Csilla couldn’t suppress her grimace as the angel-touched man described the grisly symptoms. He chuckled slightly.
‘Now you know what to say if they ask. Though something tells me you have trouble with lies.’
She shivered at being read so truly.
The bottle still lit under his touch, and the expression on his face made her wonder if he was going to drink it anyway. Perhaps in addition to his powers he had Blessed Imre’s incorruptible tongue, nullifying poison on the spot. Maybe this whole venture was damned from the outset.
Gritting her teeth, Csilla swung the rest of the way out of the window and went hand over foot down, palms searing on the rungs as she hurried.
‘Csilla, please,wait.I’m not mad.’
One step, two, a crack . . .
Her foot skidded, and she tumbled.
Csilla screamed as she fell, grabbing at the ladder which came away with her.
‘Csilla!’
Mihály’s voice sounded far away as she hit snow slush, not quite deep or solid enough to cushion the impact of the ground. Was the black how dark it was, or was her vision going dim?
Pricks of candlelight and shadowed shapes appeared in neighbouring windows.
‘Are you hurt? Can you come back up here? Put the ladder back, let me...’
His voice sounded like it was coming from much further away.
Dazed, Csilla stood and stumbled to the street, letting the dark take her, though Mihály’s cries grew more and more insistent at her back.
It was foolish to have gone out without a lantern. Tears of pain and frustration pricked her eyes, and she tried to hold them back lest they freeze on her lids. She could barely see in front of her as it was, and her shoulder ached something terrible.
She was worse than a liar, the worst kind of hypocrite. She’d thought herself the perfect servant, but when finally given a true way to serve, she’d failed.
She pressed her cut palm to her cold lips, skin alight with the ghost of Mihály’s touch. The Church had been right not to trust someone who Asten didn’t even consider worthy of a soul.
A light and hoofbeats approached behind her. Csilla tried to step aside from whoever was so clearly hurrying past, but a voice called out.
‘Stop.’
She knew that voice like she knew the evening prayer. The High Inquisitor. Ilan.
You’ve no need to be scared of him, she told herself as he rode close, lantern in hand. He was righteousness itself, lauded for the viciousness that served the Faith. But his work wasn’t nearly far enough from the rooms used by the mercy crews, and she’d sewn up the backs and packed snow on the crushed fingers of those he purified with pain.
‘Csilla.’
She turned her face upward at the address. The moonlight turned his expression more fierce than usual, the angle of his cheekbones like a stone carving, his long lashes casting shadows.
She hadn’t even known he knew her name. She hadn’t been officially clergy for more than a day, but she’d been there when he arrived from the north, with a retinue almost worthy of the Incarnate himself. He’d appeared a perfect priest of Justice even then, looking at everything with a gaze that said things were as they should be, and if they weren’t, he would quickly make them so.
Ágnes had always had her thoughts about him, his youthful arrogance that should have been tempered with longer service before being given such a post, his relishing of the lash, his disinclination to consider the benefits of mercy. Csilla had only been grateful to be ignored for once. It made sense that she would be beneath his notice; she had no soul for him to save.
‘Inquisitor.’ She bowed as he nudged his horse forward, the animal’s breath huffing pale clouds in the chill air.
‘Why are you still out? Was that your scream?’
She froze. Shouldn’t he know? Her task was a matter of Church justice.
‘I had an accident. I’m going—’Home. She stuttered on the word. The cathedral had stopped being home the second she’d told Mihály not to drink.
