I stagger back a few more steps, trying to slow the gallop of my heart and the spiraling thoughts in my skull. I anchor myself in the things I know: the glories of my Lord I have been taught all my life. The truths I hold close to my heart, the sacred words that keep me afloat.
“The First Son tells us that suffering is holy,” I say on an exhale, my voice shaking. I’m unsure whether I’m trying to convince the knight alone or perhaps myself, too. “Suffering purifies us, prepares us to leave this sinful realm and ascend to Caelus. That is all I want for you. For anyone. To purify themselves and accept the gift of eternal life. Instead of death with the Sepulchyre, you could have immortality with the Host. That starts with your Baptisma.”
I keep my eyes trained on the toes of my boots peeking out from beneath the sweep of my flannel skirt. When I hear no rattling of her chains, I force myself to look up at the knight. Sheis calmer and has retreated, having taken the same amount of steps away from me as I did from her. With a long exhale, she meets my gaze. There is a sadness in her eyes that slams into me like a gale.
“Last night, the High Ecclesia visited me. It is not a Baptisma your people wish me to undergo,” she says, her shoulders sagging. “It’s the Communion.” As she speaks, her eyes search mine, though I do not know what she seeks.
My brow furrows as I wrack my mind for any knowledge of this rite, but I know the Catechisma as well as any sister of the cloth and have never heard of such a thing. “Perhaps you misheard,” I offer gently, sweeping out the creases in my skirt. “There is no such thing as the Communion.”
She pins me with a pointed look, all the sharp angles of her face knife-like. “A group of fucking corpses in masks and cloaks appeared in the middle of the night. Trust me. I paidveryclose attention to what they said.”
I startle, a current running through my body as the knight describes what must be the High Ecclesia as corpses. My mind wanders to that morning in the gardens, the High Ecclesian who summoned me, the way Their mask had slipped, the smell of rot . . .
“What exactlyareThey, anyways?” the knight asks, her tone casual, as if we are sitting down to tea in the orchards.
“The closest thing to God that walks these halls,” I tell her stiffly, the words rote and memorized, an automatic response. “The First Son’s right hand and counsel. Fatum, Exalted.”
I feel worn out, like a cotton strip laundered too many times, too thin to be of use. Shakily, I rise from the stool, pulling a tin of gentle salve from my kit.
“I am going to apply this to your bruises,” I tell her, leaning heavily on my cane, my hips in abject agony. “And then I am going to leave. I hope when I see you next that you are morewilling to open your heart to the First Son and His Catechisma. I only want to help you, truly. I am sorry for the treatment you claim you’ve received from my congregation, but I do not wish you ill.”
The knight lifts her head from her chest, a shock of dark hair tumbling into her face. “I know,” she says, so soft it barely sounds like her voice at all.
Cautiously, I approach, dragging the stool with me. She watches my movements, her gaze catching on the way I hobble with my cane, and she frowns. Shame burns through me, but I do my best to push it aside.
She must see how my fingers tremble as I raise them to the feral planes of her face, dabbing the softly scented salve onto the bruises. She flinches away from me at first but then relaxes into my touch. For a moment, I am lost in the familiar rhythm of tending to the flesh of others.
“That’s quite potent,” she says, barely more than an exhalation, her breath dancing across my wrist. “Feels better already.”
She is trying to charm me again; though this salve is a helpful ally in healing bruised skin, it has no numbing properties and wouldn’t alleviate much on immediate application. I offer only a noncommittal noise, working a pea-sized amount into the bruise on her jaw. With the knight’s permission, I lift her shirt, biting down on my tongue the entire time I apply the herbal remedy to her inked skin.
“Where have you been all my life?” she asks as I straighten, her mouth curving and dangerous again. I clamp my jaw shut. “Nothing’s ever workedthatquickly.”
I almost turn away from her, dismissing her words as more wiles, but even in the shuddering candlelight of the chamber, I can see the bruising and swelling on her face has decreased. My eyebrows knit together as I lean forward, the pain in myhips suddenly far away, even the flail’s bites across my back momentarily forgotten.
“That’s not possible,” I murmur, pulling her shirt’s hem back up before blushing at my readiness to do so. “May I touch you again?”
“Anytime, little dove,” she replies in that low, husky tone that calls to the hidden core of my sin.
My bust strains against my corset, the blood in my face pounding, as I force myself to focus. With my free hand, I run my fingers across her ribs, palpating here and there.
“Your rib isn’t broken,” I say, alarmed. If she says anything, I don’t hear it—not with the desperate way my hand roams her torso, trying to find a trace of the deep bruises, the break in the rib. I draw away, my skin flushed and hot, to stare at her. “How are you working goetia in Blessed chains?” I demand, though I don’t expect an answer. I certainly don’t expect her to look at me with an open expression, her eyes wide.
“I’m not,” she replies. “I can’t work Mysterium. Hell, I can’t even do sympaethetica.”
“Of course you can’t work the Mysteries,” I mutter incredulously, though my heartbeat skips. I have no idea what sympaethetica is—probably some Sepulchyre lie. “Why would the First Son grant you power? No. This is goetia, which I have no doubt the diaboli gleefully lend you.”
At that, her earnestness fades and she rolls her eyes. “The only diaboli are the men in your halls and the beasts in the Sundered Lands.Goetia, your people call it. What they mean is ‘any power claimed by someone who should not have it.’”
Her words hang heavy in the air. Perhaps, for instance, the power to say no to a marriage. The power to do anything but submit to one’s husband. The power to claim Mysterium for oneself, to study in the Physica Scholae beside the men. That other world dangles in front of me tantalizingly, but I know it isonly a delusional dream—or, worse, a temptation. Sadness grips my entire body, like I’ve been tossed into the flames.
“I suppose the Fatum are bound to heal faster than mortals,” I finally say, though I don’t dare meet her gaze. It’s the only explanation I can muster for what I’ve just seen. “I’m unaccustomed to your kind.”
I turn away from her and begin to pack up my kit. Strange feelings crest in my body, nameless things that won’t fit within the confines of that tiny inner room. My back begins to throb once more. The thought of facing Renault sends a wave of clamminess across my skin.
“When I return next, I want to read to you from the Catechisma,” I tell her, only meeting her eyes once I’m a safe distance away. “I want to show you that there is more to this world than death and darkness.”
I watch her throat bob as the knight swallows hard, the same bone-deep sadness washing over her face. “All right,” she agrees. “I’ll do my best to listen.”
