The shared silence was broken by a single knock at the door. Teacups were halted in their ascent from saucer to lip, suspended in the air by slender fingers.

“Judith. Judith. Did I not tell you?” A mellifluous voice, clear as a bell and twice as sharp.

“You did tell me, Inquisitor.”

“And did I not say, did I not?”

“You did say.”

“Ha! Well, well. I wonder what is needed of us.”

“Shall I, Inquisitor?”

A nod, simple and refined. The teacup reached its destination and the figure in the chair took a small sip as her companion shuffled to the door. The red and black robed nun took a moment to locate the ring of keys, and when she lifted them from the hook a thread of old spider webs stuck to the metal. For a moment, neither was sure if the lock would actually open, but after a hard twist with both hands the bolt slid home with a smooth, solid click. The hinges were stiff, and though regularly oiled they did not open gracefully. The door itself was larger than average, twice the average height and decorated with embellished golden mullions.

Lydia stood to attention as it swung inwards before her. As always, she was immaculate. No hint of the night’s activities, or her subsequent inability to get even a single wink of sleep, showed on her face. Facing her, Sister Judith stood inside the sun room with the morning light framing her with dappled golden beams, gesturing her to enter. Lydia stepped inside, and was possibly the first outsider to do so in several decades.

The room was unseasonably warm. Humid even, but not the point of becoming unpleasant. Around the domed ceiling grew trellised plants, ivies and spindly roses, that filled the chamber with sweet scent. Every wall was a window, and every window was garlanded with blooms. The ceiling itself was more than two stories high, and metal circular staircases wound their way to various apertures and platforms.

“It has been a long time since we have entertained anyone from the monastery proper. Do you seek counsel, Sister?” It was the figure in the wicker chair who spoke. A sheer mesh veil obscured half her face, fastened beneath a small priest’s hat. The lips that moved in time to these words were a perfect red.

“Yes, Sister. Your help is sorely needed, this past month has just been one nightmare after another, I...”

The seated woman held up a hand and Lydia’s speech drifted to a halt.

“Tea?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said: Tea? It means: Would you like some tea?” Her crimson lips formed the words slowly, with a dripping condescension hovering as a smile at the edges. Lydia cleared her throat, and clasped her hands at her waist much as Sister Judith was doing behind her.

“Yes, Sister. Thank you. Tea would be appreciated.”

The woman nodded to Judith, who scurried forwards with her strange shuffling gait. With practised ease she poured the water - still hot - over the leaves.

“You know the second pour of the day is always the best. The temperature of the water is important, and I first prefer a bitter cup.” The veiled nun moved her hands as though in ceremony, placing cubes of sugar into each cup. She did not ask Lydia if she wanted sugar. “My first cup uses boiling water, to perfect that bitterness. In a few minutes, the water is the perfect temperature for a long brew of sweet jasmine.”

Judith had finished pouring, and had returned to her seat - a small, dimpled velvet footstool - on the opposite side to the table. She motioned for Lydia to help herself to a cup, and pointed her to her own footstool. It was uncomfortably low, making her look up into the shadowed eyes of her haughty conversation partner. It was a battle of superiority, and she was losing.

“You know, many of us see this tower as rather dreary, you can’t tell from the outside just how light and airy it is in here.” Lydia began.

“There was a massacre.”

“Beg pardon?”

“In this tower. A massacre.” She was doing it again, repeating her words in that nauseatingly slow voice as though talking to a toddler. “Many moons ago, just after Palus Somni had been sold to the Alucinari. When the first Mother Superior arrived here to collect the final documents she was expecting a welcoming party. She was met only with a trail of blood leading to the Lord’s orangery tower. As it happened, one of the maids had gone mad. Maid, uh…”

“Maid Mina.” Judith added.

“Maid Mina. She killed the Lord Mallory at his desk. Knife straight through the throat, his head was almost completely severed by the force of her fishknife through the gullet. Some of the other servants, too, had been killed. An accountant, I think, and a visitor from the city. It made the headlines across the country.”

