Finally, she said, “I had a friend. Ninety-Five. I guess I’ll never know her real name. I . . . found her.” She sank into a chair, staring blankly. “Brother Lev tried to take her out of my head. I think they thought it would fix me. I can’t remember her face or even really what she was like. All I remember is how it felt when she died.”
“You must be strong,” Jacen mused. “High-tier telepaths are hard to erase, and we feel . . . everything.”
“I never asked for any of this.” Her voice quavered. “I don’t want to be a priest.”
Jacen had guessed as much. Perhaps, now that she’d seen him at his worst, she felt more comfortable saying it aloud. A fair trade.
Years ago, in an angry outburst, Elyas had said something similar to Jacen. He had dismissed his novitiate’s feelings, fed him a speech about all the valuable work he could do with the Church, and Elyas had never brought it up again.
This time, Jacen asked Nines, “What do you want?” No judgment.
No impositions. Just the question, hanging between them.
She lifted her shoulders, at a loss. “Not this.”
“I’m going to help you,” Jacen said firmly. He pointed at the smashed metal thing on the table then made a vague, encompassing gesture. “This is all connected.”
His stomach lurched, as something occurred to him.They’re always watching.Had he made a terrible mistake in destroying the device? Wouldtheyknow?
He stood abruptly. “I have to go.” “You’ve been drinking,” Nines mumbled.
“This can’t wait.” He had the nagging suspicion that if he didn’t act now, he would never have the chance.
He hid the device’s remains in an empty bottle, stowed at the back of a cabinet. He didn’t let Nines watch him do it. He said to her, “Keep the door locked. Don’t open it for anyone but me. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
She stared at him, alarmed. “What if you’re not?”
“Then . . .” Jacen considered his options. “Warn Seth. Warn Ogden.
And tellno one.”
15
SIN
JACEN
Jacen ventured into the White Cathedral’s archives in the dead of night.
From the airy upper levels, he ventured down, through a locked door off-limits to all but ordained priests and the High Lord. Inside lay an ancient funicular system—a miniature version of the vast elevators that carried workers, goods, and equipment to the deepriver docks. Like the dock elevators, the funicular never stopped moving, driven by some arcane mechanism as innate to Zivora as the floating polyhedra. The track stabbed deep into the ground at an incline so sharp, Jacen avoided the view. It descended at a ponderous pace, creaking and groaning down to where the shadows pooled and the air grew thick and muffled. There lay the Church’s most restricted rooms: pitch-dark prison cells, secret archives, and the white room of which Ged had spoken.
Jacen paused as he passed it. Broad and smooth, adorned with two concentric silver circles, the door shimmered like pearl.Energy pulsed from beyond—a low, sick sensation as though the chamber had a heartbeat.
He picked at the dressing on his forearm, tugging his sleeve down over it as he resumed walking. Sobriety threatened at the edges of his consciousness, bringing with it a creeping dread. The muffled echoes of his footsteps were far too loud, as if the walls themselves knew he did not belong. He was lost in the dark, unsuspecting fingers probing for purchase, brushing ever closer to knowledge he was not meant to have.
He froze in his tracks when he sensed another presence. Too late to avoid it. All he could do was brace himself before Brother Lev rounded the corner.
“Kheris,” said the Chief Exorcist. “What brings you down here so late?”
Jacen had meant to sneak in and pick the lock, but an alibi might serve him better. “Actually, I’m glad to see you.” He made himself add, “Your Eminence.”
His friendly tone might have been a touch suspicious, because Lev seemed taken aback.
“I was hoping you might let me into the restricted archive,” Jacen said. Might as well be forthright about it. “I want to have a look at Father Tamaran’s rite of exorcism. I’ve found myself rusty on the details.”
Lev raised his eyebrows. “You think that might be remedied by reading the original text?”
Jacen grimaced, projecting embarrassment as sloppily as he dared. “My novitiate and I had a theological disagreement. Suffice it to say she thinks she knows better than me, and I’d like to prove otherwise.”
