He leaned back against the cell wall, old dust shaking loose with the brush of his shirt. There were cleaner lines in the dirt on his face, where tears had washed tracks.
‘Your penance would be better served with a long life lived well, in the service of others.’ He could save ten lives for every one he’d taken if it made him feel better. It was selfish, but she didn’t want to lose anyone else.
He gave her a measured look. ‘I’ve never been very good at that. And what would you have me do instead? Escape? I promised I’d help you save the city, even if you told me you no longer wanted to. You can’t go back on that now.’
He was right. She’d refused to run when Tamas had pressured, when Ilan had offered. She couldn’t ask anything more of Mihály.
Desperation began to claw at the edges of her breath. She forced it down. There was a way. Saints had faced worse hardships.
Saints.
The beginnings of an idea whispered in her mind, twisted and holy.
‘Ilan. Will you be the one to kill him?’ She pressed her palms together, the scarred cuts raised between them, silently pleading for his trust.
Mihály laughed. ‘Oh I bet he’ll volunteer.’
Ilan rolled his eyes. ‘I’m sure if I offered they would allow me the task. But what, you think we can pull him from the stage in front of everyone? That Mihály will grow wings and fly away? Me pulling the lever doesn’t mean he won’t die.’ He turned back to the Izir. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing you can do?’
‘You’ve seen everything I can do. Maybe that’s why Asten allows so few of us.’ Mihály’s lip curled. ‘People always want so much from Izir, and they’re always disappointed.’
‘Just give me a moment.’ Images flashed through her head. Mihály’s drink-tinged breath. Stiff blood on the bodies. Her wrists tied heavy to the wall, recitations of saint stories andmiracles as she knelt on stone, her bony knees wearing through already old wool. ‘You’re right. We’ve got to let him hang.’
They stared at her.
‘Let him hang,’ she clarified, ‘not let him die. Like Angyalka before her visions. She hung herself and lived.’ She’d seen it illustrated in dozens of ways, some where she looked to be no more than sleeping, showing children the peace of suffering for a greater good, and some that showed that while it was good, it was still suffering. Angyalka’s days of hanging, choked and barely conscious, had led to the naming of the first Incarnate and the promise of Asten’s eventual return.
Mihály raised an eyebrow. ‘She was blessed, and she only did it to show us the way forward. I’m not vain enough to compare myself to a saint.’
It wasn’t false hope, if he trusted her. If she trusted herself. ‘She’s the best example but not the only one. I’ve read about executions years ago, before we found a better way. The hanged didn’t always die at first.’ Executioners always carried an extra blade, and even now the inquisitorial robes had an unused pocket for thin knives.
Well. Maybe not so unused in some cases. Csilla was fairly certain Ilan made sure there was always a quick way to dispense justice at hand.
Ilan nodded slowly. ‘If the rope and the drop are calculated properly, the hanged would choke instead of snap. It’s not that hard to strangle someone. And it’s slower.’ His lip quirked on the last words, almost like the thought was pleasant.
Csilla pushed that aside, and Mihály frowned, pulling at his own damp collar like it was a noose.
‘We could make a harness, something to take some of the tension. Mihály, like you tied up the animals.’ She traced her fingers against the floor, imagining what it could look like. Ropeunder ribs and arms. It might twist or pop a joint, but it was better than death.
Mihály stroked his beard. ‘If you can get access to anything left in the mercy stores, I can teach you to make something to make me seem deader than I would look otherwise. We can thank Tamas for that.’
Of course she could. Even now she could smell the phantom aroma of crushed herbs. It was the same science of care she’d studied her whole life.
‘But Mihály, if we’re wrong...’ She reached up, and he bowed to let her take his face in her hands. ‘You’ll be dead.’
‘Then don’t be wrong.’ His lips brushed her forehead, and the air around them sparked like lightning.
Then it lit with something brighter, orange flame and dark shadow shapes slipping across the stone walls.
Sandor stood before the cell, a torch in hand. His eyebrows were drawn, his lips parted in shock. He had seen them. Csilla pulled herself tall. Her hood was down, and her face uncovered. He would know who she was. If he truly was a man of faith, he would know what that light meant.
He’d sent her to be whipped but thought he was in pursuit of some lead, doing what was right in questioning the girl with blood on her hands. And regardless of whether she could truly convince herself of that or not, there was no way to talk their way out of the truth written in the glow on her skin.
‘Csilla,’ Ilan warned, but she shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to hide and save herself. It was that now the only way out was to show everything.
She carefully took Mihály’s hand, divine light illuminating her in outline, sparking along her skin with transformative fire.
Sandor flinched as if it were true lightning, a hand shielding his eyes.
