It still galled that if he’d been there, he might have been able to stop it. Mattias’ eye would have been the least of what he could have saved.
Guilt was a terrible emotion; how could sinners stand it? Perhaps that’s why confession worked so well. The demon’s touch still boiled on him. If he could stand to be less honest with himself, he would blame that lingering stroke of Shadow for his doubts.
For all his faults, he wasn’t weak enough for the comfort of self-delusion.
‘I was washing out the drains. There was a violet flash and smoke. I thought I was being delivered that instant.’ His face tightened on the last word, his curled hand stretching towards Arany. ‘But it was fire.’
‘No one else was there?’
Mattias shook his head, single eye wide. ‘I would have sworn it was a demon. It skipped like lightning, wasn’t natural.’
A demon. Just as they’d feared.
In Saika they said demons smelled of cut ice; here they said tar. But the demon on the road had been old fireplace ash, and the smoke here was rancid linseed.
‘Did you notice or smell anything? Powder or spilled oil?’ When he was twelve a cousin had brought little tubes of black grains from Mitlosk that exploded green and violet when lit and singed the silverberry leaves. Chemistry could mimic a miracle for a time.
Mattias groaned. ‘The drains always stink. How was I supposed to smell anything else?’
Fair point. Ilan left to walk around the remnants of the outbuilding to the drains Mattias had claimed lit with unnatural fire. He pulled off the cover, suppressing revulsion at the thin film that coated his finger. Along with cold sludge came traces of white filament.
He traced the path of the fires, where flames caught like ball lightning before running up in smoke. Someone had known just where to strike, where there would be dry wood and not stone.
It wasn’t an accident, or the result of restless violence, or even a demon. It was sabotage.
And it couldn’t have come from outside the Church ranks.
Mihály knelt among the injured beneath Arany, touching burns and speaking softly as his finery was ruined. Of course now they welcomed the blessed touch of the heretic – a hypocrisy, but an understandable one. One prone figure, however, slapped his hand away.
Elder Ágnes, taken from anchorage, grey but still alive.
‘I can ease your breathing, at least momentarily, if you let me,’ Mihály was saying, and though the woman’s answer was lost in coughs, the shake of her head was emphatic. She hadn’t wanted any hands spared for her before, she wouldn’t want any now. That was the point of anchorage.
Ilan walked to them, gesturing for Mihály to rise, but still mildly surprised when he did so.
‘Mihály. Get Csilla. This is why I was trying to bring her.’
Ágnes shifted, eyes cracking to look at him. A smear of ash had fallen over her hairline and streaked her face like a dried tear.
‘Csilla?’
Ilan nodded, gaze still flicking to catch anything that might tell him why this happened.
‘She’ll want to see you.’
Ágnes reached out and touched his hand, barely the weight of feather brush behind it.
‘Please watch her.’
The memory of the despair in Csilla’s eyes as he told her to go stung like a nettle whip. She wouldn’t want him to be the one who watched her.
‘You’re not going to let her see you like this, are you?’ Mihály spoke softly. ‘You took in a lot of smoke. Your lungs are already damaged. At least let me make you comfortable before she gets here.’
‘I’m comfortable.’ She held out a shaking hand as a ward. ‘I’m safe under the gold.’
The old woman turned her palm up to catch a blessing.
Nothing came. The running gold was dry.
