She could hear Gin’s claws on the stone as he paced. He’d been right that night in the garden. Coming here today, naked like this, with only her spirits and her word behind her, it had been a prideful thing to do. She had gone in with her head held too high to see the shaky ground beneath her feet, and now…
Miranda raised her hands quickly, pressing her fingers hard against her eyes to block the wetness that threatened to roll down her cheeks. She could not be weak, not now. But Hern’s voice, smooth and triumphant as he announced the punishment, was circling through her mind.
Banishment from the Spirit Court by stripping of rings, rank, and privileges
.
Her hands began to tremble. She had known from the beginning that this was the risk she was taking, but, at the same time, she had not truly understood what was at stake. Banishment she could handle. Rank could go as well, and everything else. But her rings? She turned her hands over, pressing the stones of her rings against her cheeks. She could feel her spirits moving inside them, turning as they slept. Each one was tied to her by a promise, a sacred pledge she’d thought would last until her death. Could she lose that?
The crack of the doors interrupted her thoughts, and Miranda had just enough time to scrub her eyes before two red-robed Spiritualists entered the waiting room. They didn’t look at her, only opened the doors and stood at either side, waiting for her with downcast faces. Miranda got up from the bench with a terrible feeling of dread. Had the Tower Keepers reached their decision so soon? Surely not. It had been barely ten minutes. Could they even take the vote that quickly? Yet the young Spiritualists stood waiting to escort her, and Miranda had no choice but to take her place between them. Without a word, they led her up the stairs into the bright light of the Court, and with every step she took, Miranda felt her hope grow fainter.
This time, her walk through the Court was very different. She was the same, marching in with her head high and her face a calm mask over her fear. She was still a Spiritualist after all, at least for the next few minutes. The circular room, however, had changed in the short time she’d been waiting. Before, the first two rings of seats had been nearly full. A slim showing, but still, people had been there. Now, the great Court was almost empty. Only a few Spiritualists sat sprinkled across the benches, mostly faces she knew, Banage’s supporters. Everyone else seemed to have left after the vote. Probably too cowardly to stay and watch the aftermath, she thought darkly.
Hern was there, of course, lounging in his chair like a patron at a boring play, though he did look up to give Miranda a smile, which she did her best to ignore, focusing instead on Master Banage. For once, however, the sight of her mentor brought her no comfort. Even beside the snowy whiteness of his collar, his face looked pale and worn. For the first time his hair looked more gray than black, and his blue eyes were sad and tired when they met hers. If she’d had any hope about the verdict, it died then, but she walked to the stand the same as ever, straight and proud, with Gin stalking behind her like a silent, silver mist.
“Spiritualist Lyonette,” Banage said when she had climbed the steps and taken her place on the stand. “You have heard the accusations brought against you and given your answer. Your case has been debated by the leading members of the Spirit Court, and we have come to our decision by majority vote. Are you prepared to hear our verdict?”
Miranda gripped the brass railing that surrounded the stand. “I am.”
Banage looked down at the desk in front of him. “Spiritualist Lyonette, this assembly finds you guilty of conspiring with the criminal Eli Monpress for the purpose of obtaining the Great Spirit Mellinor under false pretense and in violation of your oaths. As punishment, you are hereby banished from our assembly. Your titles and privileges within the Court, including all pacts, promises, or agreements made in its name, are now considered void. You will surrender your bound spirits and leave this city at once.”
Master Banage’s voice was soft and calm, yet every word struck Miranda like a hammer, rattling her mind until all she could do was stare at him dumbly. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see two young Spiritualists she didn’t recognize walking toward her, one with a large pile of sand stalking behind her like a tiger, the other walking beside what looked like a centipede made of stone.
