After Silesh’s harsh lesson, the rest of their day in the ward passed in relative silence. Sister and novice spoke only as needed to complete their tasks. Jareen felt the tension heavily, but what was she to do about it? These lessons were easier learned as a novice.

  It was nine hours later when the two carried their platters of food and cups of wine to the table in the dining room. Being a Voiceless Sister was difficult. It was harder when working with a novice, but it was difficult work with few enough breaks no matter when. In addition, they lived their lives under a strict rule and mandate that even dictated what they could wear and where they could speak. Nevertheless, a Sister did not need to fear hunger or want or homelessness. That’s why many Sisters had been orphans or came to the Order from poor families. The Order educated them for years and provided for them all their days, so long as they adhered to their duty. Their food was not fancy, but there was plenty. The Sisters even had regular meat—at least once a day.

  And all of this didn’t mean a thing to Jareen. The food was nothing like what she could have had for the taking anywhere in Findeluvié. She’d had no need to seek housing or sustenance. Living in the dormitory, though far superior to many of the lodgings of the poor, was a dismal existence for one raised in the Embrace, and as for the food. . .

  Jareen sat at the table and stared down at a pile of vegetables, salted and boiled to death on a bed of brown rice. On the side sat half a sliced orange, somewhat shriveled after its sea journey. She wondered if it came from Findeluvié, or perhaps Senland. She would know when she bit into it. Aided by her fatigue, a vision of the citrus groves of the Embrace came vividly to mind—the smell and the sound of wind in the leaves, the play of the light dappling down to the floor of the grove.

  A rancid smell retrieved her from her vision as Silesh cut into a hunk of some animal flesh—a chicken leg, she knew after so long—steaming on a bed of rice. Jareen was used to hiding her disgust at the meat. The humans savored it, but Jareen couldn’t have eaten it even if it wasn’t revolting. A Vien could not tolerate eating meat.

  Struggling now with her own appetite in the presence of the cooked flesh, she took the two-tined iron fork and mechanically forced herself to eat what passed as human cuisine. After a few bites, she took a drink of the wine. It was not so poor as the food, but sometimes she craved the wines of her homeland.

  “Is it always so terrible?” Silesh asked.

  “No. I enjoy the peas in the brine.”

  “I’m not talking about the food,” Silesh said. Jareen glanced around. There were a handful of other Sisters in the room, but most of the seats at the table were empty. Everyone looked too tired to be eavesdropping on their conversation. Most of the Sisters would be sleeping or working their shifts in the city or the Wards.

  “Only sometimes.” Jareen glanced at Silesh, but the girl was prodding the meat and rice with her fork, moving it around but not taking bites. Her cheekbones were protruding a bit. Sometimes novices found their appetites poor when they first worked the Wards, and so they lost weight. Others only wanted to eat and eat and eat, far beyond need, burying their memories under food. It was an odd habit of the humans. Silesh was obviously one of the former rather than the latter.

  “When was the last time it was not like this?”

  “It will get better once more of the pupils come of age,” Jareen said. “There is more help, then. But the Departing are always as they are. Or worse.”

  Silesh was frowning, her brows low. It was too late for her to make a different choice in her life, if she’d had a choice in the first place. Jareen had never asked how she came to be with the Order. It wasn’t exactly pertinent to their duties. Then again, Jareen had seen more than one Sister harm themselves over the years. It was a bizarre thing for a human to do. They only lived eighty or ninety years at most, normally much less, and still they felt so fiercely as to leave before their bodies gave out?

  Many Vien departed by choice in the end, if many was a word that could be used. But that could take hundreds, a thousand, or even more years before the urge to seek Vah’tane came upon them, or they went to the wars, or they simply left.

  “Did I make that man suffer?” Silesh asked. “Is that what you wanted to teach me?”

  “No,” Jareen said. Although she had to admit to herself that it was not a leap for Silesh to think that. “No, his body made him suffer. His disease. We just failed to aid him. There’s a difference.”

  “And that one yesterday. . . she was barely breathing, but you told me to give her more drops. I killed her.”

  “No,” Jareen said, more forcefully this time. “You know this. You’ve explained this to families in the city. You’ve heard me explain this many times. They are dying. The disease is killing them. The consumption, or the Clutch, or the fevers, or gangrene, or their lungs give way. That is what kills them.”

  Silesh put her forehead in her hands and her shoulders began to shake. One of the older Sisters from down the table looked over and made eye contact with Jareen, raising her brows and pursing her lips as if to say, “what can you do?”

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  “I just wanted to get out of that house this morning,” Silesh said, sniffling snot. “Away from the Clutch.”

  Ah yes, Jareen thought. She shouldn’t have mentioned the Clutch. Now even Jareen’s appetite was gone, what she had of one. As Silesh quietly sobbed next to her, Jareen’s Vien ears picked up the sound of footfalls on hard stone in the hallway—forceful, steady, brisk. Not the footfalls of tired Sisters after a shift. She turned to the door to see who would appear. She was not surprised.

  Arch Sister Noreen stepped into the dining room. She was probably in her fifties. Jareen had known her since her novitiate, and it had been no surprise that she had risen high in the Order, a mixture of both firm competence and unflagging compassion. Noreen had one purpose in life, and that was the Order. Her assessing eyes took in the display of Silesh and Jareen in a mere moment. Silesh was trying to wipe her face with her hands and sit up straight.

