puts her hand flat on the wall again. She lifts the opposite foot up and braces her toes against the rock, too.
“Do it again,” she whispers.
This time, Voyne feels the compulsion crash into her. Her shoulders rock as she tries to control her breathing, resist it. But it doesn’t work, because she’s too busy being confused that Phosynewantsthis, wants her to cage her against the wall, exude all of Voyne’s greater physical strength and all her intimidation.
But then she remembers Phosyne against the chapel wall, and how, at first, Voyne was certain she was enjoying being choked.
Her breath hisses out between her clenched teeth, and Phosyne shudders. Her hand and foot sink into the wall. Voyne pulls back, a fraction of an inch, and when Phosyne tugs, she can’t pull out of the rock.
“This is what you wanted?” Voyne asks, feeling lightheaded.
It pulls a mad little laugh from Phosyne, and she’s already pushing up, getting her free foot against the wall, her free hand extended. Without help from Voyne, she sinks in again. She starts to drop, as if the earth remembers to clutch at her, but when she’s got the original hand and foot free, the stone firms up once more. She’s suspended from the wall. She ispartof the wall.
Voyne thinks she’s going to be sick.
Phosyne does it again, and again, then stops halfway up the wall, looking back over her shoulder. She’s grinning. Voyne can’t look away.
The part of her that is all logistics and tactics, however, can still speak. She hears herself say, “This has the same problem as before. You’ll be exposed up there. Alone.”
But maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe all that matters is Phosyne gets out, and all the rest will fall into place.
Phosyne purses her lips. “Go up first,” Phosyne says. “Use me as—as a handhold. A ladder.”
