As the day drew closer, Simon did all of the rites that had beeioned for the fictitious Silent Saint, no matter how trivial. These were carried out as faithfully as the text allowed, even though he wasn’t sure that anyone was actually watg him. He took a vow of silence for the winter, dressed in harsh sackcloth robes, and fasted for the week leading up to the feast, abstaining from everything besides water and, strangely enough, beer.

  In times such as these, it arently all the monks were allowed to drink. He supposed it made sense from a caloric perspective, but even so, it felt strao be drinking that much after going so long without any alcohol.

  He even prayed to a Goddess that he didn’t believe in every m, just to cover all of his bases, though he wasn’t sure that was strictly necessary. The few friends and acquaintances he’d made during his time iy drifted away during all of this, but they weren’t important in the grand scheme of things. Not pared to the Unspoken and their secrets. The only thing that might have been enough to shake him free of this goal now that he’d set it would be a lead on his evil twin, and that didn’t seem likely.

  So, after all of those preparations were made, on the night of the new moon that occurred just after the start of spring, he made the long, cold walk to the Temple of Hypaltia. This was a holy day for the saint because it was the huime of the year. Everyone had survived the winter, and the pnting of fields had started, but the fruits of the harvest were still a long way off.

  The symbolism was iing. Simon didn’t kly how it was supposed to trao fighting the evils of witchcraft exactly, but he po as he walked down the empty dawn streets toward his destination.

  Unlike some of the graemples iy of Darndelle, it was a small building that was barely more than a shrih four walls and a roof. It was made of local sandstone instead of imported marble.

  Unlike everyone else, that, at least, made seo him. Winter wasn’t nearly as sexy a cept to sell to prospective worshipers as rophecy, or disease. Famine and harvest weren’t even ascribed to this Goddess either, so there was no mortal dread to vince people to worship her beyond the endless cold of her season. As a result, the Gods and Goddesses of those things all had much cooler temples and shrines.

  When he arrived, he found the pce empty, except for a few flickering dles oar. That didn’t disce him. If this was a wild goose chase, there would be nobody here this time of day. Oher hand, if this was a test, and he really had been following a trail hidden across dozens of books and a handful of libraries, well… He hadn’t seen anyone else studying feverishly o him in the library, so he doubted very much that there would be two people attending the Feast of Paupers.

  Simo on the cold stone and prayed. Well, he mouthed the words to the prayers he’d memorized about the sing nature of winter and how it would sweep aestilend strehe hearts of men and all that, but there was no belief behind those words. He had to repeat them several times until the dles had burned out and the thin light of dawn was creeping through the door. That was when someone finally came for him.

  A white cloak came behind Simon, and after a tap on the shoulder, he helped Simon to his feet. Then, without a word, he escorted Simon to the back wall and revealed a secret door that led to a dark hallway. He’d been expeg, or at least hoping for, something like this, but still, the theatriature of the thi him a little awed. It was like he’d been pying an open-world video game up until now, and he’d actally stumbled onto a real quest line.

  The hall led to a smaller room, and it took Simon’s eyes a mio adjust to the gloom, but as he did so, he saw what he’d been hoping to see: a meager table set in the ter of the room. It had twelve pces set with dishes. At the head of the table, the pce was set with fine a and a chalice. Things deteriorated rather quickly as his gaze drifted dowable, though.

  The seats closest to the head still had ceramic ptes and gsses, and the ones further down had wooden bowls s and mismatched utensils. It was only the seats farthest from that point, at the foot of the table, that were entirely empty.

  Besides the two of them, the room was empty. No one was seated at any of them. The white robbed figure said nothiher. He merely gestured for Simon to take a seat.

  Simon had expected this part. I few weeks, he’d reread all the parables he’d found and knew what it was he should do here, so without any deliberation, he walked over and sat in the rickety chair at the foot of the table.

  The virtues ascribed to the saint iories he’d read were quite clear. Silence was right at the top, Which meant that you had to dispy your virtue rather than speak it, but there was a whole undry list of others, and right he top was humility and poverty. So, he sat there, and he waited.

  He had a few ideas about what would happe, but first, he had to endure aest of patience as they left him alone in the dark for some time. Later, uests started to file in. All of them wore white cloaks and sat at the far end of the table. They ignored him, and though he preteo do likewise, he studied them ily. There was nothing to be learhough. Beyond the fact that he thought they might be talking together in several different nguages, they were mostly discussing the feast and the ing year. The torment only truly became difficult when the food started to arrive.

