Page 45 of The Starving Saints

“It spoke to me.”

Oh.

Nowthatis interesting.

Phosyne cocks her head. “What did it say?”

“I’ve missed you,” Treila breathes, then shudders, a whole-body thing accompanied by a look of pure disgust. “Among other things. I—it spoke the first time I went down, as well. I assumed I’d imagined it.”

“You sayit,” Phosyne points out.

“Well, it can’t be human.”

“Can’t it?”

Treila shakes her head, curls bouncing. “It sounds like a boy,” she admits, “but the crack faces the cliff. Even if there are other tunnels beyond it—which the candle illuminated, actually, so thereisspace back there, thank you—they don’t lead back to the Etrebian camp.”

“They could lead farther down,” Phosyne says. “To the base of the cliff.”

“Why would anybody climb all the way up?”

“To offer rescue?” Phosyne suggests. “There are farms down in the valley. It’s not impossible.”

“It’s nothuman,” Treila snaps.

Phosyne holds up her hands, backs away again. “Why not?” she presses.

“Because what kind of human asks for afingerin return for safe passage?”

Phosyne’s gaze drops to Treila’s hands. Five fingers on each. No blood on any of them. She isn’t sure whether she’s relieved or disappointed.

Treila sees her looking and clenches her fingers into fists. “It only spoke while the candle was extinguished. When I relit the candle in an attempt to see its face, the gap was empty. I’ve left it burning down there, but I need tools. Answers, of some kind. I need to get out of here.”

“And what do you think I can give you?” Phosyne asks. “I can clean water. I can light a candle. Beyond that...”

“How does it work?” Treila demands.

“What?”

“All of it. How does it work? You say you cleaned the water? How did you figure that out?”

“It’s hard to explain. How do you untangle madness from reality?”

Treila scowls at the echo.

Phosyne tries to smile. It doesn’t work. “I can show you my notes, but they won’t make sense. None of it makes sense, not the way the Priory’s constructions do. It’s... intuition. Uncontrolled intuition. Hard to guide. Hard to explain. Hard to understand, even for me. You need a pick, not me.”

“Horseshit,” Treila says.

Phosyne frowns. “Excuse me?”

“That’s all horse shit. That you don’t know how it happens. You’re telling me that you wander your way into miracles thatcan be repeated by others, but you don’t know how they work?”

“I can tell you instructions. I can’t tell you how I know them.”

“You’re lying. That isn’t how the world works.”

“I’m Ser Leodegardis’s madwoman,” Phosyne reminds her. “I have never claimed to be anything else.”

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