Csilla looked down again, heart hammering. There was no way he wouldn’t be able to read her guilt, even with her expression half-hidden by the shadows in the room. She felt cracked open, a split fruit ready to be picked through for what was good and useful, the rest thrown by the wayside. There was very little good at the moment.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you, truly. I’m glad you’re here.’ He stood and dusted off his hands. ‘I’ll make you tea and a snack if you’d like. I’ve got water left.’
She tried to protest, but he wouldn’t listen, and her stomach argued that if she was going to kill him, his food would go to waste unless she ate it. The room was soon warm with the heat from their bodies and the wavering steam of the kettle. The teahe put in her hands was a deep rust-red, the aroma spiced and heady. Expensive.
‘Another tribute,’ he smiled. ‘Go on, drink. I think she left some sweets with it.’
He rummaged around until he found a white handkerchief of soft linen, far too fine for wiping hands on. She turned it in her hands, stroking the fabric, and examined the two mottled doves embroidered in the corner. The Varga family. Csilla’s warmth was replaced by a touch of despair. So even the wealthy were swayed by him now. No wonder the Church was worried.
Mihály picked up her hand and plopped two fried lumps of dough onto it.
‘Ah, here. They’re dry but should taste alright.’
Csilla’s mouth watered as she bit into the dumpling, and she blinked in pleasant surprise at the centre of cherries stewed with enough sugar to take the edge off their sourness.
Still chewing, she offered the other one to Mihály, but he held up his hand.
‘No, go ahead.’
She finished the first and choked down the second one quickly – half from hunger, half from embarrassment at the way he watched her. She washed it down with a swallow of tea, all too aware of the money on her tongue. Everything here had been paid for with heresy.
‘I’m sorry, but I have so many questions,’ he said. ‘In all my studies I’ve never heard of anything like you. May I touch you?’
‘You may not.’
She didn’t have to leave her dignity with her morals. The Church couldn’t ban touching, but she’d been warned since she was small about the dangers of too much contact. Bodies were Shadow-born, and skin had its own appetite. A good servant didn’t stoke its cravings, not that she’d ever seen the appeal. At fourteen she’d asked Ágnes when she should expect suchtemptation to start, so she could be properly prepared. The woman had laughed and, upon realising Csilla was actually serious, informed her that it would be somewhere between any day now and never. So far it had been closer to never, but she wasn’t going to let her guard down.
Mihály chuckled. ‘Nothing indecent, I promise. Please.’
She hesitated, mind spinning rationalisations. She touched her patients when caring for them. Him being young and handsome, them being alone in a locked-away attic didn’t make it any different. He might not even like women, or anyone. And it wasn’t like he would find anything the Church had missed all the times they’d looked for demon marks. She offered her hand.
He took her by the wrist, tracing a word across her palm with a delicacy that sent a shiver across her skin. He was surely going to feel how her heart was racing.
‘Hm.’ He pursed his lips and dragged his fingertips over her skin again.
Her whole body lightened with hope, the soaring, beautiful ache of listening to the choir’s hymns of praise, every note yearning for something lost before humanity had even finished forming.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
But it felt like itcouldbe. She pushed herself up and away from him, wordless. If that brush of holiness was anything like what she was missing, she wished she’d never felt it at all.
‘You are exceedingly healthy, but what happened on your scalp?’ he asked.
She stiffened, touching her kerchief as embarrassment dragged back the truth of what she was.
‘You can see those? The scars are from when I was a baby. Rat or cat bites.’
Unsightly as they were, they were all she had from before.
‘Hmm.’ Then he picked up her right hand, the one she hadn’t offered, and peeled her fingers from the fresh scab of the slice from her vows. ‘And I see you’re from the Church. Or a very clumsy cook.’
Csilla gritted her teeth, unsure of the safest answer.
‘Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.’ He cradled her palm in his larger one, and Csilla went very still. ‘Though I think you might be the first one who ran directly from vows to me. Does it hurt?’
‘Of course,’ Csilla said before recognising it for a lie.
It had hurt right up until he’d touched her. Now what had been an angry wound was a pale scar. She’d always healed quickly, but not instantly. She flexed her hand and found none of the tension that marred the grip of poorly healed clergy.
