Sisters' Fate Read Online Free PDF

I.”
    “No, you didn’t.” Tess scowls. “Still, I forgive you. It was under awfully extenuating circumstances. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”
    “I would never,” I promise, skewering pins through my hair.
    “Maura had time to think about it, though. And Inez made me look like such a
child.
” Tess’s eyes narrow. “This is why I wasn’t ready to tell. Bekah and Lucy are acting differently around me already. Careful. Like I could break at any moment.”
    “You won’t break,” I assure her. “They just found out. Give them some time to get used to the idea.”
    Tess groans. She’s more patient than I am, but that’s not saying much. “Don’t you see? I won’t be just Tess anymore! Everyone will see me as the Oracle now. The Prophesied One.”
    “It won’t be that way forever.” I hope not, anyway. I step into my sturdy boots. “I’m going out. Would you like to come with me? Escape the staring for a bit?”
    “We have class,” Tess reminds me, picking up the history book at the foot of my bed.
    “I’m not going. I need to find out whether the Brothers have elected a new leader. And I’ve got an important errand to run. Sisterhood business.” I pick up an ivory envelope lined with green birds—part of a set Tess gave me last Christmas, though who I had to write to then, I don’t know—and wave it at her.
    She snatches it from me and withdraws the matching ivory paper. A green and blue hummingbird is embossed at the top, and the note itself is written in code—a Caesar cipher of three shifts to the left. “Did you do this yourself?”
    I nod. There wasn’t much else to do at quarter to five this morning, while Rilla was snoring and I was trying not to think of Finn, so I took a candle down to the library and wrote the note. It took three tries to get it right and then I copied it onto my best stationery. A man like Brother Brennan might appreciate such niceties. Having never met him, I don’t know.
    “Does it sound all right?” I ask.
    Tess skims the short letter:
Sister Cora has died. I do not trust her successor, who led the attack on the Head Council. It is my hope that you and I can work together for peace. I have Cora’s key and look forward to meeting you at tomorrow night’s gathering.
    It’s unsigned. Even using a code, I’m not fool enough to leave my name for anyone to see.
    “It’s good.” Tess’s gray eyes meet mine. “You’re going out to deliver it now? Did you already talk to Sister Gretchen?”
    I nod. “I’m to leave it with the proprietor of a stationery shop. And Christmas is coming up. Too bad I haven’t any idea what you might like.”
    Tess’s smile is its own reward. She could spend days in a stationery store, same as a bookshop.
    “I’ll miss class for this,” she decides, jumping up.
    “Good. You can help me figure out how to buy an illegal newspaper, too.”

CHAPTER
    3
    TESS AND I SLIP OUT THE FRONT DOOR unnoticed and make our way through the quiet residential streets. Above us, the sky is shrouded in gray; the roses are withering on our neighbors’ gate. After a few blocks, the lawns shrink, the trees become sparse, and the houses grow closer together. Narrow two- and three-story brick buildings are the norm in the market district, with shops on the ground floors and living quarters above. Men of all classes hurry along the cobbled sidewalks. Vendors hawk meat pies and fresh hot bread, offer to shine gentlemen’s shoes—and sell newspapers.
    I make a beeline for the nearest shouting paperboy. “Witches attack the Head Council! Brother Covington in Richmond Hospital! Jailbreak at Harwood Asylum!” he chants. “Read the horrible news for yourself! Two pennies!”
    I fumble in my pocket for coins. “This is the
Sentinel
?” I can’t see the masthead because he’s waving the paper so furiously in the air. He looks respectable enough, but Mei swore her brother gets the
Gazette
from regular paperboys, bold as you please.
    The boy