A servant was waiting for them in the parking lot when they landed. As Tatiana watched him push a button on the side of the drone, she slapped her forehead, “I’m an idiot.”
“It wouldn’t have worked if you pushed it,” Kadeem remarked, “I programmed it not to recognize you or Alister.”
“Speaking of Alister,” Tatiana pointed at his limp form on the stretcher, “Is he okay?”
Kadeem approached the stretcher, surveying Alister from head to toe. Alister opened his eyes a crack and signed to Kadeem.
“What did he say?” Tatiana asked as the servant wheeled away the stretcher.
“None of your business,” Kadeem marched towards the Holy Place, pausing to call over his shoulder, “Are you coming?”
Tatiana followed him into the building. He led her to a familiar looking room, the phone still on the desk exactly as she had left it. As soon as Kadeem left, she stripped off her clothes and jumped into the shower. Midway through, it occurred to her that she wasn’t supposed to get her cast wet. She stuck the cast outside the curtain and continued her ablutions. After showering, she lay on the bed in a stupor. Too much had been happening too fast, and unable to process it all, her mind simply shut down.
There was a knock at the door, and Tatiana wrapped a sheet around herself and staggered across the room to open the door a crack. She could see the flutter of red robes as a servant walked away from her room. A neatly folded robe sat on the ground with an orange sash on top. Thrilled, Tatiana picked up the pile and donned her orange belt. “Look who’s moving up the ladder,” she said to herself. The phone rang and she answered it guiltily, as if the person on the other end of the line had heard her.
“Her Holiness Priest Mina would be pleased if Your Holiness would join her for dinner,” Kadeem said politely.
“Who are you and what have you done with Kadeem?”
“We shall see you shortly,” Kadeem hung up with a click.
Tatiana adjusted her sash and exited into the hallway. With no idea which direction to go, she turned right and followed the corridor around until it branched off. Spotting two servants, she ran after them. “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to, uh, the dining room, I guess?”
“Is Your Holiness dining with others or by herself?” the woman responded with lowered eyes.
“I’m supposed to meet Mina, I mean, Her Holiness Mina.”
“If it pleases Your Holiness to follow me,” the woman turned and headed down the left side of the fork.
Tatiana trailed behind her, slightly unnerved by her deference. No one in Egregia would ever behave that way. The hallway continued in a loop, terminating at a set of double doors. The servant opened the doors and bowed. Tatiana stepped inside, her jaw slackening with amusement as she took in the room. A long table that could comfortably sit twenty was set for four. There was a plate at each end, one in the middle, with the final place setting to the right of the foot. The table was dressed in a white tablecloth with a rainbow runner, two heavy candelabra filling in the empty space. Tatiana chose the spot in the center. No sooner had she pulled out her chair, than Mina entered the room flanked by Kadeem.
“Good to see you again, Tatiana,” Mina smiled and sat at one end of the table.
“Good to see you too, uh, is Alister okay?”
Before Mina could answer, the doors opened again and Alister limped into the room sitting gingerly next to Kadeem.
“Let’s get down to business,” Mina’s face turned serious, “I have a serious problem on my hands: two priests left Citadel without permission from the Order, and were planning a rebellion.”
“We weren't planning a rebellion,” signed Alister, “We went to serve a group of people who had no priest.”
“If your intent was holy, you should have asked permission from the Order instead of sneaking out a side door.”
“The weakness of a chain-of-command systems lays in their unquestioning deference to higher-ups,” Alister reached over and moved the candelabra off the table, “I accept full responsibility for subverting the system.”
“Full responsibility?” Mina placed a notebook on the table, “For this too?”
“I don't know what that is,” Alister’s brows pinched together.
Tatiana eyed the notebook with a slow dawning realization. With its plain red cover and wire binding, it could belong to anyone. But even from across the table she could make out the lazy figure eights she had drawn across the cover. It was the notebook she had written in during the long quiet days in Tate's cabin, the notebook that had caught her tears and captured her dreams.
Mina flipped open the notebook and read from a page, “‘What would happen if every cursed person rushed the gates of Citadel?’” she flipped a few pages forward, “or how about this one: ‘Every citizen of Citadel should call their priest, and if he won’t listen they should overthrown him.’” Mina closed the notebook, “The ideas in this book are sacrilegious and an affront to the beliefs of the Order.”
“How did you get my notebook?” Tatiana couldn't help but feel for the ridge of her current notepad inside her sash.
“Kadeem turned it over to me,” Mina looked sternly at her, “I have no choice but to hold both of you on a travel restriction. You are to remain in this Holy Place until further notice.”
“Is that all?” Alister rose from his chair.
“Dinner should be here any minute. Don’t you want to eat?” Mina’s forehead creased with concern.
“I’m not hungry,” Alister put a hand against the wall to steady himself as he left. Kadeem took his arm, and Alister jerked away from him.
“Here we go again,” Tatiana remarked as they left the room.
Mina looked at her thoughtfully, “You don’t act like a woman in love.”
“Uh, why would I?”
“Kadeem said that you were in love with Alister and I should keep you two separate.”
“Right. I’m in love with a perpetually moody asexual priest who only wants me for my . . .” Tatiana sucked in her bottom lip.
“Notebook,” finished Mina. Behind her a servant set down a plate of rice.
Tatiana blinked at her, “He didn't know about that notebook.”
Mina waited for the servant to set down a bowl of yellow curry before responding, “I understand where you're coming from, but trying to start a city of refuge is a bad idea.”
“I don't think I-”
“Let me finish,” Mina put some rice on her plate, “First of all, you would have to find a border town that agrees not only to accept the cursed, but to legally protect them. Secondly, you're going to have a lot of backlash from people you would otherwise like. They will do everything in their power to stop you, because they are afraid of the cursed.”
“I never wrote down anything like that,” Tatiana reached across the table for the notebook. Instead, Mina slid the rice in her direction. It stopped short of reaching distance, and Tatiana stood.
“Move your plate closer so we can talk,” Mina labeled curry over her rice, “Anyway, it’s obvious that this isn't really your notebook. I know you're trying to defend Alister, but you shouldn't. Everyone knows he’s a rebel, that he’ll try to escape, blah-blah-blah. But you, we could probably get out of here. You were just following orders.”
Tatiana sat to the right of Mina and reached for the rice, “But that's not true.”
“Never go into politics,” Mina took a bite of curry.
Tatiana spooned curry over the rice, watching the yellow broth soak into the rice. The tofu remained at the top, flanked by carrots and onions. Politics was a good word for it. At the moment she couldn’t tell who was on her side and who was against her. Even Kadeem was behaving oddly. She took a bite of the curry as she turned it over in her head. It was heavy with coconut milk, the punch of spice hitting the back of her tongue like a pleasant aftertaste.
“Well, if you’re going to be here for a while, I’m going to give you homework. I’d like you to start reading The Enchiridion,” Mina speared a piece of tofu with her fork and waved it at her, “I’m assuming you’ve never read it before.”
After dinner, a servant escorted her to her room. She tried calling her parents, but could not dial out of the building. With a slow-rising sense of anxiety, she opened the door to her room. A male and female servant sat on either side of her door. “Your Holiness is to stay in her room by order of her Holiness Mina,” the male intoned.
Tatiana shut the door without responding. Reluctantly, she opened the heavy book on her desk, reading the first words of The Enchiridion. “In the beginning,” she read, “there was song.”
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