A ripple of laughter spread among the girls seated nearby.
‘You will address me as Sister Ulla,’ the old woman said.
Ianthe swallowed.
‘I do not approve of those lenses,’ Sister Ulla said, ‘regardless of any excuse Sister Marks might make for you. However, we will tolerate them if you show a spark of promise.’ She set her books down on a desk, then grabbed Ianthe’s chin and leaned close, peering into her eyes as though looking for something. Finally she sighed. ‘You have the mind of a pebble,’ she said. ‘I don’t expect you’ll do well here at all. Few girls of your breeding ever do. But if-’ She stopped abruptly and wheeled to face a group of girls nearby. ‘Silence,’ she said. ‘Regina, Constance.’
A hush fell across the room. Two girls seated some distance apart stood up.
‘This is a library,’ Sister Ulla said. ‘It is no place for thoughts like that. What do you have to say for yourselves? Constance?’
The nearest girl raised her chin defiantly. A tiny blonde imp of a thing, she nevertheless managed to maintain a demeanour of arrogance that Ianthe had seen in so many Losotan settlers. Her blue eyes burned with indignation. The other girl was just as fair, but long of face and hardly pretty. She looked across at the smaller girl for reassurance.
‘I was merely stating an opinion,’ Constance said.
‘Your opinions aren’t worth stating,’ Sister Ulla said, ‘I suggest you both go and get yourselves cleaned up.’
Both girls looked suddenly fearful. And then a strange thing happened. As Ianthe watched, the smaller girl – Constance – clutched her nose. Blood trickled down between her fingers and spattered her desk. Across the room, the larger girl gave a soft cry and clasped her hands to her own face. Her nose was bleeding too.
‘Go,’ Sister Ulla cried, jabbing a finger at the door. ‘To the nurse’s office, before I sterilize the pair of you to spare the world your offspring.’
The two girls grabbed up their books and hurried away.
Briana smiled at Ianthe. ‘There are various grades of psychic,’ she said. ‘At one end of the spectrum are the sensitives like myself, specializing in communication. Sister Ulla represents the other end of the spectrum. She will test you, and hopefully teach you, in psychic warfare.’
Sister Ulla took Ianthe to a storeroom, where she bundled robes, towels, sheets and blankets into her arms, before showing her to a dormitory on a lower floor at the back of the palace. The windows overlooked a gloomy forest. A small folding bed had been set up at the far end of the room between the two ranks of proper beds.
‘You’ve caused me considerable inconvenience,’ the old woman said. ‘The term is halfway finished already, and I refuse to go over previous material for your benefit.’ She watched as Ianthe made her temporary bed. ‘Not that it matters much. I don’t expect you’ll pass even the most basic of tests.’
‘What sort of tests?’ Ianthe asked.
Sister Ulla grunted. ‘Any psychic worth her salt wouldn’t have to be told. Now stop fussing with that sheet and get yourself washed and dressed. Robes and underwear go in that chest. Supper is at nine.’ She left the room, slamming the door behind her.
A door in the rear wall of the dorm led to a large bathroom, with rows of buckets and ladles set out on the chipped tile floor. Ianthe washed and then put on the Haurstaf robe. The shapeless cloth felt rough and heavy on her shoulders. She returned to the dorm and dumped her old clothes in the chest at the foot of her bed. Darkness was gathering among the trees outside the window. She hunted about for a gem lantern but didn’t find one. Was it nine o’clock yet? Ianthe couldn’t see any clocks, so she sat on the bed and waited.
Nobody came for her.
After a while she let her mind wander out into the void. The perceptions of the palace occupants glimmered like hundreds of lanterns suspended in darkness. By combining their disparate visions Ianthe was able to build up an impression of a truly vast building, extending as far underground as it did into the sky. There were thousands of people around her – from the highest tower to the lowest subterranean chambers. Guild members reclined in warmly lit lounges or sat reading in velvet-draped bedrooms, or looked out upon the dusk from high balconies. Cooks toiled in steaming kitchens. Servants brushed cobwebs from nooks and pantry corners. Ianthe allowed herself to float among the Haurstaf like a ghost, occasionally slipping into an unsuspecting mind to view one chamber or another with increased clarity. She saw black marble fireplaces and piles of blood-red cushions, silverware like white fire and jewelled dressers and long hallways hung with gilt-framed paintings – such a gathering of treasure as she had never seen. Snippets of conversation drifted through the aether:
‘… not a gilder between them. How do you think Jonah felt about that?’
‘I can’t imagine.’
She heard laughter and music and the clink of glasses and cutlery. And here she came upon a great hall awash with light and chatter, where hundreds of girls sat at long tables under flickering candelabra, feasting from platters of chicken, partridge, pastries and trenchers of steaming stew. A separate table at the top of the chamber accommodated a group of older psychics, all chatting and drinking wine from crystal glasses while servants cleared away the crockery. Among them Ianthe recognized Sister Marks and Sister Ulla, and she realized she was supposed to be there, in that hall, too.
Ianthe snapped back into the empty dormitory. She was late and hungry and… whatever would the others say? She got to her feet and bolted for the door.
Silence descended on the dining hall as Ianthe closed the door behind her. A hundred girls turned to face her, some of whom she recognized from the library. Their smiles were beautiful and cruel. They began to whisper among themselves as Ianthe walked between the feasting tables. She couldn’t see any spaces on the benches so she kept going until she reached the head table. Twelve women in long white robes looked down at her, with Sister Marks and Sister Ulla in the centre. Ianthe found little sympathy in any of their eyes. Sister Ulla positively glared, while Briana Marks wore a smile of faint amusement.
Sister Ulla said, ‘So you finally decided to turn up?’
A chorus of giggles swept through the room.
Ianthe felt her face redden. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘She wouldn’t have heard the summons,’ Briana remarked.
‘No doubt,’ Sister Ulla said. ‘Which is why I told her to be here at nine.’
Ianthe lowered her head.
A long moment of silence followed, in which Ianthe suspected the twelve psychics were conversing. For all she knew, the whole room could be talking about her.
Finally, Sister Ulla pointed to one of the tables at the edge of the room, ‘Take a seat over there at the end,’ she said, ‘and fill your plate with whatever the other girls haven’t eaten. And don’t dilly dally. You’ll make the others late for bed.’
Ianthe retreated to the corner, where she found a space beside a fat girl with auburn hair.
‘And take those ghastly Unmer eyeglasses off,’ Sister Ulla added. ‘I won’t have them at the table.’
Ianthe hesitated.
‘You’ll remove them now, or go straight to bed without supper.’
Still Ianthe didn’t move. And then she got up and ran from the room, desperate to leave before anyone saw her tears.
The other girls burst into the dorm in a squall of breathless chatter, but Ianthe kept her head under the blanket and her mind firmly inside her own head. She heard whispering, followed by silence. And then someone said, ‘I don’t think she can read minds at all.’
‘Must we vocalize everything for her benefit?’
‘I don’t even sense a glimmer of talent.’
‘Why go to the trouble? It’s so tedious.’
‘Did you see her dress when she came in?’
‘I was too busy looking at her spectacles.’
They laughed.
Ianthe closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her own breathing. After a while she heard the creak of bedsprings, and then the dorm became deathly quiet. But the silence never really felt like silence at all. She couldn’t know what taunts passed between the other girls, but she imagined the worst. Like a shuttered gem lantern, the light continued to burn even if you couldn’t see it. The lack of sound was worse than anything.