‘Two City Guards came to the house today,’ Weaver says. ‘They were trying to track down someone who missed her Ink-marking recently.’
For some reason I think of the key, of the woman on the square. Of the guard who saw me. On the wall Our Lady of Weaving raises all her hands, inviting the sea to storm.
‘I did not miss my visit,’ I say.
‘I know,’ Weaver replies. ‘But someone named Valeria Petros did.’
She pauses and watches me. I search my memory for the name and do not find it.
‘Who’s that?’ I ask.
‘Your roommate,’ Weaver says. ‘She confirmed it today when the City Guard spoke to her.’
I reach for the girl’s thoughts, try to imagine what I would have done. She must have been too badly injured and heavily medicated to even know what day it was. She could have gone later, but how would she have explained what had happened without words? And whoever attacked her probably still walks the streets of the city, eyes perhaps ready to see, hands ready to capture and kill this time.
‘Will Valeria Petros leave the house now?’ I ask. The thought hits me deeper than I expect.
‘She will stay,’ Weaver says.
‘Doesn’t she want to return to her family?’
‘I am certain she would like to,’ Weaver says. ‘Unfortunately it is not possible.’ She pauses. ‘You will remember that air gondola accident the night she arrived.’
I nod.
‘Her parents were in the gondola that crashed. There were no survivors.’
A cold weight settles into my chest. I think of the cables in the sky, of their distance from the ground below, or water. When you fall from that high, it matters little what is underneath. An image from the week before arises in my mind: Valeria’s darkening face when Alva mentioned the air route crash. She must have known her parents were travelling by gondola the night she was attacked. She must have wondered.
‘Doesn’t she have anyone else?’ My voice is evened by years of practice, as if it belongs to another.
‘She has an aunt, an inkmaster. I have sent her a message. But Valeria has indicated she prefers to stay here. And I do believe her skill is put to better use within these walls.’
I recall the night Valeria arrived at the house. I see the pain curled on her face, the bloodstains on the stones of the square.
‘Do you know who attacked her?’
Weaver shakes her head.
‘I’m afraid the City Guard do not seem to have made progress on that front.’
She is quiet. The tapestries move, are still and move again. A cold draught travels across the room. I glance at the corner. The door is closed behind the glass frame of the watergraph. Weaver has pushed the hood back from her face. She does not do that often. Her face is dark and nearly smooth, although it cannot be young. Her short hair curls close to the curve of her head.
Weaver breaks the silence.
‘There is one more thing.’
I wait.
‘Valeria’s parents have already been cremated. She didn’t want a place for them in the burial ground. But as their daughter she must collect the ashes from the House of Fire. She will need someone to accompany her.’
‘I will do it,’ I say.
‘Yes, you will,’ Weaver says. ‘You may go now.’ She turns to the pile of papers on the table and picks up a pen. It begins to rustle on paper.
I walk to the door where I stop, because an unexpected thought takes shape in my mind. No one should have to travel beyond the Web of Worlds without thoughts and deeds to smooth the way. I cannot do much for the girl, but this I can.
‘What were their names?’
The rustling stops. Weaver looks up from the papers. The pen hangs mid-air in her fingers, ready to be raised, ready to fall.
‘Valeria’s parents,’ I specify. ‘What were they called?’
‘Mihaela and Jovanni Petros,’ she says.
‘Thank you,’ I say and leave.
I knock on the door of the cell. No response. Quietly I open it. The curtains are closed, and the girl – Valeria, I fit her name in my mouth – has thrown a shawl over the glow-glass on her night table. She is curled under the blanket, a lump of darkness, like grief sealed in a throat. I listen to her breathing and am almost certain she is awake. But I do not say anything, in case I am wrong.
My bed makes a soft creak when I sit down on the edge, even though I try to do it slowly, without sound. Valeria does not move.
My hand wants to reach out to her, stroke the curve of the shoulder and her side, very softly, because words are too heavy right now. Instead I get undressed in the dark as quietly as I can and go to bed. I think of the broken cable, its end swaying in the wind, or perhaps cradled by water, and everything she will never tell her parents. Of how her hours have suddenly turned briefer and her days more brittle, because there is no longer anything between them and emptiness, and she is the next in line.
Valeria stays in the cell for days. I do not see her cry, but when I return from work in the evenings, her eyes are red and swollen. Sometimes she merely lies facing the wall. I bring her soup and bread, the hard crust of which I have scratched off. Sometimes she eats. Mostly she does not.
A week later I climb up a tangled path to a hill where cables do not squeak or webs divert walkers from the way. Low wind-whipped bushes grow here and there among the stones, and stunted trees sticking from the thin soil like gnawed bones. Their yellowing leaves are dappled by bruise-like spots I do not remember seeing the year before. The day is bright, the wings of the white gulls sharp against the sky, but their cries are drowned by the distance. The hill is veiled in silence.
Far at sea I discern earth-coloured ships that do not bear the flags of trading vessels on their masts. Everyone on the island has seen them, but no one knows what they are for. They sail to a secluded harbour near the House of the Tainted, and people do not go there. Some say they have seen pale figures in the port who vanish from sight when they are spoken to. I turn my gaze away from the ships. This day does not need more ghosts.
Janos stands before the arching stone gate at the end of the path, waiting for me. We meet here on the last day of the week after every new moon. He clasps me into a wide hug. The gesture seems out of place, too loud and large, but I do not push him away.
Janos lets me go and looks at me.
‘You have been missing sleep again, sister,’ he says.
‘So have you, brother,’ I respond.
‘Must run in the family,’ he says. His smile is our mother’s.
We both glance around. There are no others on the hill. Or if there are, they will be inside the Glass Grove. From there, they cannot hear us speak.
‘I hear someone was taken from the House of Webs the other week.’
So he has heard. I should have expected it. News always finds its way to the House of Words. I wonder if they have already received word of a strange girl who collapsed on the stones and nowadays sleeps only a cell-width away from me.
‘She was one of the youngest,’ I say. ‘She didn’t have the privacy of the cell to protect her.’
Janos pushes his hands into the pockets of his blue scribe’s cloak. His eyes look to the sky, then at me again. I see serious concern in them.
‘Someone was also taken from the House