“I’ll be sleeping on the streets.” A sharp thought prodded her. “The Izir told me something curious. He said there was a killer in the city.” There were dangers on the streets she was being banished to.
Ágnes’ eyes narrowed. “Don’t listen to a thing that man says, Csilla. Yes, there have been deaths,” she drew a shaking breath. “But they are being handled. Panicking and making more of it than what it is, that’s the type of thing that drives people to heresy.”
“But sending the bodies outside...and I saw the seal.” There was no pretty way to excuse that.
Ágnes took her hand. “Yes, the seal is suffering with the fear and lack of faith in the city, and wild rumors will only make it worse. Don’t add to it any more than you already have. Please.”
Csilla clenched her teeth and nodded, though the rebuke hurt. Ágnes had been so quick to accept Csilla’s role in the church and now was treating her like a child again.
“Rest. They won’t begrudge me one night. I’ll sit a vigil for you and see you off in the morning.”
The woman could sit a year’s worth of vigils and it wouldn’t change anything. “You don’t have to.”
Ágnes touched Csilla’s head lightly and turned towards the door. “I want to.”
Csilla nodded, all further protests wrapping up inside herself. If there was one thing she knew about prayer, it was that it wasn’t always for the sake of the person being prayed for.
Her eyes fell again to her bandaged palm, drops of red seeping through. If only there were a way to convince the faith she wasn’t worthless. She couldn’t even comfort Ágnes, so clearly shaken. The fear wasn’t just outside. The church was walking the line of its own tenets to get to the heart of it.
A frantic idea took flutter in her ribcage. Mihály knew about magic and souls, might know something of the trouble with the seal and the fear eroding it. And right now he was one of the most connected men in the city, with followers who would give him information. She nodded to herself, each motion deliberate and steadying. The church would never work with a heretic, but, soulless and outcast, she could. She could help the city. She could help herself.
Csilla fretted and dozed until past the midnight bells, only getting up when it was safer to wander. Stained glass windows and the milky white candles below them illuminated the hallways, the cold eyes of angels and saints and Blessed Asten in all Their aspects heavy on her. She couldn’t even lower her gaze to escape; the glass cast colored flecks underfoot and she walked on ripples of sanctified light.
Behind her came the quick padding of a cat, and Csilla paused to let her catch up. At least someone cared enough to check on her.
She approached the cathedral library as if the door itself might have teeth, but the latch was plain iron, worn down with years of finger pressure. She slid it out and pushed, but there was no give. Csilla pursed her lips. She’d meant to see if she could find anything to about the seal, the deaths, or even the strange theories Mihály seemed to have, but someone had it bolted from the inside.
She stiffened and pressed her ear to the door, but the thick wood muffled any sounds, and the only thing she caught was the echo of a cough. Maybe she could hide in an alcove and wait for whoever it was to emerge. Depending on exactly what whoever was inside was researching, it could be hours. It wasn’t unheard of for particularly deep studies to take days. The head archivist once took his meals inside for a month.
Erzsébet chirped before giving a pleased meow as she rubbed against Csilla’s legs, ignoring the fingers that tried to hush her. She meowed again, louder, waiting for a response with no care for the secrecy of the mission, only protest that she wasn’t being included.
There was no reasoning with cats.
Csilla picked her up to stop her fussing, letting their foreheads bump together.
“We have to be quiet,” she whispered, snuggling the cat against her chest, wincing as kneading claws dug into the fabric of her overdress.
Maybe Mihály liked cats. If she could sneak Erzsébet out at least she’d have one friend in wherever her new home was to be.
Erzsébet meowed loudly with fresh insult at whatever it was about being gently held that offended cats, mouth wide enough to show little fangs and pink tongue, and before Csilla could shush her again, the door opened.
Ilan. Looking even worse for wear than perhaps she was, his eyes rimmed in bruise-like dark and his skin wax pale.
Csilla froze. There wasn’t anywhere to run, or any way to pretend she hadn’t been trying to get in.
The Inquisitor leaned against the door frame, annoyance giving way to momentary surprise. “You’re supposed to be gone.” His voice dripped with exhaustion.
You’re supposed to be asleep. “I will be, in the morning. I just wanted to look at something.” Not a lie, at least.
“What could you possibly need in here?”
“I…” Erzsébet squeezed out of the sudden constriction of Csilla’s clenching arms and leaped to the floor with an all-over shake. “My own records. I need to copy down my birth record if I’m to live elsewhere.” That was also absolutely true, even if it wasn’t what she intended to do.
The single sheet in the book of orphans would say the same thing it did every time she’d looked: date found, name given, no family, adopted or otherwise, perhaps a note of her vows, then a blot over them if they’d been quick in their updates. The one small notation of her existence in all the Union’s history, only to be edited if she married or had children, was reinstated, or died. Only one of those things was looking likely at the moment.
The inquisitor rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Very well.” But instead of leaving her to it, he stepped back in. Hopefully her smile looked grateful instead of concerned. It felt more like a grimace as she passed him.
The cathedral library was second only to the university stacks in its collection of knowledge, possibly also its size. Wall-length windows were partially hidden by the shelving that stretched up to the level of the clerestory, the wood further blocking what light could come through the grime on glass too tall and awkwardly placed to clean regularly.
Ilan had gone to sit at one of the quill-knife-scratched tables, bent over something she couldn’t read, everything soft and hazy in the candlelight and dust. Erzsébet took the opportunity to steal into his lap, a paw occasionally tapping at the papers he was sorting, brushed back by a surprisingly gentle hand.
The little traitor was purring. Csilla glared, but the cat showed no remorse.
Fine, it was probably easier to search without her underfoot anyway. Csilla thumbed through bound texts on the pretense of a search, silently willing him to leave. There were a few volumes that looked very interesting and would open a tribunal of questions if she were caught looking.
Ilan didn’t move. He muttered to himself, he made notes, he occasionally shifted and clucked as the disloyal cat attempted to capture his attention with a headbutt to his face, but he didn’t leave or look at Csilla. She stepped lightly around the room, trying to pretend she was simply confused, when her eyes fell on his work and she couldn’t stop a gasp. It was what she wanted to see, but so much more horrific than she could have imagined.
There was a sketch of a girl’s body, exquisitely rendered and grotesquely intimate, and across her chest there were carved symbols, not wholly unfamiliar. Beneath the paper were older works, notes of demons and the hero priests and saints who vanquished them, Ilan’s notations fresh over the yellowed pages with their browning letters.
She brushed her wrist where Mihály had touched her as if some holiness lingered.
“Shadow script?” The words escaped before she could help it. Mihály had been right. There was something dark here. No one in Silgard would risk those corrupted words. There were knives that killed a body, and there were words that destroyed a soul.
“You know it?” There was a measured note in his voice as he turned, gaze suddenly sharp and pinning, and she stepped back until her shoulders hit the stacks.
“I’ve seen it.” Not like this, not written on flesh. “When I was little they thought I might be...” She flushed to say it. “A demon, or something adjacent. They tried to make me read.” She’d been made to kneel on stone until her knees bruised, offered book after book until she’d ruined pages with frustrated snot and tears and earned a cuff on the back of her head. Even now she curled in on herself at the memory, forcing it back with a shove.