  “Sister Jareen,” the Arch Sister said. “Please come with me.” Noreen glanced down at a small slate board tucked between her palm and elbow. “And. . . Novice Silesh. . . It looks like sleep is in order. Tomorrow morning find Sister Yeremi in the fourth Ward. You will double with her novice until further notice.”

  Silesh squinted in confusion, but she knew better than to say anything back to the Arch Sister. Even Jareen’s mind buzzed in question. Had Yeremi said something to Noreen after Silesh’s outburst in the ward?

  No. That was not likely. Yeremi would not have interfered with Jareen’s novice. It was something else. Noreen’s shoulders were never truly relaxed, but neither did she carry her neck with the rigidity that foretold a true problem. It did not take long for Jareen to understand the emotions of these humans, if not their exact thoughts. Jareen stood.

  Noreen led through the Dormitories and down the arched and colonnaded walkway between the Wards and the Dormitories, heading toward her office. So, it was official business. Noreen had rooms behind her office, but if ever she wanted a social call with one of the Sisters, she went to the Sister; she did not invite them to her private quarters. it was not a rule, but Jareen had known Noreen for decades.

  Noreen led into her office, which was dominated by a large table. It was a familiar room for Jareen, but she still noted the large glass oillamp that burned, providing light. It was Vien glasswork, renowned among humans for its artistry, and it had belonged to the previous Arch Sister, a gift from the Regent. Yet rather than the clean coconut oil burned by the Vien, the humans burned whale oil which stank and stung her nose and eyes. But there was always stinging smoke in the city, and her nose was always congested.

  “Please sit, I know you’ve been on your feet far too long. I apologize for keeping you up when you should be trying to sleep. I remember the full-day duties. They are brutal.”

  “I am not so troubled by it,” Jareen said, sitting. Noreen sat down across a narrow table laden with ledgers and rolls of parchment held open by small glass weights. The woman shuffled a few of them, apparently with no real purpose.

  “I know,” she said. “But if you need to sleep before going on this assignment, that is alright.”

  So it was an assignment. . . Noreen had long ago come to terms with Jareen’s foreign background. She conversed with Jareen much more easily than many others did, not because the Arch Sister had forgotten that Jareen was an elf; she’d just gotten used to it over the decades. Noreen was practical above all else. If she couldn’t change a situation, she would not spend too much thought on it, or else find an advantage in it. Yet Noreen had enough social skills to lead with something else, if briefly:

  “Your novice is having a day?”

  “She is. She will be a good Sister. But she is empathetic.”

  Noreen nodded.

  “That is hard.”

  “It is.”

  “She will live to see easier days, we can hope. Next year, we have over twenty girls aging up here in Nosh alone. I do think the Order should have reduced the age after the plague, though.”

  “Maybe, but it was not your decision at the time.” Noreen had only later replaced the previous Arch Sister of Nosh after that Sister had herself Departed.

  “No. Hopefully we will not have to do it anytime soon.”

  “I hope that too.”

  “Anyway,” Noreen said. “We have a case of Seven Isles Fever.”

  “In the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have we isolated the source?”

  “It was believed to be a Laithan sloop that stopped in the Isles for a cargo of sugarcane on the way here.”

  “And there is only one case?”

  “One so far.”

  “And of the sloop?”

  “It departed before symptoms arose.”

  “Where is the case?”

  “In the manse, oddly enough.”

  “In the manse?”

  “Yes, our Departing is the High Scribe and Chief Archivist of Drennos.”

  “What?”

  “The ship was also carrying copied manuscripts of some kind from the Torich court. Our High Scribe went aboard himself to receive them and oversee their transport to the archives.”

  Jareen squinted.

  “Was not the quarantine period observed?”

  “It seems our High Scribe was able to gainsay the port officials on that matter.” Noreen smirked and shook her head. “At least for once an official sickens himself by incompetence and not the rest of the city.” Noreen waved her hand sideways. “I never said that. But I have heard that this scribe is a. . . unique individual.”

  “I have heard nothing of note about him.”

  Noreen shrugged.

  “What have we to do with the archives?”

  “It would seem that we have plenty, now.”

  Noreen grinned.

  “You do, yes. The symptoms are early. The exposure was two weeks ago. I anticipate you will be gone for some time. The quarantine must be strict.”

  “I understand.”

  “I will make sure your novice is seen to in your absence.”

  “I’m sure Novice Silesh will understand. It may do her good,” Jareen said. Noreen squinted.

  “I wouldn’t give you novices if I didn’t esteem your ability."

  “And certainly that is why I am caring for the High Scribe?”

  “Oh,” Noreen said, waving back the comment. “Don’t be obtuse. You know it is not a punishment, and you have nothing to fear. You and I both know that the duty will be easy. One Departing is far lighter than fifty.”

  “I know. I am not concerned. I am just. . . how do you humans say? Giving you a hard time?” Jareen smiled.

  “Don’t act like you don’t know what humans say,” Noreen said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve been here what, sixty years?”

  "Sixty-three, actually."

  “Look,” Noreen continued. “We both know how people talk, but you are invaluable to us. This is for the safety of everyone.”

  “I wasn’t seeking affirmation,” Jareen said, mimicking Noreen and waving away the comment in the manner of the humans. “I am just tired.” It was a human excuse, but it often worked on them.

  “I know,” Noreen said. “You can sleep if you need.”

  “I will gather my things and go now. I can sleep there once I assess the situation.”

  Noreen nodded.

  “Strict quarantine,” she said again. “You will be locked.”

  “Naturally.”

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