She looked beyond him, but even the grey spectre had faded.
‘You, of course. Who else is here? You’re not well. You might be hearing things.’
Her arms were already shaking from supporting her.Something else.The words sat on her lips, something stopping them. The more she pushed, the more something inside gripped her by the throat.
‘Don’t worry, little Csilla,’ he soothed as she lay back down. ‘You’re fine. Rest.’
Rest.Whatever was inside her echoed the order.You’re serving your purpose.
When she opened her eyes again, he was gone. But the knife on the bedside table was new. She picked it up, her sallow face a reflected ghost in the blade, and her blood went dark and slow like chilled syrup in the vein. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh and her vision dimmed around the edges. She slipped out of bed, each barefoot step cold on the floor. A deep thudding surrounded her; a heartbeat, pounding steadily against her skin. It wasn’t hers.
There were three other heartbeats in the house, pushing on her from different sides. They kept time in her eardrums,pounded through her soles. Three hearts meant someone had returned.
Mihály? But he would have come to see her.
Stay in bed, she told herself as the walls echoed.
She was in bed. She was sleeping peacefully, drifting in the blissful hazy cocoon the syrup had provided. She adjusted her face on the pillow, smoothing out a crease.
Her palm ached around the knife she was clasping. She tried to set it down, but her hand was cramped around it, refusing to obey. A black moment, and she was at the door. Another, and she was at the top of the stairs.
But she was asleep. Perhaps she woke for a moment, wrinkling her nose at the intrusion of moonlight she hadn’t shut the curtains against. Nothing a sheet over the head couldn’t fix. She’d slept in far more uncomfortable circumstances at the cathedral.
Tamas’s presence was heavy behind her. He reached out and brushed a hand through her hair, down her spine, to rest mid-back. Through the thin shift the imprint of his palm was as clear as if on naked skin.
‘Finish this.’
He pushed, and she took a half-stumble onto the first step, heel hitting hard. One heartbeat in the house began to slow, falling more and more out of time with the others.
She followed it like a dog tracking scent. Step after step, anticipation bubbling in every breath.
A dream.Csilla nodded to herself, even as her feet didn’t stop moving. Best to sink into it, let it run its course like a fever until a breaking point woke her. Because she was still in the bed. If she rolled her cheek, she could just feel the down, a hint of scratchy feather under the quilted cover.
She drifted down the stairs, where there was something other than cold wood under her feet. Deep, deep below, past dirtand hollow tunnels, there were traces of something gold and Brilliant. The last echo of holiness. She smeared her foot across the wood as if it could be rubbed out like a dropped cigar.
Such drenching satisfaction at the thought.
In the parlour, Madame Varga sat on the sofa, rubbing her forehead. Her shoes had been kicked off, her hair half-unpinned and falling in greying waves. All her finery was gathered on the table, golden rings and necklace chains in a careless tangle. The slump of her shoulders spoke to weakness. Good. That would make it easy.
Make what?There was a block between her movement and her thoughts, like the dark curtain hiding hands pulling strings from the audience being entertained.
You’re dreaming, Csilla reminded herself as she approached. She couldn’t see the woman’s neck but a sudden image appeared, kissing it, whispering promises. A hand between her legs, saying not to worry, the girl is a child, show some charity. The voice speaking was deep and sweet and too familiar.
Her stomach turned. A nightmare, then.
The woman shifted, looking over her shoulder with tired eyes. The movement pushed the veins of her neck to the surface, the swell of a ripe fruit ready to burst under hungry teeth. Csilla’s mouth watered, her tongue against her lips.
‘If you’re looking for Misi, he’s not here.’ Her powder was clumping and the wax was bitten off her lips, already done with its night. ‘There’s been a fire, and... you’re ill?’ She shifted, the wax further crumbling at the corner of her mouth with her frown. ‘You should go back to bed. You look feverish. Didn’t he leave you with some caretaker?’
But she was in bed. With every breath she took in the dried herbs Tamas had packed around her pillow. It was good of him to take such care of her.
The woman turned back to her discarded finery, muttering as she tried to unwind a knotted chain. Csilla stole closer.
She twisted in her sheets, pulling the quilt up against the sudden chill.
In the dim sitting room, she drew the knife across the woman’s neck.
Her arm was stronger in this dream, pushing through the resistance of flesh and muscle, the windpipe cartilage thick even as the corded veins and arteries spurted blood. The woman turned with her last bit of strength, leaning into the knife but digging her nails into Csilla’s face. There should be pain, but it was as if the woman were scraping clay as she spluttered through her sliced neck.
