Raihan was nowhere to be seen. But there were hundreds on hundreds of silver instruments, all whirring away. They were stacked on tables, arranged around piles of books in the corner, crowded before a door in the back wall. Weights swinging, pins spinning.
If she was quiet, darted in and took one and got out, maybe he wouldn’t even notice.
Breath held, Lore stepped over the threshold.
As in the ship, the instruments whirled in her direction. The subtle noises of their movements stopped, and the resulting quiet was deafening.
Behind the door, something moved.
Not all of the instruments were frozen. A few of the silver tools still moved, swinging back and forth. Silently cursing, Lore grabbed one without looking to see whether it was still moving. If worse came to worst, she’d sneak in again tomorrow.
The door at the back of the hut opened.
She tried to run, then stumbled, her boot catching on a raised board in the rough floor. Lore didn’t fall, but it was a close thing, and the momentary interruption of her flight was enough for Raihan to come through the door, for him to stare right at her. At the reaction of all his silver implements, pointing in her direction like tattling children.
“You,” he murmured.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LORE
We will be known throughout the world, Our power undeniable.
—The Book of Holy Law, Tract 21
They stared at each other. Then Lore bolted for the door.
“Wait!” He held up a hand, willing her to stop. “I’m not going to hurt you; I just want to ask some questions!”
“Right,” Lore snarled, gripping her lockpick so tightly it cut into her palm, the weighted ball in her other fist as she raised her hand to shove the door open. “You find me stealing, and you just want to ask questions.”
“You’re welcome to steal that one.”
Great. A fifty-fifty chance, and she’d ended up in the wrong fifty.
“It’s useless,” Raihan continued. Now that he’d made her stop her mad dash to escape, he seemed loath to move, still standing in a semi-crouched position with a book in his hand as if afraid he’d startle her into flight again. “Only Mount-mined silver can find the lines. That one must have come from somewhere else. There’s barely any Mount-mined instruments around anymore,but it seems like the ones still in existence are being used as Burnt Isles paperweights, so I make the prisoners bring me things just in case.” He paused, studying her. Then, “You of all people should have been able to tell what was Mount-mined.”
Her engagement ring was Mount-mined. That had to be what he was talking about; somehow, the Ferryman had found out who she was. Fear suffused her, then calculation. She could use that.
“I have a proposition for you,” she said, placing the apparently useless instrument back on the table, where it swung twice and then came to a stop. “You give me one of these things that actually works, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about life in the Citadel, the color of the Sainted King’s chamber pot, any sordid detail you can think of.”
Raihan furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry. The Citadel?”
“Isn’t that what everyone wants to know?” There was a chair in the corner of the room, next to the pile of books; Lore collapsed into it. “It’s not all that great, but I understand the curiosity.”
“I don’t think we’re on the same page,” Raihan said, finally completing the arc of motion she had interrupted and placing his book on the table with the silver weights. “I have no interest in the Citadel.” He cocked his head, amended: “Well, no interest in the chamber pots, anyway. If you have any information on Church artifacts, however, I’d be all ears. The Mount-pointers that aren’t on the Isles are probably there.”
“Mount-pointers?”
The tips of his ears flushed. “That’s what I call them. No reason to make up a flowery name when you can just call them what they are.”
But Lore was less concerned with what he called his silver things than with what he’d said before. “Who do you think I am?”
The Ferryman shrugged, looking as confused by the turns of this conversation as she was. “I truly have no idea, other than that you must have recently come into contact with quite a lot ofenergy from the Fount, since you made all my instruments freeze up. I had my suspicions on the ship, and you just confirmed them.”
Shit.
“I don’t have any questions about the Citadel,” Raihan continued, “but I’m more than willing to answer any questions you might have about the island and the lines, if you could help me out with a few experiments. I assume that you’ve drawn close to the Golden Mount recently.”
