Lonan shook his head in awe. “Think, how many thousands of people viewed that portrait in the last how many hundreds of years? And yet it was you it called through. You must have touched the portrait, engaged the symbols in some way.”
“But,” Magda interrupted, “that doesn’t explain how you know things are going to happen. You’ve alluded to things. Like, expecting me, or leaving the journals for me.”
“Ah, yes,” the brother’s grin was uncharacteristically broad. He fumbled in the deep pocket of his cassock. “Wine of opium, child.” Lonan pulled out a small brown bottle filled with dark liquid. “I discovered long ago a tincture of opium and sugar opens my senses to the universe. It was only when I began sketching and musing in my books that I discovered I had the power to . . . to see things.”
“Isn’t that . . .” Magda couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. “Isn’t that laudanum?”
“Aye,” Lonan said sheepishly, his childhood brogue momentarily slipping though, “I suppose it is at that.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do, then?” Magda worried the overlong cuff of her threadbare sleeve between two fists. “Does this mean I’m supposed to stay? How on earth am I supposed to be able to help James?”
“That I cannot say, child.” Lonan rose to leave. “I’m unable to see your fate here, only its necessity.”
He paused at the door. “We brothers may choose the study of life over the living of it, but we are not without wisdom. Augustine of Hippo taught ‘Victoria veritatis est caritas.’ ‘Nothing conquers except truth and the victory of truth is love.’
“You love James Graham, do you not?” he asked tenderly.
“I—” Magda faltered, tears filling her eyes. “I suppose I do.”
“Then you’ll know what’s best, child.”
Lonan left Magda, the room silent but for the thick burbling of oats.
Her bed had never felt so uncomfortable, and Magda spent hours tossing and turning. The monks retreated to their cells early each night, and though she usually passed the time reading by candlelight, tonight she’d found herself eyeing the same line over and over again. Rather than waste what was a luxurious allowance, she’d blown out her beeswax candle and attempted sleep.
Magda froze at the sound of shuffling just outside her door. She strained her ears in the dark, and her heart began to pound as a terrifying thought unfurled.
Campbell must have found her.
She inched back on the bed, the blanket pulled tight below her chin, as the door creaked open.
It was a man. He extended a candle into her cell. Though his face was cast in blackness, the wavering flame made his shadow flicker along the open door, exaggerating his height and the stolidness of his stance.
As Magda’s eyes adjusted, she began to make out his shape.
The shadows coalesced in the dark.
Then she saw his tartan, and knew. This man was not a monk.
Chapter 22
“Is it you, hen?” His voice was a husky whisper in the dark.
“James?” Magda nearly shrieked his name. “Is that you? How did you find me?”
She sprang from the bed, knocking into him in the dark. “Are you alright?” Magda rubbed his arms and patted her hands to his chest to assure herself that he was truly there, whole and healthy before her.
“Hush,” he said, laughing quietly as he quickly pulled her door to. “You’ll waken the entire priory. ’Tis I indeed, and I’ll have you to myself till dawn if you’d but keep your voice down.”
She heard the rasp of wood on stone as he slid her chair in front of the door. “That will do,” he mumbled. A thrill shivered up her back as she realized that he intended to lock them in.
He placed the candle on the room’s only table and strode to her. “But what of you? The bastard didn’t touch you, did he?” His voice was cold steel, but his touch on her was gentle, stroking her arms and face as if she were a fragile piece of glass.
She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“Are you certain? Come, let me look at you, Magda.” James angled them toward the candlelight, and she thought she’d never seen such a beautiful man.
The flickering glow warmed one side of his face, and she saw that James had changed since she’d last seen him. When she’d first met him, his face was smooth-shaven, all relaxed lines and fluid expressions. It had been impossible not to think him handsome in his fine waistcoats, his basket-hilted sword ever at his side.