  Simon haden in over a week now, and his stomach growled audibly as the first course came in and was served to the already initiated on the far side of the table. Twenty feet wasn’t enough to spare him from the smells of grilled meat and roasted vegetables, and his hunger was magnified five-fold before they even put a pte down in front of Simon.

  That was a cruel move. The feast had started extravagantly at the head of the table, and as it moved down, each man had been given smaller and less appetizing portions, though they ate them just the same. For Simon, though, they had heaped the delicacies high. Looking down, he could see he had his choice of roast pheasant, braised ribs, warm bread, hot buttered potatoes, and half a dozen other sides.

  It was a true feast, but he couldn’t have any of it, and he marveled at the cruelty of the thing. It was as tormented as he’d ever felt in a situation i where pain wasn’t involved. His stomach protested his restraint loudly as he sat there with his head bowed and his hands folded in prayer.

  Simon was forced to ehat se for the best part of an hour. It was only when everyone else had ed their ptes, and the food on Simon’s pte had long since grown cold, that the uests left, taking their oil mps with them and leaving him in the dark. He was there for just long enough to wonder if he’d fucked something up before the hooded maered and, with a gesture for Simon to follow him, led him down a different hallway.

  This oo an even smaller room. There was no food here, just a r firepd two chairs set in front of it.

  The white-robed man took off his hood then and sat down in the far chair. “You’ve doo follow our clues, Ennis,” the man said in the same voice that Simon had thought of as the boss in their enter the year before. He wasn’t quite as old as Simon imagined him. He had close-cropped bck hair with only a sprinkling of gray to go with his pierg green eyes. “I thought you would make it this far, though, So that’s no surprise. Did you enjoy your feast?”

  Simon sat there quietly, then, after a moment, decided to nod ohis was likely some other straest, and it would be a shame to blow it at the finish line like this.

  That response made the other man ugh a little. Then he said, “That’s fair enough. Silence is the orait that all members of the unspoken must have, though in your case, it will have to be rather more strictly enforced.”

  Simon looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but the white cloak was already speaking again. “Let me expin,” he tinued. “You already know that we are witch hunters and that we keep the evils of magi corrupting society in all the nds we hold sway. That’s why you want to join us, yes?”

  Simon nodded again. That much wouldn’t hurt. At this stage, he expected that if he rejected their offer, death would e swiftly.

  “Well, all of that is true, but that’s only the most surface level. Up until now, you have only discovered the brothers who do the fighting and dying. You might have even discovered a sister or two. There are other roles, though,” the man nodded. “You ck the gift of the gods to be a proper brother, and you’re pletely unfit to be a whisperer, but I knew from the moment we figured out you weren’t a warlock waiting to happen that you would make for a perfect archivist.”

  The ma on to expin what that role was exactly, and with each revetion, he found it harder and harder not to salivate. The brothers killed the witches and warlocks, but they rarely destroyed the trappings of either on their own. Instead, they brought those things back to be uood and disposed of. Sometimes, that meaing fake histories to repce real ones, but more often, that meant unraveling the mysteries of relid grimoires so that the Unspoken would be better prepared for such tricks.

  “We ot entrust these secrets with any who might actually use them, though, you uand?” he repeated. “Every brother in our ht use the words of power if he sought to damn his immortal soul. So it falls to people like you tanize and safeguard knowledge that will forever be beyond you.”

  Simon nodded again, sweating now from the heat of the small room. He wasn’t nervous, though; he was certain that this was the right path. He didn’t eveo follow it for years if he didn’t want to. Just a few days or weeks in such a forbidden library, and he might be able to answer dozens of questions that had been a mystery to him up until now. He was more than eager to start down this road, even if he had to keep up this silly vow of sileil it was time to turn back toward Ionia.

  “Do you uand, then?” the green-eyed man asked, reag over and pig up a hot iron from where it had beeing among the coals before practically holding the burning red metal in Simon’s face. “You are a bright young man and good with words, but from each of us, a sacrifice is called for, and in your case… well, you ’t do the job we require if you are capable of whispering those secrets to another soul, you? If you want this, there’s only one way forward.”

  Simon nodded, slowly uanding. This is going to fuck up my ruhought to himself as he sidered the man’s words. They didn’t just want a vow of silehey wanted something more irrevocable than that. That made sense. Whoever they entrusted this knowledge to would be incredibly dangerous if they could actually use it themselves.

  Still, it’s worth it, though, right? He argued with himself. If I do this, I get a look inside - I could find out all kinds of ihings, even if I ’t use them until my life. I see Elthena then…

  It was a terrible decision, but once he’d made it, there was no going back, a his tongue off.