Chapter 83. Under the Waterline

Morning arrived with tea that had pretensions of being a strategy. Syra organized us around bowls and plans. Rhea brought a little basket of sweet buns she claimed were “leftover from a dignitary who doesn’t like raisins.” We did not ask questions that would get her demoted.

“Omphalos first,” she said, licking sugar from her thumb. “You want to see the girl before the Regent sends a priest to wring poetry out of her.”

“The Regent still thinks he owns the vowels,” Neris muttered.

Syra led us down through Veilgrove’s quieter bones—stairs carved with the names of donors long turned to stone, corridors that dampened footfalls as if sound were rude here. The Omphalos lived under the reflecting pools, a ring of cells with floors that sloped just enough to keep water moving. Not torture. Like everything else in Veilgrove, an ethic.

The child sat on the edge of her pallet with wet hair and eyes like a new bruise. Fourteen, maybe. Fifteen if life had been kind, which