Her expression closes, all hard angles. Something near-feral glints in her dark eyes like a warning. “How do you know I won’t just simply go along with whatever you say?”
“All members of the Host undergo a sacrament,” I explain, feeling a little more settled. I can just tell her the truth here—no manipulations, no half-answers. “It’s called Baptisma. It takes place at an ancient, sacred water font within the Devorarium, our place of worship. To complete the sacrament, you must truly believe. The Mysteries that flow through the water will know otherwise, and you’ll be rejected.”
Patchy memories of my own Baptisma at the sacred age of ten and two anni flood me—the flowing white gown, the Sister guiding me under the water in the magnificent grotto. The feeling of the Mysterium taking hold of me beneath the surface, down in the dark waters, reaching into every fiber of my being.
“What happens when you’re rejected?” the knight inquires, her tone delicate, though she watches me with all the intensity of a wolf.
“It depends,” I tell her, steadying myself to slide one hand around the back of her skull and press the compress to her eye with the other. I have to rest my hip against the arm of her chair to remain steady with both hands occupied. Heat sears through me when I feel the curl of her fingers against my thigh. Asphodels invade my senses next. I anchor myself to those memories of my Baptisma so many anni ago.
“Most of us receive the sacrament as young things,” I reply, holding the compress in place, trying not to think about howrightthe curve of her skull feels in the palm of my hand. “The Baptisma Font is gentler with children. If the ancient Mysterium does not accept us, we are returned to the surface and encouraged to continue our studies. For adults, those who undergo the sacrament and do not truly believe . . .”
“Probably don’t surface, do they?” she asks, the words vibrating through the space between us. There’s a lilt to her husky tone, as if she finds this amusing somehow.
“No,” I reply. The compress has gone warm, as I expected, so I pull it away. Frustration rises in me like lightning, quick and violent. If only I had been granted the Mysteries. It’s a simple enough charm to keep a compress cool if physical contact is maintained with the cloth. Something I could use again and again to help people. But I am, it seems, still deemed unworthy.
“We don’t have anything like the Baptisma in the Sepulchyre,” the knight says.
Surprise pulls my brows together as I look at her. “Don’t you worship the Creatrixes?” I rinse the compress with cold water, watching the beads of moisture darken the dirt floor.
She pauses. “We honor them, as is their due. But not . . . not like the Host. It’s notworship.”
I’m too dumbstruck to do anything but stand before her, one hand flattened on the stool for support, the other holding a dripping strip of flannel. “You don’t worship?” It seems impossible, blasphemous and unthinkable to me, my whole life having been structured around the First Son and His city.
Her gaze is solemn, that dangerous mouth pressed in a straight line as she considers my words. But then something changes in the knight’s expression, and suddenly she is all hungry wickedness.
“I wouldn’t say that,” she replies, lips curving into a shape that makes me tremble. Her eyes sweep across my long braid, then my shoulders, trailing all the way down to my toes. The knight’s attention transmutes me into a column of pure fire—a heat that yearns to devour something and then be devoured in turn.
“Make no mistake,” she tells me, the words dripping from her mouth like poisoned honey. “I do my fair share of worshipat the altar between a woman’s legs. My psalms are her cries of pleasure, my holiness found at her breast.”
The knight’s words tear through my flesh better than any butcher’s blade. I feel little more than my heartbeat, a pounding sensation extending across my entire body. All of my sin beats at the door of my chest, howling and begging.
“Have you,” the Lupa Nox begins, leaning forward, her shoulders straining, “ever been worshiped likethat?”
Chapter 16
My heart still pounds furiously as I stare at the floor. I dare not utter a single word, my hands clasped so tightly in front of me that my knuckles turn white as death. Nausea stirs in my belly, and I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Still, Renault says nothing.
We are within my chamber in Foundling Hall, and I have just confessed everything to him. The way I once yearned for Carina, how I thought I had silenced that old devil, and the sin the Lupa Nox now stirs within me. How she said such wicked, terrible things that fly in the face of my beloved Lord, and how I—meant to be her shepherd into the Host—did nothing but flee.
“I should’ve stayed, I know,” I choke out, fresh tears tumbling from my lashes to the stone floor below. The fire Renault stoked in the hearth turns them to orange-red gems, too fine a thing for my quarters. “Should have rebuked her. Set her on the right path. But I was so . . . I was . . .”
“Tempted, yes,” Renault finally says, his tone bare of any emotion. I dare to glance up at him. My betrothed stands with his back to me, staring out the small window.
At this bell, there is little to see outside, particularly under a dark moon. No silvered orchards or illuminated paths of celestial bodies stitched like embroidery into the sea beyond. Just the black, velvet sweep of night, thick as the darkness I feel myself tumbling further and further into.
“It’s all right,” Renault says as he turns to face me, gaze catching mine.
My mind works slowly, unable to latch onto the words he’s just spoken. “What?” I stammer.
“It’s all right, Ophelia,” he tells me, closing the distance between us. Gently, he reaches for my hands, taking them within his own palms. “The Lupa Nox is a formidable foe. It’s why I feared you might not be up to the task. Not due to any failing of yours, no—just that you are a foundling girl raised in heathenry. It would take a strong background in the faith, and a stronger bloodline still, to handle this crucible.”
I stare straight ahead, past Renault’s shoulder, feeling both relief and frustration at once. “Why has the High Ecclesia asked me to do this, then?” I whisper, my vision blurring with more useless tears.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Renault replies with all the conviction of a titled Apostle born into the Twelve. “And your victory will only be more glorious in the end.”
I startle, trying to pull from his grasp, but his hands hold mine firmly. “What do you mean?”
