Chapter 26. The Night Before

Veilgrove wears uncertainty like a shawl—visible if you look up, hidden if you keep your eyes on your feet.

The night before a trial is for food and wanting and prayer. I ate none of it properly.

Mavienne found me in the western cloister with the moon pressed to the world like a cold coin. She carried a small bundle wrapped in gray cloth that looked like it had been a shirt for a very precise man and was now a second life.

“Hold out your hand,” she said.

I did. She set a chain of wrought bone across my palm, light as breath, carved with marks so small I had to tilt it toward the moon to see them.

“What is it?”

“An anchor,” she said. “You’ll be pulled, and I’ll be tired. This keeps you where your ribs will remember you.”

“Price?” I asked.

“Hair,” she said dryly, and pulled a lock from her braid before I could protest, slicing it with a knife so clean it didn’t feel like cutting. A streak of white flashed where the hair had been. She win