It’s very similar to how she chases down her ideas. They come out of nowhere, in sudden flashes, and she is helpless to do anything but pursue them. Something similar, she thinks, happened before Ornuo and Pneio arrived. She had been stringing up her corkindrill, face-to-face with the beast’s sharp teeth, and she had leaned in, put her head inside the jaws, and—

“Sefridis!”

Phosyne staggers to a halt, and realizes she’s gone all the way down to the ground floor, where the garrison should be stationed.

Like last night, it’s empty, except for the person who called her name.

Her old name.

It’s one of the nuns, thin-faced and desperate. She looks hunted, and Phosyne instinctively looks past her for a threat. She sees none. The room is empty. The woman tugs on her sleeve, and Phosyne looks at her again, mouth open with a question.

“You must come with me,” the nun demands. “You must help.”

“Prioress Jacynde?” Phosyne ventures, though this feels wrong. Her old name, and a direct plea for help? Jacynde would never do either. And this nun, she is young, younger than Phosyne by at least five or ten years. Little more than a child.

Phosyne doesn’t recognize her face.

The little nun nods. “Yes, the Prioress, she’s—but you must see for yourself.”

She should say no. She owes the Priory, if not Jacynde, for so much of her education, her life until just recently. And yet if she is responsible for the impossible food the night before, the coming feast, the appearance of the Constant Lady . . .

“Where is she?” Phosyne asks. “Is she—is she with the visitors?”

The little nun wrings her hands. She is the very image of pathos. “She was,” the nun says. And then terror seems to clot her throat, if the whites of her eyes are anything to go by.

“Of course, I’ll help as I can,” she says, blood turning to ice.

The nun nods, relief making her tongue her lips a moment, and then she turns and is off, racing for the chapel.

Phosyne follows.

The yard is still full of people, though Phosyne cannot see the king, nor the saints, nor Ser Voyne. They have to weave through the crowd, and Phosyne hears them weeping, praying, cheering. The crush of hopeful bodies is almost too much, and twice, Phosyne nearly loses track of the little nun.

But when they reach the chapel tower, the crowd doesn’t thin; it abruptly stops.

It makes no sense. There should be a crush of parishioners here, too; if the faithful can’t touch the hem of the saints’ robes, they should be on their knees inside, thanking the icons instead. And yet there is nobody.