They were moving slowly, and Miranda had plenty of time to look down at her hands. Her rings glittered on her fingers, each one shining with its own tiny light, innocent, completely unaware of what was about to happen. Mellinor, however, knew things were wrong. He moved under her mind, a shadow under the water that was her conscious, restless and thrashing. Miranda closed her eyes, feeling the pull of her spirits, the bond of the vows she had made them, the vows that had just been pronounced void. It felt the same as ever, an iron cable tying her soul to her spirits.
Standing there on the stand with the Spiritualists advancing toward her, Miranda faced her choice. Truly faced it, for the first time. Honor the Spirit Court or honor her spirits. When she saw her situation like that, laid bare of all its pomp, she realized she’d already chosen. All that was left was to act.
The thought terrified her, but not nearly as much as it would have an hour ago. After all, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Eli’s whispered in her head,
What more could they do to you?
The approaching Spiritualists were an arm’s length from Gin’s tail when Miranda turned to face them.
“Eril,” she said softly, “distraction.”
A great cackling laugh rose up from the pendant on her chest, and Eril burst forth in a blast of wind that nearly knocked her flat. He howled as he circled, overturning empty chairs, scattering papers everywhere, and the room erupted into chaos. Hern shot out of his chair, but his voice was lost in the gale. The other Spiritualists were standing as well, thrusting out hands covered in bright glowing rings, but Miranda had no time to watch them. The Spiritualist with the sand tiger shouted something, and her spirit sprang forward, meaning to trap Miranda in an avalanche of sand. As it leaped, Miranda threw out her hand. A blast of water flew from her fingers, meeting the sand creature head-on. The wall of water engulfed it, and sand flew out in all directions with a rasping scream. The girl who commanded it cried out as well, and another ring on her hand flashed, but Miranda was too quick.
“Skarest,” she ordered, and lightning crackled down her arm, jumping in a white arc from her finger to the girl’s chest. The Spiritualist flew backward with a great cracking sound, landing in a sprawl on her back across the room.
“Skarest!” Miranda shouted, horrified.
“She’ll be fine,” the lightning crackled smugly. “Watch your back.”
Miranda whirled around just in time to see the other Spiritualist send his stone centipede skittering forward, but even as she opened her mouth to call Durn, her own stone spirit, Gin leaped over the spirit and landed on its Spiritualist. The stone monster froze as the ghosthound picked the boy up by his collar with one claw and tossed him into the benches. The rock centipede scurried over to its fallen master, but other spirits were joining the fray now. Hern had jumped down from the seats onto the chamber floor, his hands wreathed in a strange blue fire that matched the flashing stone at his neck.
Seeing they were about to be horribly outnumbered, Miranda hurried over to Gin. “Time to go!”
“Where?” Gin growled, kneeling down so she could jump on his back. “We’re in the heart of the Spirit Court. I’m all for leaving these idiots in the dust, but you picked a really bad place to rebel.”
The Spiritualists in the benches had their spirits out now. Everywhere Miranda looked she was ringed in by spirits of every type and size beginning to move down out of the gallery to the floor.
“There.” Miranda pointed at the high windows.
“It’s too narrow,” Gin snapped. “We won’t get through.”
“Well, try anyway,” Miranda said, getting a death grip on his fur.
Gin growled and dropped into a crouch. She could feel his muscles tensing, gathering strength, and then, in a single, explosive motion, he jumped. Miranda had never seen him jump like this. It felt as if they were flying. They soared over the benches, over Hern, who could only watch openmouthed, lifting his flame-ringed hands too late. Gin and Miranda flew past Banage, and Miranda turned to catch one last glimpse of her mentor. What she saw, however, was not what she’d expected. Despite the fiasco going on in his Court, Banage had not moved. He simply sat there at his seat, watching her. Then, without warning, he smiled, and his spirit welled up around her.
She’d felt him open his spirit wide before, but this was different. The stones on his chain of office glowed like sunlight, and Miranda’s bones hummed with power. Not just Banage’s power, but the power of the Rector Spiritualis, the wizard tied to the interconnected spirit of the Spirit Court’s tower and the great sleeping spirits that lay beneath Zarin itself.
