The Nine Bishops

For a moment, time seemed as frozen as Esteban and his men. The only sign that there was life in the circus was from the hot air coming from the onlooking Filth’s breath. The interior of the tent was as cold as winter, though the weather outside was mild. The first person to move was Mika, who could not help but drop to her knees in despair. She did not understand what had just happened, only that somehow she had failed her uncle horribly.

Seeing her drop, Sam quickly stepped towards her, seeing icy tears on her face. Mika, overcome by guilt, stared at the ground, refusing to lift her eyes to his. She was afraid to see what the mages had done to him because of her.

“Mika, are you all right?” Sam asked, seemingly more concerned about his niece than with the searing pain on his face.

Her eyes still fixed on the ground, Mika replied, “If you saw what I had done to your face, you would know I was far from all right.”

Sam, with all that had just transpired, had nearly forgotten that he was branded. He touched the brand mark on his left cheek and winced.

“If you saw what I saw when I looked at you, then you would know why I’m perfectly all right,” Sam said.

“How could you say that! I’ve killed you!” Mika screamed, finally meeting her uncle’s eyes. What she wouldn’t realize until later, when she caught a glance of herself in a mirror, was that her eyes were now an intense, icy blue.

“It’s all my fault,” she said, sobbing. Mika’s frozen tears shattered faintly as they hit the ground. “Why did you take the blame?” If only he was still busy at the box office, we would both be on our way Home, she thought, not daring to speak the words aloud here. She felt the tears on her cheeks freezing into tiny ribbons of ice.

“Mika, forget about the branding. It wasn’t nearly as painful as you might expect. Let’s go,” Sam said. “It’s time we went Home,” he finished in a whisper in her ear, knowing it would strike a chord in Mika. Sam put an arm around Mika’s waist and lifted her to her feet. She limply submitted to his direction. It wasn’t the pain Mika was worried about. Sam guided her away from the staring Filth onlookers and still-frozen mages and out of the tent.

Mika’s shame quickly transformed into confusion.

“How can we still go Home after this?” she whispered as they walked quickly toward the shack.

“There is nothing stopping a mage from going Home,” said Sam, quietly so just she could hear, looking at her with a sly grin distorted by the brand mark. The Filth who remained in the circus began to mumble amongst each other as Sam and Mika passed them.

Mika’s head was spinning. Too much had happened. The show was ruined, her uncle was branded, and the circus mages were frozen. She did not understand what he meant, but her eyes did not fool her. The mages in the room had been literally turned into ice sculptures, each one’s gaze fixated on her.

Mika knew only a mage could have done such a thing; that was common sense. The one thing she knew with even more certainty was the fact that she was a Filth. Her uncle had called her a mage! But mages were born with magic. Mika had never used magic, and there was no such thing as developing it.

“Listen, I know you’re confused,” Sam said as they ran, pulling Mika by the hand so hard he was nearly dragging her. “I know you didn’t want me to be branded, but everything is going to be all right. I can explain everything to you shortly, but Mika—we must leave now. There will be no leaving on the Seventh anymore. There will be no final performance. This was the final performance. It’s only a matter of time until the Hunters get word of what happened here and begin a search party. They will be looking for us. We have to go.”

He wanted to give Mika more time to gather her thoughts, but nothing he’d said was untrue. It was only a matter of time before one of the Filth attendees spoke of what had happened and authorities were on their way. Despite the chaos, Mika saw that six mages had been frozen to death, yet all the other Filth were unharmed. There were other witnesses, as well. It wouldn’t be long until the Hunters were on their trail. The Filth would say what the Hunters needed to hear if their lives were threatened.

Mika was bewildered, desperate for an explanation, but she held her tongue. Sam was the only one she could trust at this moment, and now they were running for their lives.

“Grab only what you need and can carry on your back,” Sam said as they reached the only home Mika knew. “We are leaving in two minutes.”