“Gosh.”

“Indeed. As you can see, it was necessary right from our inception to maintain an inquisitorial branch of the covenant. There was no national police force back then, and the Bow Street Runners wouldn’t come out so far from the city. The Church kept their own investigators, and it was one of my predecessors who detained Maid Mina and punished her accordingly.”

She paused to put down her teacup. The light filtered through her veil but revealed nothing of the upper part of her face. Thick bunches of dark brown hair girdled her face with a well-kempt softness, while her silken dress shon with hues of red and green, ringed with gold. A far cry from even the most stylish of cotton habits in Lydia’s collection.

“I am Saint Francesca of the Inquisition, but you,” She paused to let the honeyed command sink in, extending an ivory pale hand, “can call me Cesca.”

Lydia took it, and was about to reply with her own introduction when the proffered hand grew tight around her fingers, manicured nails digging into her skin.

“What do you mean by ‘this past month’?” Her grip remained firm, and she used this as leverage to draw the Orison closer to her seat.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I’m not sure I understand, Sister.” Lydia was unsure what term of address to use for her. She had never met a canonized Alucinari in the flesh before. Were Saints also Sisters? Either way, Cesca did not seem to mind.

“You said yourself, ‘this past month has just been one nightmare after another.’ Why has it taken you so long to contact us?”

She let go of her hand with a smile, a smile that said that nothing had happened, that her hand was perfectly fine. A smile that said if she contended that, she would lose. Lydia looked down at her palm and saw that the indents from the fingernails had broken the skin.

“Sister Cesca, I have been working hard to maintain order in this convent. It was going well. I had it under control, until yesterday.”

“Oh? Forgive me, I did not realise the Mother Superior now dressed as such.” She twisted her fingers in the air, gesturing to Lydia’s habit with a curl on her lip. It was an obvious trap, but the cage was already closing.

“I am not the Mother Superior. She is away on business, and left me in charge.”

“You are not the Mother Superior.” Cesca repeated these words in her slow, condescending way. “Yes, that’s right. You are not the Mother Superior, and you should have come to me the moment that Etude was killed.”

Lydia wasn’t even surprised that she knew about that. The two denizens of the tower were supplied with food and clothing, their every need seen to. It was only to be expected that they were provided with news, too. She made a mental note to find out who brought them their meals.

“Now tell me, what have you done.” Cesca’s tone, laced with the pseudo-cadence of maternal concern, made her feel like she was the one on trial.

“I have locked an acolyte in the old ice house.”

“I see.”

“She was caught defiling a grave.”

“Oh my.”

Lydia paused, sensing a certain hostility from her hosts as they sat, impassive, listening to her tale.

“Is this not something you can help with? This is cause for alarm, is it not?”

In a flash Cesca clasped the arms of her chair with a grip so strong the wood creaked under her fingers, betraying the ferocity beneath her calm exterior. Then it was gone, and she was back to her demure self with no hint of the fire that raged beneath her breast.

“I’m sure we could make time to examine your little gravedigger. Judith, remind me?”

“The penalty for sacrilegious acts is highest only to one other; two hundred and eight lashes, Inquisitor.” Judith intoned from memory.

“Indeed. But what, pray, is the punishment for unsanctioned witchcraft?”

“Witchcraft practised as part of any external divine or profane influence is to be tolerated, except in an instance where it brings the practitioner into disobedience with the Alucinari charter. Then the penalties will be enacted-”

“Wait,” Lydia attended to cut in.

“-one level above what would normally be sufficient.” Judith finished.

“So you see, Sister,” Cesca turned her face to Lydia with a smile, “she will be disciplined to the highest extent of the law. She will face our greatest punishment.”

“Wille is not a witch, Sister, she is only-” Lydia swallowed.

“She digs up the graves of the murdered at midnight. It is witchcraft, is it not, Judith?”

“Yes Inquisitor. The Book of Eight Laws specifies that the tampering of bodies, both living and dead, is considered witchcraft as, in this case, the corpse cannot consent to the moving of their remains beyond the grave. To violate the accord of the dead is to violate a law of nature, thus making it witchcraft.”

