Through the openings in the Mysterium gate, I find the shimmering silver shoulders of knights and little more. The Lupa Nox is surely somewhere in their midst, but I cannot find her in the brief glimpse. My heart does something strange in response, and I have to force myself to keep pace with Renault.
We say nothing on the attollo, nor on the walk to Foundling Hall, moving through corridors that have nearly emptied with the fall of evening. I am grateful to see no one I know. Shame still burns like two bonfires on either cheek, bright and red and hot. A clear marking of my sin, of my temptation. Of the trial I nearly failed. Renault takes my keys from my waist chain and unlocks my door for me, guiding me inside.
I sit down on the bench at the end of my bed, listless, as he lights the fire in my tiny hearth. My mind volleys between two things: the hard, muscular planes of the knight and the sure, godly bite of the flail.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, surprised to hear my own voice, tear-choked and raw. “Why didn’t you tell me what the High Ecclesian was going to do?”
Renault turns, half his face cast in shadow, and approaches me, reaching out to run his thumb along my jaw. “It needed to be as real as possible,” he replies, smoothing my hair. “I’m sorry. You must have been terribly frightened. But surely our Lord will look upon you with favor for your suffering.”
I close my eyes, tears falling from my lashes. It is true, I know it—the teachings in the Catechisma have always found beauty and godliness in suffering, in pain. It’s what I tell myself whenever my hips hurt terribly or my heart aches. Even all of my turmoil over my feelings for Carina—just a raw stone to transmute into a shining gem of divinity.
“Yes,” I murmur, hands fisting into my skirts. “The First Son will surely find honor here.” But the words don’t feel true, even as I say them. Where is the honor in this, in tricking the Lupa Nox?
Too many things in my life feel fake, two-faced—my engagement to Renault, my assignment to care for the knight. I yearn for easier times, when things felt more straightforward, when duplicity did not constantly leer over my shoulder like a phantom.
“Let’s get you ready for bed,” Renault says, his hands skimming the back of my dress, where the bodice fastens. He begins to undo the lacing, and I freeze.
“I can do it myself,” I say, leaning away from him, but he simply extends his arms, continuing his path.
“You’ve had a hard day,” he murmurs, closer now, his lips moving against the top of my head. There is a heaviness to his breath, an intention to the quickness of his fingers, and I panic, my mind taking me back to that abandoned corner with Sergio, his hands prying apart my dress.
“Stop, please,” I beg, my voice so small, my own room—with the narrow, worn bed and little window and frayed quilt I knowso well—suddenly feeling alien, a battlefield for which I have no name.
“Don’t fret,” is all Renault says, his movements not ceasing for even a moment.
I clench my jaw, shoving my discomfort into a box deep inside my body—until I remember I have thrice now survived encounters with the Lupa Nox herself. I’ve been in close quarters with the most fearsome Sepulchyre warrior our armies have ever faced.
And yes, she is imprisoned and chained, and yes, she is a wicked thing, and again, yes, she has done nothing but respect me, at least in her own way. But if I can handle the Lupa Nox, I can handle making my betrothed aware of my wishes.
“No,” I assert with a fierceness I don’t feel, stumbling to my feet, barely catching myself on the bedframe’s edge. “I said no, Renault. I will do it myself.”
My chest rises in a grand heave, even though I’ve barely moved. As I look up at him, his brow furrows deeply, his mouth screwing up into an expression I don’t recognize. He lunges toward me; all the world slows to quarter-pace, my heart a drum.
And then Renault pauses, right before me, and a sheepish look—a familiar one—overtakes his features. “Yes, of course,” he replies, holding up his hands in some peacemaking gesture. “You’ve had a long day, and I just wanted to help.”
“You have helped,” I reply, fingernails digging into the wooden frame. I pause and then steady myself. “What would really help is knowing what the High Ecclesia wants from the Lupa Nox.”
Renault stands silent, examining me, and then sighs, his shoulders sagging. “I don’t want to burden you with all these machinations,” he says, sinking onto the bench I occupied a moment ago. “Besides, Ophelia, it’s the High Ecclesia. You think They’ve bothered tellingmeexactly what They want with her?”
I waver, eyeing the space beside Renault. For the first time, I find myself hesitant to be within arm’s reach of him. It’s a familiar enough impulse, to keep myself at a safe distance, but not with him. Never with him, until now. I swallow and chide myself before limping toward the bench and sitting next to him. I stare into the hearth’s flames, not sure what to say.
“All I know,” Renault sighs, his shoulder pressing into mine companionably, “is that They’re trying to turn her against the Sepulchyre. Open her mind, make her see the Way of Light that the Host offers. We don’t want to hurt her, but Ophelia, if we can’t save her soul . . . Well, we can’t exactly let a predator like her loose in the wild, can we?”
My mouth is dry as paper, my veins hammering in my neck. Of course it makes sense. We’re forced to burn mortals at the stake if they won’t relinquish their goetia practices; how could we let the last of the Fallen go if her heart is unchanged?
I consider this information, twisting my skirts in one hand. Beside me, Renault sighs, but I don’t have the energy to turn my head and look at him. A thousand thoughts swim through my head, swift as sea currents and just as deadly. I don’t even realize I’m speaking; words begin to tumble unbidden out of my mouth.
“What could I have done,” I rasp, fresh tears rushing down my face, “to deserve my fate being tied tohers? What kind of a horrific thing am I, Renault? Do you understand the depth of wickedness that must be within me for this to happen? The Lupa Nox, who has killed so many of our people . . .”
I finally manage to look at him, though, between the low light and my tears, I can hardly see his expression.
“The Lupa Nox,” I repeat, her name like a curse, “will be my salvation or my doom.”
My sleep later that evening is fitful and restless. I almost pull open my bedside drawer a thousand times. Only exhaustion stops me. Dreams come and go—horrors of a new goetia trial, of my wedding day with Sergio at the end of that long aisle instead of Renault, of my beloved Lord Himself appearing to tell me all the ways I have horribly and irrevocably sinned. All of them, at least, have that dream-like haze to them, that lurching strangeness that nothing in the waking world possesses.
But early in the morning, sometime around two or maybe three bells, my dreams take a sharp turn.
I wait in a bridal chamber, the ceremony concluded, dressed in barely more than a slip of pale pink silk. Everything feels terribly real. My hair is loose and unbraided, falling in yellow-gold waves across the pillows. The door at the far end of the chamber opens, and I startle; I’m so exposed, lying on the bed like this in such a state of undress, with little knowledge of what comes next. Of what’s expected of me. I only know how desperately I wish to be a good wife, to please Renault, to ensure he never regrets marrying the crippled foundling girl when he could have had anyone he wanted.
