Kjellrunn wasn’t sure what the woman meant, but drank in every detail of her. ‘Are you a pirate?’ she asked.
‘Kjell!’ Steiner stared at his sister and glanced at Romola. ‘Forgive my sister, she, uh, well …’
‘Some days,’ replied Romola.
‘Some days what?’ said Steiner.
‘Some days I’m a pirate.’ Romola turned a smile on Kristofine. ‘But not today and not recently.’
I was right, mouthed Kjellrunn to Steiner, and smiled.
Steiner began to laugh and stifled it with a cough behind his hand.
‘Why don’t you two come to the tavern,’ said Kristofine. ‘I was going to show Romola around and we could have something to eat.’
Kjellrunn caught the way Kristofine looked her brother and felt some unknown feeling course through her, swirling dangerously.
‘I should get back,’ said Kjellrunn. ‘Father will be waiting.’ These last words were pointed at Steiner, but he was too busy smiling at Kristofine to notice.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ said Romola. ‘You take care of yourself now.’
Kjellrunn nodded and stalked away, angry with Kristofine but unsure why.
‘Tell Father I’ll be home in a while,’ Steiner called after her, but Kjellrunn pretended not to hear and bowed her head.
‘Not sure I care for a half-wit brother who abandons me halfway through a trip to town,’ she muttered to herself. ‘And I’m not sure I care for being called mad by an ex-pirate.’ A passerby on the street glanced at her and crossed to the other side. ‘And I certainly don’t care for the way Kristofine stares at my brother. What is going on between those two?’
Steiner didn’t reappear for the rest of the afternoon and if Marek minded he didn’t show it. Kjellrunn stayed up after dinner and fussed with this and that in the kitchen. Finally the latch rattled on the kitchen door and Steiner shouldered his way into the room, a little unsteady on his feet.
‘Did you see a ghost on the walk home?’ Kjellrunn was sitting at the table in her nightshirt, hands clasped around a mug of hot milk.
‘Not a ghost, but it turns out Romola is a storyweaver as a well as a pirate. She told a story that was unsettling.’
‘Which story?’
‘Bittervinge and the Mama Qara.’
‘That’s not a scary story. Not really.’
‘It depends who’s telling it, I suppose,’ said Steiner quietly.
‘What else did she say?’ Kjellrunn’s eyes were bright with curiosity.
‘No stories, only that Imperial soldiers are in town, and there’ll be an Invigilation tomorrow.’
Kjellrunn sat up straighter in her chair, then set her eyes on her mug.
‘I hate it,’ was all she said.
‘So did I,’ replied Steiner.
She remembered being inspected by the Synod, how her palms had sweated and her stomach knotted like old rope, wondering if she would be taken away for bearing the taint of dragons.
‘But this is the last time you have to do it,’ said Steiner. ‘You’ll be fine, Kjell.’
She struggled not to tremble and said nothing.
‘There’s been no witchsign in Cinderfell for twenty years,’ said Steiner. ‘And you’ve always passed without a problem before. This year won’t be any different.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ she said, her mouth a bitter curve of worry.
‘Kjell, is there anything, any reason … Do you doubt you’ll pass this year? If there’s anything you wanted to tell me …’
‘Of course not!’ She stood up and marched past him, climbing the stairs without a backward glance.
‘Good night then,’ he called after her, but there was little good about it.
Though many Imperial scholars argue there is no proof linking the emergence of the arcane with our former draconic masters, the Holy Synod takes it as a matter of faith. Ours is a double poisoning; ash and smoke have tainted the sky just as young children manifest unearthly powers. How else to explain the unexplainable?
– From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.
Steiner looked up into the skies from the porch and watched the grey snow drifting down, obscuring roof and road. It lay along lintels and windowsills, a hushed drabness for the gloomy town. The chill wind, so often a feature in Cinderfell, was absent that day.
‘The snow will cover everything if it keeps up like this,’ whispered Kjellrunn, joining him in the porch, a shawl wrapped about her shoulders. Her breath misted on the air and for a moment Steiner’s mind wandered to Romola’s tale of dragons from the previous night. ‘Perhaps the Vigilants will forget we’re here,’ added Kjellrunn.
‘Small chance of that.’ Steiner forced a smile at his sister. ‘Still, they might catch a cold and go home.’ He knew exactly how she felt; he had stood for six Invigilations and was glad he’d not have to do so again. Each time he’d wondered if some glimmer of the arcane would see him taken by the Synod.
‘Last night, you said you hoped you’d pass the Invigilation. You haven’t …’ Steiner struggled for the words.
‘Started casting spells that summon the winds and make people burst into flames?’ said Kjellrunn.
‘I think I would have noticed that,’ replied Steiner with a smile, but Kjellrunn didn’t return it, looking away to the falling snow. ‘You and Father are all I have. I don’t know what I’d do if they took you, Kjell. I don’t know what Father would do.’
‘No one is going take me,’ replied Kjell, but Steiner couldn’t miss the way she looked off to the horizon as she said it, not meeting his eyes.
‘You’ll walk your sister to school today?’ said Marek from the kitchen, as if Steiner would refuse.
‘Of course.’
‘And wait until she can come home.’ Steiner couldn’t miss the guarded tone in his father’s voice. There would be no lessons today. There would be no teachers. It was impossible to spare a thought for anything else at times like these.
‘We’d best get to it,’ said Steiner, slipping an arm around Kjellrunn’s shoulders.
‘Wait now.’ Their father’s voice was soft, softer than the snow falling outside. Marek pulled a brooch from a pocket. He took a step towards Kjellrunn with a sad smile on his lips. ‘This was your mother’s. You should have it.’
Kjellrunn blinked, then her expression fell as she saw the brooch, styled in the shape of a sledgehammer. It had been cast in black iron; hardly the jewellery a young woman yearned for.
‘Wear it today.’ Marek pulled open her shawl and reached for the tunic beneath, pinning the brooch in place. ‘If you get scared at the Invigilation, remember your mother.’
‘But … but I don’t remember my mother,’ said Kjellrunn in a whisper. ‘I don’t remember her at all.’ The pain of that absence was written across her slender face in that moment, as tears blossomed at the