The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Sixteen

Warder Estate

The Book of the New Moon Door cover image: A book with yellowing, wrinkled pages lies open on an old wooden desk, with a sprig of lavender lying in the center.

“There’s a message here for you, Sister,” Brother Risoven says.

Isabel looks up from the tiny desk in the chapel’s spare room, on which lies the remains of the sample of red fungus. It is all but entirely crumbled into dust. Risoven stands in the doorway, holding out a small, folded paper sealed with wax.

She takes it. The wax is red, the seal a stylized W set above the image of a fence on what might be a grassy hill. It lifts easily when she slides a finger underneath it. The handwriting is old-fashioned, canted sharply to the left with tall, thin loops.

Sentinel Rainier, it reads,

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Fifteen

Lady Breckenridge

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Berend turns on his heel and starts walking north again, between rows of leaning Shell District construction. He places one foot in front of the other, parallel with the dirty gutter, and at each cross street he moves from one corner to the next, careful not to give himself even the chance to make an unintended turn.

This route should lead him to the place where the Shell district and the West Gate meet, just outside the Temple District. It might not be exactly where he was turned around before, but it should be close. Would he see some kind of shimmering barrier, like in the old stories? Three days ago, he wouldn’t have believed it. Now he’s ready to believe anything. It’s a dangerous state to be in, and he knows it.

I’m not going mad, I’m not going mad, he says to himself with each careful step. There’s an explanation and I’m going to find it.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Fourteen

Deflection

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Berend wakes up from the sort of dreamless, black unconsciousness he cultivated on long marches as a young man. As much as the discoveries of last night—indeed, of the last few days—unsettled him, his body needed sleep, and would get it however it could.

He picks himself up and goes to the door of his room. On the floor outside is a tray, with a dish of still-cold butter and another with several pieces of hearty brown bread. An envelope sits between the plates. Berend’s other clothes, now clean of the dust and rot of the manor and its ghost, lie in a neatly folded stack to one side.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Thirteen

Warehouse

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Gregor is silent as he leads Berend and Isabel through the dim, grimy streets of the Shell District. It’s been more than a full day since the last rain, but the gutters are still wet, the runoff blackened with the city’s filth. A faint, putrid miasma hangs above the street, held in by the overhanging buildings. Gregor’s lantern does little to push the shadows away.

They’re heading for the West Gate, where the highway enters Mondirra. It receives all the overland traffic, and the city divides its industry between it and the River District. Isabel has been there exactly twice: once to enter, and once to leave, when she was here last. She had been an apprentice, then, young and wide-eyed at the marvels of the largest city she had ever seen, following at the heels of her teacher.

Mondirra isn’t as fascinating and glamorous as she remembers. Now, she mostly sees the dirt.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Twelve

Sterry the Bastard

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Berend leaves the tavern with a bit of a swagger, and it’s enough to draw the patrons’ eyes away from Isabel in her blacks. She slips out after him and tells herself not to run.

It isn’t often that a Sentinel needs to hide. They are dressed to stand out—if there were to be a sudden outbreak of the reanimated dead, or, gods forbid, the appearance of a vampire, it would waste precious time to have to find the nearest Sentinel by asking everyone for identification. Isabel’s conspicuousness had served Berend as a distraction, but now she needs not to be followed. She tucks her hat under her arm and keeps her head down.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Eleven

Shell District

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“Well, the evening is still young,” Berend says, rising from the table. “Shall we?”

The sun has set out of the range of the narrow window, but the sky is still light, a soft blue-gray tinged with fiery orange. Sailors and dockworkers are filling the bar, encroaching on the space around the corner table. They have a somber demeanor about them, besides the normal heaviness of a long day’s work, and their eyes dart warily across the room; word of the lighthouse keeper’s murder must have spread.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Ten

River District

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There are, Berend knows, two establishments in the River District appropriate for the hushed exchange of information. One is a tavern, poorly lit and more poorly maintained, but adequately supplied with good liquor; the other could generously be called a coffeehouse though the substance it served was only tangentially related to coffee. He chooses the former, and leads Isabel through the growing crowds of returning sailors.

The money from the Belisia job is heavy in his pocket. He’s done well for himself. Still, he trusts Lord Edwan about as far as he can throw the man, and he can’t shake the feeling that he’s just been paid to cover up the murder of the poor girl he saw in the light of Lucian Warder’s device.

He tells himself he’s done what he can. He almost believes it.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Nine

Belisia, Again

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Berend wakes close to noon in his room at the Fox and Dove. He slept, and soundly, but it feels as though he hasn’t. His back aches and his eyes are heavy.

The carriage ride back from the Belisia estate had been tensely silent on Berend’s part, but Lucian Warder had given no indication that he noticed. He made notes in his book for the first hour and then had slept, leaning on the case that contained his strange device.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Eight

Wryght

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“I found this, under the bed,” says Isabel, concluding her retelling of the previous evening’s events to Brother Risoven. She hands him the lacquered bead before standing to gather the breakfast dishes.

Risoven holds up the bead and moves his lenses in and out from his face with the other hand. His owlish eyes squint and blink. Finally, he lowers both hands, turning the small object between his fingers.

“It’s a prayer bead,” he says, with equal measures of confidence and confusion.

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The Book of the New Moon Door: Chapter Seven

The Old Ghost

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She’s starting to think of it as real, this demon of legend, like a living thing she’s searching for in the dark corners of the city. Isabel sits back on the heels of her well-worn travel boots, letting her skirts fall around her and bringing the arm not holding the lantern in toward her chest. It’s cold, and the wind blows freely through the open aperture of the lighthouse. On the positive side, however, the temperature keeps the body from reeking after what looks like a couple of hours since death.

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