Two snow-white equui pull the carriage, their long manes plaited into braids, each one festooned with tiny chamomile flowers. The door of the carriage features the Amadeus coat of arms—a dove upon a silver scroll, with branches of cypress sweeping up from the bottom corners and a trio of gold bells hanging from the top. Between the cypress branches, emblazoned in illuminated font, are the wordsaut deus autnihil. “God or nothing.” A sentiment Renault and I share wholeheartedly.
I let out a long breath and glance over my shoulder. The Holy Guard posted at the Spine’s entrance are surely watching me. Let them report this back to Sergio:a footman, dressed in Amadeus livery, opened the carriage door for her, and she stepped inside, out of your grasp, beyond your reach.
I breathe a sigh of relief as the door closes behind me, leaving me in peaceful silence. The carriage rumbles off, pulling away from the Cloisters and descending the mild slope into the Gilded Quarter. I pull back the curtain, eager to think of anything but Sergio.
The sea greets me, glinting in the distance like a diamond. Its shimmering swathe frames the Gilded Quarter, a crescent-shaped district along the cliffs. Below, the pitch of the hill steepens, leading to the Lower City at its feet. Try as I might to focus on the wonders—rooftops of gold, spires of ivory, cedar shake siding covered with roses, winding white roads—it is Sergio and his threats that keep my attention.
When the carriage arrives at House Amadeus, I’ve forced myself to calm down a little, for Renault’s sake. I gather up my cane and shawl, waiting for the footman to open the door. And then I’m making my way up the stone pathway through House Amadeus’s sprawling manicured gardens.
The structure itself is so large that it still takes me aback, massive blocks of carved sandstone creating a gorgeous castle. The manor is tucked away at the edge of the property, ringed in old-growth trees. On either side of the building, green hills stretch, eventually giving way to the seaside cliffs. With nightfall approaching, the exuberant chorus of late-summer insects envelops me as I near the door. It swings open before I reach it, creating a square of warm light in the gray-purple veil of dusk.
“Lady Ophelia,” comes Renault’s rich voice, though I am no lady—not yet, not until we’re married. He strides down the sandstone steps to escort me into his home. I appreciate it—the steps are old and worn by the passage of so many feet, and estimating the uneven height of each during dusk is difficult.
Once inside, Renault takes my shawl. “You look just as lovely in that dress as I thought you would,” he says with a smile, reaching out to tuck a length of hair behind my ear.
“Thank you,” I demur, ducking my chin. “It’s very beautiful.”
Renault slides his arm through mine and leads me to one of the parlors off the marble foyer. “I’m sure you think it’s a bit much,” he says, smiling down at me. I warm at the words; he truly knows me.
“I do,” I laugh, settling into the seat he pulls out for me. He’s chosen one of the smaller, tucked-away parlors for our meal. Tall, latticed windows look out into the gardens, the view partially obscured by flowering vines. Candles line the windowsills, their flames casting a cozy glow about the room. In the elegant marble hearth, a fire crackles. A small round table is set with a beautiful, embroidered tablecloth, a vase of jasmine buds, and three slender tapers of beeswax.
“Were you able to rest?” Renault asks me, taking his seat across from me. I can feel the heat of his knees, so close to mine, beneath the table.
“A bit, yes,” I say, pleased by the lack of household staff and the chilled carafe of wine. We will be able to speak freely here—a relief. “Though Sergio spoke to me in the Spine. He knows the High Ecclesia asked something of me. Renault . . . are we in trouble?”
His jaw works back and forth for a moment before he reaches over and fills my glass. “Hardly more so than we already were,” he replies, flashing me that mischievous grin I know so well. “You’ve already been accused of forbidden goetia, and that wasafteranni of rumors that your mother must’ve been guilty of such a crime for your leg to look the way it does. You’ve gotten by on being Spared, on that story making the rounds. And on your beauty, if I may be so frank.”
He pauses, contemplative. “But now the High Ecclesia is evidently suspicious of our engagement and has opted to use that against us,” he continues. “But why? What’s so important aboutyoubeing the one to care for the prisoner?”
From anyone else, save for perhaps Carina, the words would bite into me deeply, sending my heart galloping away from my chest. But with Renault, there is a calmness, a frankness that I appreciate.
“The Lupa Nox is Fatum,” I say, following the words with a long sip from my wine. “Fallen, of course.”
Renault freezes, his own glass trembling in his hands. “She is . . .Fatum?”
“Yes,” I reply with a deep inhale. “And naturally They don’t want anyone to know. I suppose I was the best healer without Mysteries that They had leverage over. But here’s what I don’t understand, Renault. Had They simply asked me not to tell anyone about her, I wouldn’t have. I fully understand the panic such knowledge could cause.”
Unfrozen, back to himself, though a weariness has settled onto his shoulders, Renault swirls his wine glass. “Yes, well, you know the opinion the High Ecclesia holds of mortals, particularly foundlings. They probably never even considered that you wouldn’t need consequences to do the right thing.”
I sigh, dropping my head against the high back of the chair. “Renault, if we cannot marry, Sergio will destroy my reputation and drive me out of Lumendei. Or, worse, he’ll have me burned.”
“I know,” comes his weathered, quiet response. Goetia burnings are rare these days, but they still happen. Which means it could still happen tome.
My hands curl into fists as I sit up straight, staring over Renault’s shoulder into the fire. “I did nothing to gain Sergio’s attention. I did nothing to make him think I would be interested in marriage with him. And I certainly did nothing to make him think I would want to engage in any kind of relations outside Holy Matrimony. Do I really seem so faithless, so immoral?”
The words catch in my throat, and I already know the answer. Between my appearance and my twisted leg, so many men see me as a kind of temptation, a snake in the grass that should’ve never been permitted to join the ranks of Lumendei’s people.
As a child, I was pitiful. As a woman, I am sinful by mere virtue of my body, my face—things I cannot control. Perhaps this is why I cannot accept that I might be beautiful. Because I do not think I can bear another curse.
Renault sighs, his gaze sliding back to meet mine. “That’s why I got you the dress, you know,” he says with a playful smile, tilting his wine glass to gesture at the garment. “You’ve been hiding. I understand, after everything. But you’re a bride of the Twelve now. You deserve to feel joy in your beauty, not shame.”
I chew on my lip and look away, instead examining the sweep of dusk outside the windows. Renault is right, I know—a bride’s beauty is often shown off and celebrated during the engagement. And Idoenjoy taking care of my appearance; such things are a pillar of the Church and Lumendei culture. But I prefer to present myself in a less ostentatious way—pretty but not ravishing, not sin-inducing, though I fear that’s how I might look in Renault’s celestial dress.
Particularly after the trial. I’d spurned Sergio with less grace than he deserved; I’d been surprised and a bit scared by the intensity of his proposal. When I refused, he accused me of goetia the next day. Why else would a man of means, a militarycommander, be so entranced by a penniless foundling that he found himself unable to eat, unable to sleep, as he claimed?
I take a long sip of wine as Renault drums his fingers on the tabletop, clearly just as lost in thought as I am.
I have no living family—only rumors that my mother worked goetia, consorting with wicked diaboli in exchange for unearthly powers, those actions leaving me with a useless leg that no amount of Mysterium has ever been able to heal. I have no Mysteries, a further sign of my wickedness. I think the only reason I had a trial at all, instead of immediately being sentenced to the stake, was because all those anni ago, the First Son Spared me. A whole village massacred except for me, perched like a gem amidst the horrors.
