"Now what?" Mihály's voice was only a trickle of his normal volume, and she jumped as he grabbed her arm. For a heartbeat she remembered being in his room, pressure on her wrist like it would break.

She moved his hand down to hers, her fingers dwarfed by his. It was merciful that the dark hid her expression at the slide of his smooth palm against her scabbed one, bringing a tingling all-over awareness of her skin. "Follow me."

As they walked down the sloping ramp the space became a pit, and the damp squeeze on her hand tightened.

"I didn't know these tunnels were here." Mihály's tone was light, but there was a choked note beneath it. Something skittered in the blackness, and Mihály stepped into Csilla so hard she was pushed a half-step forward and nearly lost his hand.

"Don't worry. I think we're almost there." She paused, then led them further left, mentally trying to reconstruct the church above.

"Good," he muttered.

Csilla sighed. Her angel was scared of the dark.

"Csilla? Mihály. Where are you?" Ilan's whisper echoed, and they moved towards the sound with stumbling steps until they found each other. A blaze of silver light lit the area. Ilan had passed Mihály something holy, and the divine light revealed crumbled stone patched with chalky clay.

The silver burned spectral as they made their way through the ground. Depth meant the walls were still frozen, and every breath brought the taste of dirt. There were miles of similar tunnels, all cold and indifferent to the souls walking over their heads. If someone died this far below, they'd never be found, never blessed, never burned.

Csilla squeezed Mihály's hand harder on instinct, regretted it when he pulled her closer.

After long minutes winding through corridors that were a kingdom of the holiest rats and spiders in the land, the floor began to slope upwards again, landing in front of a wall. A dead end. Mihály looked at her in confusion, but she had no answer.

Ilan pushed. The wall cracked and opened, and they were standing in the hall of cells.

"What..." Csilla ran her hands along the expanse of rock. Her fingertips caught the slight raise of the seam, but even the full pressure of her weight didn't move it. "I didn't think blessed magic could do that."

"Asten gives us the power we need to protect what must be protected," Ilan said simply. "But the cathedral also had clever architects."

And one had left this pocket room, for prayer or protection.

The days had not been kind to the victim. The white sheet drawn across him was stained with oils and excrement, and though a small forest of incense sticks surrounded him, the smoke only gave the putrid smell false notes of cloves. Csilla touched her chest and covered her mouth, bending close to the wounds.

Ilan's voice was steady. "We haven't even finished his watch, and they're going to burn him. So look quick."

She reached out and touched the cuts, now too old and clotted over to bloody her hands.

Her fingers burned like touching frozen metal. She snatched them back and tucked them into her palm, hoping they hadn't noticed. But Ilan was only looking at Mihály.

Her scars began to itch. The Izir's face was pure horror as Ilan gestured to the mutilated body.

"I spoke to him that same night." He knelt down and touched his face, a loving caress, as if not seeing the bloat and sunken eyes. "He was a pilgrim, not from Silgard."

"Was he one of your followers?" There was a new, sharper note in Ilan's voice. Csilla stepped to Mihály's side.

"A new one, but yes—"

"And Kovacs Lili? Twenty. Long blonde braids. Wanted to join the church. Here, this one." He produced a sketch, one Csilla sighed to see was stamped with half a cat print.

Mihály was blinking rapidly now, his face paling to the color of linen. Csilla put a hand on his back, but he didn't seem to notice. "I noticed she'd stopped visiting, but I thought she'd taken her vows."

Ilan raised an eyebrow. "She died." He went through his record, every person listed bringing a new twisting grief to Mihály's face. Csilla clenched her teeth. She'd given him the names, but Mihály, self-absorbed to the marrow, hadn't bothered to learn the names of the people who followed him. He did know the accusing faces etched in dark charcoal.

Finally Ilan stopped. Mihály's hands were on his knees, white knuckles clutching tight. "They really are mine."

Csilla's chest squeezed at the shake in his voice. In a way the church had been right, even more right than they'd known. Those people had also put their faith in Mihály. The hands that healed and bought them precious days of hope and ease had also painted a target on them. Comfort wasn't meant to have a price, let alone one so high.

Ilan nodded as if he'd already known as much. "I don't suppose you have an explanation?"

Mihály shook his head, wordless.

"I could try to get one out of you, I suppose. Why would you be the only connection?"

They weren't so far from the torture rooms, and as shocked and broken as he was, Mihály would probably volunteer. Csilla stepped between them.

"You can't possibly think he's involved," Csilla said, keeping one hand behind her, on Mihály, as he trembled.

Ilan frowned. "You saw his experiments. Would it be so large a leap to think he would practice on people?"

"He wouldn't." He healed people and spent his nights sick himself. A flailing rabbit was one thing; a living person quite another.

"If I were going to practice on people," Mihály said finally, "I could do it with far less trouble away from here, and none of my followers would hesitate to leave the city with me. Did you see any bodies at the farm? Am I not trying to figure out the cause of this?"

A twisting ribbon of fear drew tight around Csilla's stomach. If the killer wanted victims, there was no one closer to Mihály than she was now.

"Sin outs itself in the end." Ilan's voice had an edge. Csilla was suddenly aware that of the three of them, he was the only one armed.

"I wouldn't know," Mihály countered, waving his hand. "The closest we have to a killer here is Csilla, actually, and that was on church order."

She hoped her flat look told him he really wasn't very funny.

Ilan seemed equally unamused. "You're our only connection."

"Me and every person who follows me. They all know each other." Mihály's face was anguished, deep lines on his forehead and around his eyes twisting his beauty. "I'm only trying to help people. What good is this divinity otherwise?"

But they'd seen the monstrous way he used his divinity, a blessing delivered with screaming and blood.

Ilan stepped forward, and Mihály grabbed him by the front of his cassock. Where the Izir's skin brushed his mark, it sparked white.

"There,"Mihály growled. "You can see I'm innocent."

Ilan glared, shoving him back hard enough that the Izir almost lost his footing. "I can see you're divine. Nothing about innocent."

Csilla looked between them, old and new faith warring in the glimmering light. "But the marks," she said finally. "Whoever is doing the killing is also destroying the seal. Mihály couldn't do that." She turned. "Could any of your followers have done this? Are any of them educated, trying to keep you for themselves, perhaps? Or maybe they're just taking the next step in heresy." The leap between the church being wrong about one thing and a desire to destroy it was large, but some would make it.

"I doubt it. They aren't bad people, regardless of what the church thinks."

Ilan ignored the pointed look. "And you're sure you can't read it?"

Mihály sighed and turned back to the papers, eyes sliding from the faces to their mutilation. His expression calmed with the distance of pondering an academic question, and then his eyes widened. "This is the order, correct?" He folded the first drawing with neat creases, then the second, even as Ilan complained behind him, laying them over each other so all that was visible was the charcoal scrawl. "I can't read it, but look."