“Prelate, a word.”
The man stood before the glowing gold-wrought eye at the front of the sanctuary hall, but he shifted to let Ilan take a spot at his side. This close the fire inside was warming, then scalding, turning the gilt molten.
“A helpful one, I hope.”
Ilan wouldn’t go that far. “A concerned one. I spoke with the parents of the latest victim. There was nothing overly suspicious in the girl’s life.” Not that he had expected them to say anything else.
The Prelate’s soft sigh stirred the ash on the air. “Unlucky, then. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Very strange for the place and time to have been by the river at night, don’t you think? Almost like there was some influence. Have you considered...” It felt blasphemous to be the first to suggest it, but he couldn’t do otherwise. “Have you considered that this truly is Shadow work? A broken seal, Sotir, something...” Something that hadn’t been seen since the Severing.
Abe stared into the flame, not even acknowledging the possibility with his gaze. “Arany still bleeds and weeps. There is no proof this is anything more than a human killer with a taste for the macabre. The bodies smell like bodies. The wounds don’t smoke.”
Because whatever made them is gone. “The seal...”
“The seal is fading because the peoples’ faith is weak. If they trust the church to protect them all will be well.”
It would be easier to believe that.
Abe turned and his hand found Ilan’s shoulder, fingers pressing to prevent Ilan’s instinctive flinch.
“You’re wise to consider all ideas, Ilan, but a lack of focus will lead to failure. If it were truly a work of Shadow, the Incarnate would have returned already.” The older man’s lips pressed into a cutting line. “As it is, he has been delayed.”
“Again?” They’d been sure he’d arrive before the spring. Pilgrims and merchants had already started appearing in the city, hoping to participate in the celebration of his homecoming, or at least capitalize on it.
“Again. But he is sending us help.”
“We don’t need help, we need him.“ The Incarnate was the one person the divine still deigned to speak with.
The Prelate sighed. “We will be obedient and grateful for what we are sent. And you will drop that train of thought. I wouldn’t be surprised if spiritual dissent is part of what our killer is after with these mock-Shadow deaths. We have to be united, and strong.”
Ilan murmured respect. He would be obedient; it was a tenet. But there was nothing in scripture that said he had to be grateful, and he was hardly going to stop thinking.
He waited until he was out of sight to pinch the bridge of his nose and try to stave off a headache. He would add a few notes to Lili’s file, then check who the junior inquisitors had rounded up. And look at the old records and their descriptions of older magic again.
It was blasphemous to think it, but all creation was a selfish act in a way, and the very act had birthed dark demiurge with god-sprinkled humanity. The Severing had cut the world off from the extremes of the ether, but the remnants still stained. The Izir and his sham of brilliance. The demons that the Servants of the Road kept sleeping in their tarry prisons. They weren’t so far from Silgard, and the wards the church trusted in were old and maintained by the faith that even Abe admitted was weakening.
The floor outside the library was dotted with little smears of black cat prints. A sinking feeling overtook him as he opened the door.
Everything looked neat enough, and the stack was where he told Csilla to put it, but as he approached his work it was clear that it was a facade. There were fingerprints and ink dots and one very suspicious paw print, and as he shuffled through the papers, one was missing.
His brows drew together. The paper was replaceable, the information less so. She was probably going to take it to the stupid Izir who was the only one who seemed to want her, the person in Silgard least likely to keep their mouth shut. She was going to spook the killer, no matter what it was, even further into the dark.
9
Csilla
The day was rudely bright. Snow had melted into puddles in the street too large to avoid, dampening her hem. She hiked her skirts up, trying to keep her dress out of the slush, suddenly conscious of the value of the fabric. Her clothes had rarely been nice and never new, but if she stained or tore something beyond repair it would be dear to replace now.
There were seven districts in Silgard, with the cathedral at its heart, once divided to provide a seat to every angel and the representatives of their respective territories. Now the lines bled and the grand governing houses only sheltered the secular nobility when they saw fit to make pilgrimage. With the Incarnate returning, some were no doubt preparing for just that, and there’d be no chance of hiding in an empty outbuilding to save her coins.
First, to find Mihály. Maybe he could even convince one of his followers to give her a place to stay. They seemed willing enough to do anything for him.
She picked up speed, brushing past women on their way to and from shopping at the streetside market stalls, nearly stepping into the road as a carriage clipped past. She couldn’t move back fast enough to avoid being splattered with gray water and barely got her arms up in time to defend against flecks of gravel that shot out from beneath the horses’ hooves. The driver never slowed, yelling an insult to her mother as he passed.
Well, the insult was a black mark on him and nothing to her. Csilla had no idea who her mother was. She shook her skirts off as best she could and picked up her pace again. The alley looked more open in the bright light— all the easier to see that the ladder on the side of the house was gone.
“Izir!” Csilla called, but her voice didn’t carry. She scuffed her boot against the ground, seeking a rock to toss at the window, but there was only cobblestone and grit under the slush.
She hefted the weight of her bag again. The cheapest coins were thick iron grots, heavy and rough. She pulled one from her bag and threw it.
It hit under the window with a clank on the stone facade, then fell back. It left a pierced hole in the gray snowmelt banked against the house below. Csilla fished it out of the snow, ignoring the cold on her fingers. Steadying herself, she took better aim and threw again.
This time it hit the shutters with a satisfying crack, but the wood panel chipped under the assault, a flake of green drifting to the ground. Csilla gaped at the pale wood revealed by the damage. She hadn’t meant to hurt anything.
She startled at the creak of a tight-hinge door swinging open, and from around the front marched a middle-aged woman, face red beneath her kerchief.
“What are you doing to my house, girl? All the commotion last night, and now throwing...”
She paused when she saw what Csilla was holding.
“Throwing coins! Oh Great Asten above, deliver us from madwomen.” She threw her hands up, eyes rolling towards the sky, and Csilla shrunk back. “I suppose you’re looking for the Izir,” the woman continued. “He’s gone, came down the trap door in a hurry last night and took off. Scared my wife half to death.”
“Gone? For good?” Her stomach dropped. She’d told him to go herself, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but he was her only lifeline. At least he’s safe, she told herself. That was the most important thing. She had to be cheered by having saved a life, even if her feet were freezing and she wasn’t sure where her meals would be coming from.
The woman waved her hand. “He’s always coming in and out at odd hours, might be gone, might not be.” Her face shifted, eyes narrowing with hawk-like focus. “What did you want with him?”
