Page 17 of Sightwitch
“May I visit them?”
The question was so low I scarcely heard. And though ’tis not allowed anymore—not allowed at all—I found myself reciting the old rules. “Yes. Once a month, you may come. On the day of the full moon.”
A thoughtful nod. Even without this grief to shroud him, he seemed the sort of man who spent most of his time inside his own head. “I will return in two weeks,” he offered at last.
Then he left.
It hurt me to watch him say good-bye and walk away. To watch Cora weep and Lisbet grit her teeth against tears. He must be near to me in age, yet he has already lost so much.
But this is the will of Sirmaya and the way of the Convent.
After he had gone, I looked down at Lisbet. She held her sister’s hand and tried to keep Cora, halfheartedly, from chasing after their father.
“First lesson of the Sightwitches,” I said, trying to mimic the authoritative way my mentor had spoken to me almost two decades ago. “There are no coincidences. If you are here, it is because you are meant to be here.”
Lisbet’s eyes narrowed in thought, an expression almost identical to the one her father had made only minutes before.
“What’s a coincidence?” Cora asked, and abruptly she stopped trying to pull away. In fact, she now leaned toward me with curiosity.
“It’s when things happen that seem connected,” Lisbet answered. It was a much better definition than I could have offered. “Like when you want honey cakes and I also want honey cakes at the same time.”
“I always want honey cakes,” Cora said softly.
I smiled at that—a real smile, for already I knew these girls would fit in perfectly here. “Well, Cora, I happen to know we are having honey cakes at break this afternoon. And did I not just say, are there no coincidences?”
The records tell me amalej are No’Amatsi whose tribes disbanded upon reaching the Witchlands. They do not follow the old ways from the East, and they are not bound by No’Amatsi laws nor do they even know the language.
I find it strange, then, that the girls’ father would use the word “amalej.” How did he learn it? Who taught him?
Ah, it matters not. I have work to do, yet for some reason, I cannot shake him from my mind …
Ryber Fortiza
Y18 D212 — 38 days since I became the last Sightwitch Sister
DREAMS
I dreamed of Tanzi last night. For the first time in all my life, I recall a dream.
It was not a good one.
Tanzi was trapped behind a wall of water. Screaming. But when I tried to reach her, she vanished.
MEMORIES
Nubrevnans have arrived in the South. In three of those long, shallow riverboats they use.
I have spent the entire morning watching them from the telescope.
The Rook told me they were coming. Or rather, during morning prayers, he swooped and cackled so much from the upper ledge that I finally snapped, “What, Rook?”
Which of course earned a fresh slew of avian cursing.
“The Rook,” I corrected the entire time I marched up to the telescope. “TheRook,theRook,theRook—I’m sorry!”
I was still apologizing when my eye pressed against the looking glass … and immediately, my words died on my tongue.
Boats were scraping ashore. Right on the spot where the river bends, slowing its rush from the falls.
