But there was nothing. No ripped seams for me to stitch back together. No wrinkles to carefully iron out. No sickness to wash or scrub or burn away. Not this time. She coughed again, sending a spray of blood across my chest and arms, and I dropped my forehead onto her shoulder, finally allowing my tears to fall.
“May…” she whispered. Her weak, cold hand found my hair and stroked it gently, just as it used to when I was a child.
“I’m so sorry!” I sobbed. “I was too late, please forgive me…”
“There is…nothing to forgive…child. Pray…pray for me…”
I lifted my eyes enough to see the stained glass window at the back of the apse, which was aglow. Flickering firelight made the Holy Family’s images come to life, and I swore they looked distraught at the massacre of their most faithful servants.
“Mother,” I begged softly, brushing Sissi’s dark, gray-streaked hair off her face, “please…carry your child home. She deserves all your mercy.” Haltingly, I recited the Sisters’ death prayer over and over until my voice began to give out. I only stopped at the sound of a loudbangout in the corridor, followed by a frustrated growl.
“Jon, here!” I called. He burst into the chapel, lumbering down the aisle and shaking his head as if plagued by flies. I looked back at Sissi, hoping to see even a tiny spark left in her eyes, but there was nothing. She was gone, and I sank onto the top step, holding myself as I stifled an agonized scream. Jon began sniffing around the chapel floor, heaving a series of deep, gasping breaths. At first, I thought he was injured or choking, but then I realized he was attempting to calm himself down so he could shift back into a man. I finally pulled myself up and walked over, taking his massive, furry head between my hands and lifting it. His dark eyes were wide with fear, but I held his gaze.
“We’ll find him,” I whispered, planting a soft kiss on the bear’s wet, shiny nose. “I swear it. No one loves him more than you and I, right?” The bear let out a long sigh, hung its head, and began to shrink. I pulled down a velvet wall hanging behind us, then waited until Jon was human again to drape it over his shoulders.
“No sign of Will or Tuck,” he muttered, “or any survivors…”
“I didn’t find anyone either,” I whispered.
We sat in terrified silence for a minute before Jon lifted his face. “The dead soldiers…did you see them?”
“Yes…”
“Their eyes?”
I stilled and shook my head, then looked around the chapel. A pair of black boots were just visible between rows of pews, and I approached cautiously. I had seen more than my fair share of death, and of corpses, but this one sent a chillthrough me. There were no visible wounds, and he could not have died more than two hours ago, but his skin had already turned ashen gray and his eyes were sunken deep into his face. Gaunt cheeks and dark, spidery veins gave him the appearance of someone who had died of poison several days ago.
“Don’t touch it,” said Jon quietly from behind me, “but look closer at the face.” I carefully stepped around the body and crouched beside his head. The skin around his eyes was black, as if painted, but it had a faint, oil-slick sheen to it that I recognized immediately.
“The Rot…” I looked up at Jon in horror and he nodded solemnly.
“I think we know what someone’s been doing with that cave full of Rot-infected Archer’s Cup.”
“Oh…” I fell back to sit on the cold, stone floor, holding my head and trying to steady my breathing. “Archer’s Cup…the nectar is dropped on the eyes, yes? So…someone used it on these men…”
“That would be my best guess,” Jon murmured.
“But how? Why?”
Jon’s gaze drifted over to the altar, to Sissi’s body, and the shattered top of the stone table. “Archer’s Cup creates love when it would not otherwise exist. Maybe…the bastardized flowers do the same thing with…hatred…”
“Gods above,” I groaned. “But no one has access to that cave! It’s been guarded day and night since we found it!”
“Then we need to find out who’s been there, and when. Come on, let’s keep searching. Is there anywhere else you can think where the Sisters might hide themselves? The belltower? Or a cellar of some kind?”
I gasped loudly and scrambled to my feet. “The potato cellar!”
It was all Jon could do to keep up as I raced through the corridors, trying to avoid those that were choked with black smoke or flames. Luckily, the kitchens had not been engulfed yet, and one of the enormous, wooden preparation tables was not in its usual place. I motioned to Jon to take one end and we slid it aside. Beneath it was a trapdoor, with faint sounds coming from beneath. Jon bent and grabbed the metal ring, nearly wrenching the thing off its hinges so I could kneel down and peer inside. Through the gloomy darkness, I saw at least a dozen young, terrified faces staring up at me, and then a shrill scream rent the air.
“May!” It was Jazmina, who hauled herself out of the cellar first and nearly knocked me over. I held her tightly and allowed her to cry into my shoulder as Jon and I exchanged a grim look.
“Oh,thank the Mother, you’re safe.” I pushed her back and held her shoulders, searching for any wounds, then looked back into the cellar. Theyoungest of Locksley’s Sisters had been spared, it seemed. Some were just girls, barely fourteen, while others were only a few years behind me. Jon held out a hand to the nearest one, but she balked at the sight of the half-naked, feral-looking man, and held up a meat cleaver. Some of the others, I saw, were also clutching deadly kitchen implements.
“I need you all to listen,” I said firmly. “Jon is a friend, and he is here to protect us. We need to get you out immediately.”
“Sissi?” asked Jazmina, her eyes swollen and red from crying. “Teodora?”
I shook my head slowly and she let out a grief-stricken cry. Her companions began to lift themselves from the cellar one at a time, then comforting one another as best they could.
