Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 81

She stayed in her bed. It was cold outside and dangerous in all manner of ways. The knife must have been meant to scare her. Even someone as high-born as Arabella Jotsis couldn’t expect to murder people in their sleep in a crowded dormitory and get away with it … Unless she really did think a village girl was no more than a cow or pig compared to someone who had been invited to the emperor’s palace?

At some point, with one thought chasing the next in endless circles, Nona fell asleep and though she tossed and turned she didn’t wake until Bray spoke the waking hour and all across the dormitory grey shapes started to move beneath their covers, grumbling at the day.

‘Path and Spirit today,’ Clera groaned. ‘Worst of the lot.’

‘Breakfast first!’ Ruli with a grin, pulling off her nightcap and shaking down her hair.

‘Spirit is what we’re all here for.’ Jula gave a sniff, patting her head and finding her hair hadn’t returned overnight.

‘I’m here because I was sent here,’ Clera said. ‘When I’m a Red Sister if anyone asks me to repeat the catechism I’ll stab them in the eye.’

‘If you paid closer attention in Spirit, you would know that stabbing people in the eye is frowned upon.’ Jula straightened her habit and started to make her bed. ‘Anyway, it’s Path first.’

‘Yawn!’ Clera tugged her habit over her underskirts. ‘I hope Pan lets us pathless go play again.’

Nona slid from her covers and started to dress. She reached beneath her pillow, to touch the knife one more time to reassure herself it hadn’t been a dream. Still there, warm from her body now, a hard, sharp, and undeniable truth. She wanted to take it with her, strapped to her body, the blade wrapped in a strip of linen, but she lacked both time and privacy. She would have to leave the weapon in her bed and hope that Arabella had no chance to reclaim it.

Nona found herself one of the last out of the dormitory, hurrying with Clera to the refectory for breakfast. The pair of them clattered down the front steps, finding an unusually still day, a cloudless sky, and a rare warmth on offer.