Banage flicked his fingers and the room shook with an enormous groan. It lasted only a second, but it was enough. Ahead of them, the too-narrow window they were flying toward suddenly slid away, the milky white glass that was never meant to open dropping down to let them through. It didn’t stop there, though. Next, the stone that ringed the window began to peel outward, the white marble bending and curling like an opening flower, creating a hole just large enough for Gin. Miranda barely had time to gawk before they were through, soaring out of the tower and into the clear morning air.
For one glorious moment they flew high and free with all of Zarin spread out before them. Then, in a slow, inevitable arch, they began to fall. Miranda felt Gin’s legs kick, then begin to scramble in the empty space, and she realized something was wrong. They were too high, even for Gin, and falling at the wrong angle.
For a single, breathless moment, they tumbled in free fall, the sky and ground swapping places in sickening circles as they hurdled the three stories down toward the cobbled courtyard. Miranda gripped Gin’s fur and opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. Instead, Mellinor poured out of her. Later, thinking back, she could never recall if she had asked him or if the water spirit had acted on his own, but she had never been so happy to see the impossibly blue water.
Mellinor plummeted ahead of them in a great wave, falling to the pavement below and forming a vast pool of water. She watched, her terror overcome by amazement, as the water shaped itself into a great, floating well a dozen feet deep, or tall, depending on how you saw it, and Miranda realized she had better hold her breath.
Gin hit the pool with a great splash, and it was all Miranda could do to hold on as the force of the water threatened to scrape her off the ghosthound. But Mellinor caught her, his water absorbing the impact. She regained her seating just as Gin’s feet touched the ground. The water held them a moment longer, until Gin had his balance, and then, with a heady rush, Mellinor poured back into Miranda. She went stiff, gasping for breath as the water spirit returned to her, and she would have fallen off if her fingers had not already been tangled in Gin’s fur so tightly. Then Mellinor was back where he always was and they were standing in the courtyard, dry and safe, with the sound of spirits clamoring above them.
Gin didn’t give Miranda time to assess the situation. As soon as the water was gone, he burst forward, nearly running over a handful of gawking people. Miranda could only hold on and keep her head down as the ghosthound jumped the wall that separated the Spirit Court from the rest of the city. No one tried to stop them as they ran through the busy streets and made a beeline for the southern wall.
“We’ll hit the south fields,” Gin said, his voice barely audible over the rush of the wind and cries of the people forced to jump out of their way. “Make a show. Then when Zarin’s out of sight, we’ll circle back east and lose ourselves in the farmland. Lots of hiding places there. We can rest and decide where we’re actually going.”
Miranda nodded against his fur, happy to let him decide. She looked down at her fingers knotted in Gin’s fur, at the rings that pressed into her skin. Then she looked back over her shoulder at the great tower of the Spirit Court standing straight and white over the city. She regretted it immediately as a surge of emotion choked her throat, and she ducked her head, burying her face in Gin’s neck. She did not look at anything again until they were far, far away.
Etmon Banage eased his spirit a fraction, and the stones that Miranda and Gin had just gone sailing through folded in again, the window sliding back into place as though it had never moved. Below him, the solemn chamber was in complete uproar. Hern stood by the empty stand, his hands still wreathed in his blue fire spirit, shouting orders. The other Spiritualists weren’t listening. They were busy withdrawing their retinues and helping the poor pair who had tried to confront Miranda get back on their feet.
When Hern realized he was getting nowhere, he marched to the foot of the great bench and glared upward.
“Banage!” he shouted. “Have you gone soft in the head? Why did you let a convicted criminal escape?”
“That window is a priceless part of our tower,” Banage answered matter-of-factly. “The ghosthound was going through it, one way or another. Would you rather I let it be broken?”
“Don’t play that line with me,” Hern growled, pointing a finger wreathed with blue flame. “You knew. You knew she would try to escape!”