Mika only needed one. All she really wanted was the books she’d hidden in her secret compartment. She quickly secured them and a few other belongings in a satchel. Mika had always told herself that if she was going Home she would make it with just the clothes on her back. If Sam had told her she could not bring anything at all, she would have dropped it all in an instant, so desperate she was to go Home. She didn’t dare think at this moment how Sam would keep his promise after being branded.

Mika watched Sam packing furiously, curious about what he valued for the journey. She saw him grab a map, writing implements, and the pouch of coin they had been saving, and stuff them into the handmade carpetbag he took on advances. When Sam looked up to see if Mika was ready, she looked full-on at his brand for the first time.

It had wilted the entire left side of his face, so that Mika could scarcely recognize him. But behind the brand, Sam seemed more resilient and confident than ever, giving Mika the push she needed to tell him she was ready.

“Good, let’s go!” Sam said, his lopsided face curving into a smile at her determined tone. As he waved her out the door, Mika realized with a pang that this would be the last time she would ever see the place she had called home for the past twelve years. She hesitated a moment, looking back at everything she was leaving behind. If Aunt Bella had been here, she thought, she would have said: “If you want to go Home, then don’t ever look back.”

As they left the circus grounds by a back route, Mika suddenly realized they weren’t following the plan they had talked about. They were supposed to be heading east toward the Low Road, but they were heading in the opposite direction, away from the the last fading light of the sunset.

Mika’s broad education was about to be put to the test. For now, it was helping her with navigation; she had learned how to read the stars and find the cardinal directions from certain points in the sky.

“I thought the plan was to go east,” Mika told Sam, trying to catch her breath as they moved at a low run.

“That was the plan, but after what happened at the circus, we have to go west first,” Sam responded.

Mika didn’t understand why what happened at the circus would affect their plan. If anything, it meant they had less time to get to the Low Road. Then Mika realized the awful truth: her uncle was branded. There was no way he could ever go Home. No mage would hire him, no matter how valuable an asset he was. How could I have been so naïve? Mika thought, trying not to panic.

She knew this was not the time for questions, and that Sam would tell her what she wanted to know when the time was right. But now she was seized by fear that something would happen to him along the way. She ventured one more question.

“So if we are not going Home anymore, where are we going?”

It took Sam a while to reply. Mika feared he was choosing to ignore the question, but at last he said, quietly: “You are going Home. I am not. I’ll explain everything when we get to where we’re headed right now. For the time being, keep quiet so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. At this rate we will be there in an hour.”

Sam’s answer only led to more questions in Mika’s mind. She had never imagined the possibility that she would have to go Home all by herself. She had never been truly alone before, and the thought terrified her.

Mika spent the next hour thinking desperately of how she might persuade her uncle not to go a separate way. She knew Sam would only be motivated by what was in her best interest, but she also convinced herself that separating from each other was a bad idea. Sam may have a brand on his face, she reasoned, but he’s not the average Filth. He’s smart enough to come up with a plan for us to both get by together. If he couldn’t figure that out, Mika thought, she’d come up with a plan herself.

The pair traveled stealthily through the night, through unfamiliar back alleys, dirt roads, and forests that Mika had never seen before; she had never been more than thirty minutes outside of the circus grounds. She was unclear on how Sam knew so well where he was going, but he made turns and picked his way through dense woods with certainty. Mika followed him closely, coming close to panic every time they saw someone. Most mages and Filth would have retired for the night by now. She feared that every person who crossed their path was looking to capture them.

But for the most part, the people they saw were only drunk Filth finding their way home from the tavern. Or homeless Filth—there were many who had nowhere to live and had to stay on the move or risk being imprisoned for lack of work.

Mika and Sam were so deep into Southie that she doubted many mages lived in this area, but it seemed that almost every small place had businesses or shops run by mages, Anyway, the Hunters could show up anywhere.

