That sounded ominous. Could it be that bad? His mouth had come from a murderer, and that didn’t put her off. Because it didn’t matter. That man was gone, dead, and one part of his body didn’t carry all his sins.
“Hands,” Rune started reading, “Matteo da Siena, master weaver at Krähenstein Academy, member of the Sarumite Order, born in Tuscany, died at twenty-six years of age, on September 9th, 1816.”
Seraphina clung to his hand, still. She could hear him saying words, but the words didn’t make sense. She tried to focus and understand, but it was as if Rune was suddenly speaking a language she didn’t know. She squeezed his hand again, and he responded by taking her hand in his. They stayed like that. She opened her mouth, closed it.
Rune lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
The hands of Matteo da Siena. The lips of a thief and a murderer.
Seraphina felt the world tilt on its axis. She was floating, her body upside down, bouncing in the air. Her stomach pressed into her spine, her heart rose into her throat, she tried to swallow it back down, she couldn’t dislodge it, return it to where it belonged, in her chest... Her chest constricted, there was a dull throb in her temples, she bit her tongue, tasted blood...
Seraphina pulled her hand free, turned away, and retched.
Nothing came out. She dry heaved for a minute while Rune stood still, not saying a word, barely breathing. Mayer watched them both from his chair, his breathing ragged, his mouth shut and his body rigid, because he couldn’t do anything unless Seraphina said so.
She straightened her back, smoothed down her cloak and rolled her shoulders. Her feet were on the ground, or so she thought. They had to be. She was here – sadly, unfortunately, cursedly. She couldn’t run, there was no going back. She knew that. She’d said it to herself earlier... When had that been? A few hours ago? It felt like a lifetime ago, when she hadn’t known this thing... this awful thing that she knew now, and the world was right because she was ignorant.
“I... I understand.” Her voice didn’t choke, which was a miracle in and of itself. “You can... continue.”
“Seraphina...” He brushed a hand over his face. “Seraphina...”
She walked up to him and slammed her hand on the open ledger.
“Read, Rune.”
“No, this is enough.”
He tried to pull the ledger away and close it, but Seraphina grabbed it and held it there.
“Read the rest of it.”
He sobbed, and she realized he hadn’t stopped crying. If anything, he was crying harder, only silently. She could imagine rivulets of tears running down his cheeks, and she wanted to reach out and wipe them away, but something stopped her. There was a pull inside her chest, right between her breasts, and it wasn’t pulling her toward him; it was pulling her away from him.
“Rune, the worst has passed,” she said firmly. “Read the rest of it and let us be done with this.”
He shook his head vigorously. “If you knew... But you can’t know... You can never know...”
“What are you talking about?” she yelled at him. She was losing her patience.
He only shook his head again, as if he were a broken puppet.
Seraphina turned to Mayer. “You, do you know what’s written in the ledger?”
“I do.”
That was all he said, because that was all she’d asked. Seraphina could make Mayer tell her. Did he know the list by heart? Maybe. Did she want to hear it from his mouth? No.
“Rune, if there’s something else...”
“Don’t make me,” he begged.
She took a deep breath, feeling her lungs burn with it. If she could, she would’ve been crying right now with him. For him, but also for herself, and for them, because she’d told herself thatwhatever they discovered here, it wouldn’t change them, and it had.
“Is there something on that list that is worse than Matteo’s...” She couldn’t say it. “Matteo’s...”
He nodded, then shook his head. “Don’t make me.”
“Rune, do I deserve to know?”
