Page 97 of The Tainted Cup

I wondered what to do. I had come here hoping to learn something about the Hazas’ communications; and though I hadn’t found what I’d wanted, I could still learnwherethey’d been sending their communications, and perhaps when; and that might tell us something.

But now I saw I could not. I could not, because I could not readany of these plates, because of my damned eyes, and my damned brain, which had never been able to learn how to engrave the words I read.

My heart fluttering within me, I mounted the steps. I passed one pair of cubbies with one bird; then another; and then, finally, one pair with no scribe-hawks at all.

A sent message, surely. And there, written on the plate below, was the name of the place the message had been sentto.

I gazed at the plate, trying to focus. I finally got the words to make sense, and saw they read:

Alti?ti yar?aaqñu urkuquna t’iqra?kan?kiaqñu chaika.

I gazed into the words, my face trembling, my head pounding. I felt a bright pain behind my eyes. Fayazi Haza said something below, but I ignored her, and tried my hardest to engrave the words in my mind, to keep them, to draw their symbols on my very soul.

I shut my eyes. Instantly, the words were lost, the memory dissolving like sea foam upon the sand.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered.

I opened my eyes and tried to whisper the words aloud, fumbling through the mad jumble of consonants.

“What’s that?” demanded Fayazi. “What are you saying? Whatareyou doing up there, Signum? Your time is nearly up.”

“One moment,” I said in a strangled voice.

This would not work. I was going to be thrown out of her house if I kept up with this.

I stared at the plate, thinking.

I could not say the sounds, I realized. But perhaps I could draw the words—later.

I took my vial of mint and snuffed at it heavily to ensure this moment was anchored in my mind. Then I placed my finger to the first letter, my fingernail slotting into the engraving in the bronze, and then let the groove guide my finger…

“Signum?” called Fayazi angrily.

I traced one letter, then another, then another.

“Signum Kol,” snapped Fayazi. “I must insist we go, now.”

I finished tracing the letters, hoping that the movements rested heavy in my memories, and moved on to the next pair of cubbies.

“Almost done,” I said hoarsely. “Just have to check the rest.”

There were four others: three pairs of cubbies with no birds, and one pair of cubbies with two birds—that meant four sent messages in total, and one received. At each pair I sniffed my vial and traced the words on the plate with my finger, praying that my body remembered the movements if nothing else.

As I finished the last one, I felt a hand on my shoulder, the fingers hard as iron. I turned, surprised, to see the axiom standing behind me, her skeletal face staring into my own.

“You are done here,” she said softly. “As the lady said.”

Shaking, I stood, brushed myself off, and descended the stairs, the axiom following behindme.

What a thing, what a thing,I thought as I trotted back down. What a thing it was, that I had to encrypt this memory and smuggle it within myself, translated into movement so my mind could keep it—though I had no idea if I’d been successful. Perhaps I would return to Ana, try to trace those letters upon some parchment for her, and discover I was drawing utter nonsense.

And then she would know, I realized. She would know of my affliction, and my lies, and I’d be found out and discharged, if not jailed.

My stomach sank as I approached the bottom of the stairs. What had I just gotten myself into?

I came to the door, sweaty and weak from all my attempted reading. Fayazi and her engraver studied me with a look of faint disgust upon their faces.

“Are you all right?” said Fayazi. “Or did youactuallystumble across any contagion up there?”