Fortunately, it was the night of a full moon, which lit their path and made traveling off-road much easier. Mika could not imagine making this same trip on a moonless night. Several times, her clothes caught on brambles, which tore small rips into them. Not caring how disheveled she must look now, Mika drove forward, following her uncle as closely as she could. The only thing Mika wanted was ahead of them. Everything behind them was already gone.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sam stopped. They were in the middle of an open field, a truly beautiful spot, with the moon shining brightly above them. As they paused, Mika realized she was drenched in sweat from their fast pace. Sam pulled a canteen from his rucksack.

“Drink this,” he said, handing it over to her. Mika eagerly took the canteen and quenched her thirst. She saved some for her uncle and handed it back to him.

“No, that’s all for you. I have my own,” Sam said, shaking his head. Mika shrugged her shoulders and finished the rest of the water. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the canteen was all but dry.

“You’re probably wondering why I brought you here,” Sam said, as he walked toward a stone Mika hadn’t noticed earlier. Kneeling down by the stone, Sam suddenly lost the steely composure he’d maintained since the incident at the circus. In the moonlight, Mika could see tears glistening on his cheeks.

“She would have been so proud to see you today,” her uncle said, his voice breaking. Mika walked closer to the stone and saw a word had been scratched roughly into it. No, not a word, but a name: Bella.

Sam wiped the tears from his face.

“I should have brought you here sooner. As you know we Filth are not allowed to be buried when we pass, but Bella deserved more than the pyre. I haven’t been here since I first buried her here in secret. I was afraid if I told you the truth you would ask me to bring you here. This place has always reminded me of so much pain. However, today I am glad I am here, as it will bring me joy.”

Mika had never seen Sam cry, even after her aunt was killed. Sam had told Mika that they had put her on the pyre, as was tradition when Filth passed. It was something she had always accepted. For a while, Mika had thought that perhaps Sam hadn’t cared that much about Bella. But in this moment, she realized it was because he had loved Bella so much that he’d stayed strong. She sensed that today, a burden on his heart was being lifted, a burden that pained him more than his branding, something he could not truly let go of until now.

“Remember when I told you what happened to your aunt?” Sam said, as he rifled through his rucksack. “I lied about one other thing, to help you ease the pain of her loss.”

He pulled a hammer out of his bag.

“She was still alive when I got to her, after the accident.”

Sam stood over the stone, hammer in hand.

“She only had enough life in her to tell me one thing,” he said, pausing for a long look into Mika’s eyes before turning back to look at Bella’s name on the stone.

“She said Mika is the only one who can change things,” Sam finished, before swinging the hammer into Bella’s gravestone, smashing it to pieces.

Mika didn’t know whether to be horrified or inspired. Or what to think about her aunt’s last words, or her uncle’s perplexing response.

Her heart pounding in confusion, she watched as Sam pulled something from the shattered pieces of rock. It seemed to be a jewelry box of some sort. Sam pulled off the small chain he always wore around his neck, from which dangled a tiny key. There was a click as Sam inserted the key into the jewelry box and drew from it another necklace, a chain made of twine with a pendant that was an unremarkable-looking, colorless gem. The necklace was something a child could have put together.

“Come over here, so I can put this on you,” Sam said, motioning to Mika.

Mika approached slowly, her head buzzing with questions. Sam had gone to such extremes to get her here, and even destroyed what seemed to be his last material memory of her Aunt Bella. Mika wondered for a moment whether what her uncle had destroyed was actually Bella’s grave. The one thing she was certain about was that there was something special about this necklace.

Mika turned around and pulled her hair up so Sam could gently fasten the necklace around her neck. Looking down, Mika watched as, at the moment it made contact with her skin, the colorless gem changed, turning instantly into a pale blue—the same pale blue as her eyes.

She turned around to show her uncle, whose damaged face once again curved into a smile.

“What does that mean?” Mika asked, looking down at the gem in wonderment.

In the same grand way he had always told Mika that he had brought her books back “from the castle,” Sam said, smiling widely now: “It means you are the true heir to the throne.”