Sister Sophia is reading us passages about the Brotherhood’s increasingly restrictive measures in the early 1800s, back when they first outlawed theater and public dances. It seems silly to focus on things that happened nearly a hundred years ago when we could be talking about the protest yesterday or all the girls being snatched up. Hardly anyone is paying attention. The fire in the hearth is burning hot enough to make the room feel close and drowsy. In front of me, studious Pearl copies down notes on her slate, but Alexa’s blond head is nodding and Maud and Eugenia are passing notes. To my left, Rilla’s drawing hearts on her slate with her pencil.
To my right, Mei is counting her ivory mala beads and worrying about her sisters. Her brother Yang came to the convent last night with the disquieting news that Li and Hua had snuck out to the protest and were among the two hundred people arrested by the Brothers’ guards. There isn’t enough room for them in the New London prison, so they’re being held like cattle in a warehouse along the river.
“Baba went to see them, and the guards gave him a talking-to for raising right troublesome girls,” Mei told us last night. “He thinks they’ll hold the men a few days, to teach ’em a lesson, and put the women on trial for public indecency.”
Nothing good can come from that. I glance over at Mei, whose mouth is moving in a silent mantra as she thumbs the beads draped over her middle finger.
There are heavy footsteps in the hall, and Sister Gretchen appears in the doorway. “Pardon me, Sophia. I hate to interrupt, but Cora’s asking for you.”
Sister Sophia snaps the book shut with a loud crack that startles Alexa awake and jostles everyone else out of their stupors. “Girls, you’re dismissed.”
Sister Cora must be in great pain to call her away from class.
“Is Sister Cora dying?” Daisy asks Sister Sophia. I twist to face her, noticing that she and Rory have been playing a game of Birds, Beasts, and Fishes on her slate. Rory hasn’t guessed many letters, and the sight of the half-drawn man dangling from a hangman’s noose gives me a chill even in the hot classroom.
“Not today,” Sister Sophia says briskly. “If she were, there would be nothing I could do for her.”
I catch at the yellow silk of her sleeve as she passes down the aisle. “Can I help?”
She pats my shoulder with a distracted smile. “No, dear, but it’s good of you to ask.”
She and Sister Gretchen take their leave, whispering. Even though we’ve been dismissed, we all stay in our seats, shaken. It’s the first time any of the teachers have admitted publicly that Sister Cora is dying.
“I saw her in the hall this morning when I was running an errand for Sister Gretchen,” Daisy says in her slow drawl, wiping the game off her slate with a rag. “She looked dreadful. Could barely walk.”
Rilla sets her pencil aside. “I was helping in the kitchen at breakfast, and Sister Gretchen said Cora can’t keep anything down but broth and tea. It won’t be very long now, I expect. My grandmother was like that, at the end.”
Maura saunters to the front of the room, pushes aside the stack of books on Sister Evelyn’s desk, and perches right on top. “We ought to make Sister Inez the head now, so we can get on with things instead of just waiting for Cora to die. With the Brothers all caught up in oracle hunting and the protest, it’s the perfect time to strike.”
Mei flinches and stuffs the beads back into the pocket of her orange gown. “It’s a dangerous time, with so many Brothers in town for the National Council meeting. Sister Cora says we should be extra careful.”
“Sister Cora’s too old and too cautious. We need someone with guts to lead us,” Maura says, swinging her feet like a child. She’s wearing heeled brown slippers with gold tassels on the toes. “There have been a dozen girls arrested and held without trial as potential oracles. If we could break them out of the National Council building, think what a splash that would make! The Brothers would be furious.”
“That’s impossible,” Eugenia blurts. She hazards a glance over her shoulder at Alice and flushes, fiddling nervously with her brown chignon. “The National Council building is an absolute fortress. Brother Covington has a grand apartment inside, and the Brothers’ guards patrol constantly.”
I feel a second of déjà vu: Rory, in the sitting room, asking me, Do you think it would be impossible to break someone out of Harwood?
For once, I don’t stop to think things through. “If we’re thinking of staging a jailbreak,” I say slowly, my eyes on Rory, “what about Harwood?”
Rory’s slate falls from her hand and clatters to the ground. “Really?” she gasps.
Maura folds her arms over her cream-colored bodice. “The girls there aren’t in imminent danger.”
“That’s where the oracle is, though.” I drum my fingers against the wooden desktop. “Brenna’s the one who’s putting everyone else in danger, including us. If we could get Brenna out—”
“And Sachi!” Rory interrupts, bending to pick up her cracked slate.
“We already know how to get in. Cate and Pearl and I go every week on nursing missions,” Mei adds. “The question would be how to get them out.”
“Why, Cate Cahill.” Alice narrows her blue eyes at me, lips pursed. “You might actually have a few good ideas in that head of yours after all. If we’re risking our necks to save girls, they might as well be witches, and where are there more potential witches than Harwood? Besides here, of course.”
“If we broke them out somehow—say, if Harwood were to catch fire—we would have better numbers when the war starts,” Maura muses, caught in the rising tide of enthusiasm.
“Catch fire?” I shake my head. “The women there are drugged. If there were a fire, how many of them would be burnt alive in their beds?”
“It doesn’t have to be a fire,” Alice snaps, rolling her eyes. “We just need something to send the nurses into a tizzy, so they’ll call the fire brigade, so the gate will be left open and they won’t notice if a few girls escape in all the fuss. We could see to it that your sister got out, Rory.”
“What about Lucy Wheeler’s sister? She’s in there too, but she’s not a witch,” Daisy says, her dark brow furrowed.
“I think we ought to limit it to witches,” Alice insists. “We can’t save everyone.”
“That’s cruel.” Mei swipes her bangs out of her eyes. “I’ll tell you right now, if Li and Hua are sentenced there, I won’t let them rot just because they aren’t witches. They’re still my sisters.”
Maud waves her hand in the air as if for permission to speak, and I nod at her. She’s a short girl with red hair—not Maura’s pretty curls but straight, carroty red—and more freckles than I’ve ever seen on a person in my life. “My cousin Caroline’s there,” she says. “She’s not a witch, though; she was arrested for having an affair with one of the Brothers on our town council. He was already married, but he didn’t get in any trouble at all.”
“That’s how it always goes,” Rory says bitterly, tugging on the pink lace at her cuffs.