Chapter five

Kate normally didn’t wear it for fear that one of the other children, or the nuns, would take it from her. Now, she tucked it inside her dress.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They ran for the door to the orphanage, supposedly always open because the Masked Goddess had found doors closed to her when she visited the world and had condemned those within. Kate and Sophia ran down the twists and turns of the corridors, coming out to the hallway, looking around for any pursuers.

Kate could hear them, but right then, there was only the usual sister beside the door: a fat woman who moved to block the way even as the two of them approached. Kate flushed red as she immediately recalled all the years of beatings she’d taken by her hands.

“There you are,” she said in a stern tone. “You’ve both been very disobedient, and—”

Kate didn’t pause; she hit her in the stomach with the poker, hard enough to double her up. Right then, she wished it were one of the elegant swords that courtiers wore, or maybe an axe. As it was, she had to settle for merely stunning the woman long enough for her and Sophia to run past.

But then, as Kate passed through the doors, she stopped.

“Kate!” Sophia yelled, panic in her voice. “Let’s go! What are you doing?!”

But Kate couldn’t control it. Even with the shouts of those in hot pursuit. Even knowing it was risking both of their freedom.

She took two steps forward, raised the poker high, and smashed the nun again and again across her back.

The nun grunted and cried with each blow, and each sound was music to Kate’s ears.

“Kate!” Sophia pleaded, on the verge of tears.

Kate stared at the nun for a long time, too long, needing to ingrain that picture of vengeance, of justice, into her mind. It would sustain her, she knew, for whatever horrific beatings might follow.

Then she turned and burst out with her sister from the House of the Unclaimed, like two fugitives from a sinking ship. The stink and noise and bustle of the city hit Kate, but this time she didn’t slow.

She held her sister’s hand and ran.

And ran.

And ran.

And despite it all, she took a deep breath and smiled wide.

However short it might be, ther had found freedom

Sophia had never been so afraid, but at the same time, she had never felt so alive, or so free. As she ran through the city with her sister, she heard Kate whoop with the excitement of it, and it both set her at ease and terrified her. It made this too real Their life would never be the same again.

“Quiet,” Sophia insisted. “You’ll bring them down on us.”

“They’re coming anyway,” her sister replied. “We might as well enjoy it.”

As if to emphasize the point, she dodged around a horse, snatched an apple from a cart, and ran across Ashton’s cobbles.

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