The room was still for a moment as Lydia gathered herself enough to ask the question she was sure she would not like the answer to.

“Please remind me, I am not as well read in legal theory, what is the greatest punishment we can give?”

“Why Sister, look around you. We enshrine it, we bless it, for it is our saviour from Sin. Do you see it? Glory be!” She gestured to the largest of all the stained window frescoes. It depicted a man, his eyes fixed upwards upon the moon, as flames licked up his tattered habit. His hands were bound on either side to a T-shaped wooden stake.

“Yes, yes. We will burn the witch. From ice to ash she will go, and it will be glorious.”

“Sister. Inquisitor. With all due respect, I must object. We cannot kill her, I do not want her dead! She’s… We grew up together. I wished only to settle this dispute appropriately, and within-”

Cesca held up her hand.

“This is the law, and it shall be followed. But first, we should really be talking about your own punishment.”

“My what?”

“Judith?” Cesca ran a hand through her hair in exasperation.

“Not immediately notifying the inquisition of a tragedy. Taking on the authorities of a Mother Superior without due procedure. Impersonating a Mother superior.”

“Given the circumstances, and given your graciousness in seeking us out, we will be lenient. Judith?”

“Yes, Inquisitor. The mildest punishment for insurrection is to be branded, the brand must portray a suitable scene from the tales of the saints.”

“What? No, I didn’t, I don’t…” Lydia’s view of the room warped and bent as though sinking under water, washed out and distorted. It took her a moment to realise she was crying, with tears so thick she could barely see through them. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried. She couldn’t remember anything, and as the tears weaved their way through her fingers and cascaded down her arms her head began to feel light. It did not come as a surprise to the two Inquisitors when she slumped to the floor in a faint. It was almost as though they had been expecting it.

“Put her on the couch, will you?” Cesca stepped over Lydia’s prone figure, her gown sweeping the floor. In the time it took Judith to pick up the Orison and lay her to rest inside the tower, Cesca had left.

She had a mighty stride for one so cloistered, taking two steps at a time and moving at such a pace that Judith with her scurrying gait was left far behind her. She left the tower and marched across the lawn as though she did this every day, quite unlike someone who hadn’t been out under the naked rays of the sun in many years. It was a group, gathered by the wall, who she made towards.

“Sisters. Good morning. I am Inquisitor Francesca, and I am in charge until the Mother Superior returns. You may call me Cesca, and this is my assistant the Lawyer Judith.” She gestured behind her to the struggling figure, before returning her hand firmly to her hip, her inner fire giving her a righteous presence that extended further than her physical body.

“Sister Cesca…I was not expecting anyone to be leaving the tower anytime soon. You are welcome, of course. And you are right on time.” It was Magda who spoke first, her words partially obfuscated by the grinding sound from behind her.

“Indeed? How exciting. On time for what?”

“To see the wall come down.”

As was her custom, Magda had been on her morning walk around the perimeter. It was a chance to smoke, and explore her own mind and the previous night’s dreams without any interference. A time to recharge, only this time it was broken by the noise of rock being milled into gravel.

“It hasn’t been here long, but it doesn’t seem to mind the sun. Come.”

Isidore was already up on the wall, looking down on the creature from between the merlons. It was the flat-headed Gol from the village, using it’s gigantic slablike teeth to chew a path through the wall.

“But does the sun not bother it?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t seem to mind. Something’s got it riled up. Look at it’s head.” The broad cranium was covered now in weeping pustules, as though experiencing severe burns.

“Fascinating.” Cesca said.

“Worrying, more like. At this rate, it’ll be through the wall in hours. Maybe a day at most,” Isidore replied, “That trip - the quicklime - all for nothing! We thought we were bringing back safety, but we may have just saved time and brought the wall down ourselves.”

Beneath their feet the Gol continued it’s relentless chewing, paying them no heed, a mushy mixture of grit and saliva dripping from either side of its mouth.