“The Saints aren’t real,” I whisper, the words rending the wound anew. I clutch my basket to my chest, hating myself forburdening Carina with this knowledge that threatens to break me every moment. Surely I have weighed her down enough. And yet, the sinful, selfish thing that I am, I keep speaking.
“They’re . . . a metaphor, Carina, for regular people like us, invented by the Apostles. Saintess Lucia isn’t . . . Shecan’t. . .”
I stop myself before a sob can tear open my throat, clamping one hand over my mouth. I don’t want Carina to be forced to comfort me, carry more of my weight. Settling myself, I resolve to be there forher—to be the one bearing the burden for once in my life. My kindred spirit in so many ways, Carina is equally devout and utterly devoted to the Host. This truth will, I have no doubt, shatter her.
I look up into her expression, reaching for her hands, ready to guide her through the same pain I myself am still muddling through. I watch as she takes a deep, hitched breath, frozen in place. And then, all at once, I realize that there is absolutely no surprise in her expression. No pain. No astonishment.
Not a stitch of betrayal.
“I know, Ophelia,” Carina finally says, slowly meeting my gaze. “I already know.”
Chapter 12
Istare into the lazy swirls of bathwater, my fingers tight on the lip of the copper tub. I heave in the scent of the lavender oil, praying to Saintess Lucia that it will banish the sweet spice of asphodels infiltrating my senses. Then, of course, I remember.
I dip my free hand into the water. It’s still plenty hot, though it takes me a moment to even feel the burn. I am having trouble feeling anything at all. There is a great door in me, locked firm, and behind it lingers all of the betrayal and the pain and the ache. I am not strong enough to open it. So, instead, I add another loop of heavy chain around the door’s handles, then around myself.
Carinaknew. Renaultknew. I raise my gaze, eyelids still heavy and swollen with tears, and watch the steam drift up to the tall, bare ceiling of the Vincula. The two most important people in my life knew the Saints were nothing but a children’s parable, and yet they allowed me to go on believing for so many anni. Allowed me to beg at the feet of a creature that didn’t even exist, let alone possess the power to save me.
And yet, against all logic and scripture, the creature before me now—wreathed in steam, anointed in bathwater, all dark-browed and cruel-mouthed—couldsave me.
Swallowing hard, I refold the flannel washcloth in my lap. I spent so long entreating the Saints when I should’ve been consorting with the diaboli, it seems.
What I’m doing right nowdoesfeel like sin. There is little way around it. The Lupa Nox is bare of any clothing, submerged in a large copper tub some poor pages surely had to drag down into the Vincula. It’s charged with protective Mysterium—I can tell. Earlier, Renault explained the precise nature of the Blessing. I did not, I confess, listen that closely. There’s a second layer of it, too—some kind of blurred barrier between us and the guards, allowing them to keep an eye on us without being subjected to the lady knight’s wiles. To spare them the weight of temptation.
Did anyone spare a moment to think of the temptationImight feel, seated beside her on a short stool, doing the work of a lady’s maid? It’s work I know well; at ten and four, I’d been trained for it, but the women of the Houses with enough wealth to support a staff didn’t like my looks, my ruined limb, my obvious limp. I try to focus on that cadence: a detached awareness, an anticipation of needs, a downcast gaze. It is so, so much better than focusing on what lurks behind those doors in my chest.
“May I ask your name?” the knight murmurs, breaking the silence. Her voice startles me, and my head snaps up before I can stop it. Then I’m forced to view her as she scrubs one long, muscular arm, the soap suds momentarily erasing the inked patterns—more flowers, I think. Foxgloves, maybe.
“I’m...I—” My reply is a stilted croak. “I’m not sure that’s necessary.”
“Mine is Nyatrix,” she offers, like it’s the first bouquet of peonies after a long winter. “Nyatrix Arctura.”
A fly in amber, I am. A weak, struggling insect battling hopelessly through rich, golden honey. A dove in the jaws of a great black wolf.
“Will you need help washing your hair?” I ask, even though the diversion is just as dangerous—my fingers curling around those long, dark locks. What will that closely cropped section of her skull feel like in my hands? I pray she cannot see the heat on my face in the chamber’s dim light.
“Well, if you’re offering,” she replies, like being nude and damp in front of an absolute stranger is nothing all that strange to her. “I’m not supposed to get the bandaging on my hand wet, yes?”
I take a deep breath and look up at her. The injured hand dangles from the tub’s rounded lip, the tendons in her wrist standing out stark and marble-like in the candlelight. I do not trust myself to say anything at all, so instead, I scoot the low stool over to the end of the tub. She watches me—the way I’ve seen owls watch mice from the trees far above. A dark, glittering gaze that promises violence, yes, but never without a thrill. Not without a hunt.
I gather up the ends of her ink-spill hair, my heart pounding against my chest so hard I fear my sternum may crack. In my mind’s eye, I do my best to replace this terrifyingly beautiful woman with someone else—anyone else from my housemaid days. The cruel Lady Fabius. Her short-tempered daughter. Mistress Calvus, who used to braid my hair for me once I finished with hers.
“I hope you know,” comes a voice that is not Lady Fabius’s or Mistress Calvus’s or anything close; it is instead like the night itself slinking down into the forbidden domain of the day, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I open my mouth to say I don’t believe her, or to remind the Lupa Nox who she is, or to perhaps list all the people I loved oreven simply knew who’ve died at her hands. But before I can, she twists at the waist, just enough for one of her dark eyes to meet mine.
“But you’re afraidsomeone’sgoing to, aren’t you?” the knight asks, her voice even lower than before. It’s not pity in her expression; it’s something more level, frank, practical.
All at once, I remember Renault’s words. I remember Sergio and every single thing he said he might do. I remember my salvation dangling like a bandaged hand from the lip of a tub.
“Yes,” I reply, my voice authentically rough, my hands still in the bathwater. “Yes. Th-they want me to try to convert you. To the Church of the Host. If I don’t try...I don’t know what will?—”
“Well, then, try,” the knight replies, and there’s no lift to her eyebrows or quirk to her mouth. “I will not harm you, particularly not for doing something you have been coerced into.”
Time staggers around me, just as crippled as my own body, until I remember I am meant to be washing her hair. I return to the task, working soap through her sable strands. Like the rest of her, the knight’s hair is long and dark and unfairly beautiful. A fire bursts to life somewhere between my legs, my sin called forth by this creature, and shame follows close behind. The Vincula is chill, damp, the water going cold on my skin every time I pull my hands from the bath, and yet I burn as though I have stepped directly into flame.
I clench my teeth, furious at myself, furious at my mother for sinning so deeply that I am left to answer for her wickedness, furious at the Lupa Nox for being here with her hair between my hands. Hurriedly, I move to her scalp, wishing for nothing but to be done with this infernal task.
