“We can certainly speak to each other,” he said, “about things that matter.”
She swallowed down another attempt to be conciliatory. No one could say she hadn’t attempted to show him graciousness.
The door opened again and the servant reappeared with a tray with two cups of tea steeped to burnt umber and day-old hard bread with crumbling cheese and brown-speckled potato she hadn’t bothered slicing evenly.
“This is all I could manage. Breakfast won’t be for hours, I really apologize—“
“It’s fine.” Ilan leaned forward to take the closer cup.
“Thank you,” Csilla said on behalf of both of them. Regardless of what the maid had said about the food, the tea was hot, and that was what mattered. She took a sip. “Please, help yourself.”
Ilan picked up the tea and examined it, rolling the cup so the liquid rested just under the lip of his cup. Csilla took another encouraging sip; if he was drinking, he would have to stop staring at her so frankly.
He set it back in his saucer. “I still have questions.”
“I can’t tell you much about the murders,” her voice dropped away from any chance-listening ears. “We haven’t gotten much ourselves.” And if it was other information he was after at least the Izir might be able to explain his ideas in a way that wouldn’t get them both thrown out of the city with lash-marked backs.
He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, and Csilla stiffened as the distance between them closed. “I want to know why you’re working with a heretic. You’re strange but never trouble. Ágnes spoke highly of you. Your work was commendable. That’s why I was surprised when you seemed to be straying.”
And why he’d defended her to Abe. “You asked about me?” Few in the church thought of her at all unless they needed extra hands for something particularly unappealing.
“I didn’t have to. You were one of the first things they told me about when I took my post in Silgard. A soulless girl is quite the theological question.” He was studying her now, as if there were some sign he’d missed that manifested the reason for her difference. She bit her lip at the idea that he’d been watching her all along.
“And you didn’t do anything?” Surely any consideration merited a personal discussion of the very soulless girl involved. “You could have spoken to me yourself.”
He took a slow sip of tea. “By the time I came the question had already been debated to death and they’d judged you no threat to the faith. Unlike the Izir.”
‘No threat’ must have been the kindest thing the Prelate had ever thought about her. “He’s no longer preaching heresy.”
“And I’m to believe he’s dropped it? Or that you believe that? Why is it so important that you be the one to save the city?”
Csilla hesitated, searching for the right words as she cradled a teacup in her hands. Ilan was the embodiment of the rule of Asten. He’d hurt her in line with those principles, but if he thought helping them was the divine will, he would do that, too. “We want the same thing, home in a safe church. You want to restore your position. I need a miracle to stay.”
Because whether it came from Asten or Mihály or the gracious leave of the faith, that was what staying would be. A miracle.
Droplets of tea dribbled over the lip of the cup, a line of burnt brown down white porcelain as her hands shook.
“If catching sinners earned you miracles, I’d be the most blessed man in the Union,” Ilan said, but his voice was softer.
Was that compassion? She looked up from the dripping cup to the quietness in his gaze. It was certainly the least fearsome look she had seen on him, and she wondered what hope kept him praying in the dark.
“If you do want to work with us, it may mean accepting a certain amount of,” she didn’t want to call it heresy, “unconventional doctrine. He’s done a lot of research, you know. Everything we have isn’t everything there is.” She paused. “Please don’t hurt him.”
Ilan was quiet for a long moment, tightness in his jaw. “I will not act against the Izir unless absolutely necessary, regardless of how I feel.”
That promise was a small relief, though she had only her trust in his honor that it wasn’t a lie. “You probably won’t like him—“
“I already don’t like him,” Ilan cut her off. “He’s obnoxious.”
That startled a laugh from her, and she smothered it. Ilan had meant it as fact, not jest. “I’m sorry about what’s happened. I was always afraid of you, but I didn’t mean for you to lose your position over this.”
“You were afraid of me?” Ilan let out a disbelieving breath. “What did I ever do to you?”
What had he ever needed to do to anyone? The sure violence of his bootsteps in the corridors had been enough to have even the Prelate stand a little straighter. “Well now you’ve arrested me, and not very nicely.” Her chest still hurt from where he shoved her. “But it wasn’t what you did to me.” She’d been close enough to his interrogation halls to hear every cadence of scream, and mercy work was often the tail end of delivered justice. “It was what you did to others. Ordinary men don’t take such joy in punishment.”
His eyes glittered, blue as the sapphires she’d given away. “Ordinary men have not been called.”
From down the hallways came voices, one of them distinctly Mihály’s forceful baritone. Csilla let out a quiet sigh of relief. She didn’t want to argue with Ilan about the church’s stance on pain.
He threw the door to the room open. His skin was damp with a light sheen of sweat, his pupils dark and wide. Tamas’ warnings about spells came back to her.
“Csilla, you’re alright, aren’t you?” His words were half-lost in panting breaths as he charged forward, and she barely had time to set her cup on the table as he came at her in a storm of worry, kneeling and grabbing her by the shoulders. He was partially undressed, shirt untucked, pants creased, and the scent of tobacco clung to his hair. “I was absolutely panicked.” He turned and looked at Ilan, face half a snarl. “And apparently I have a good reason to be.”
Were you? It was an uncharitable thought, but by the wrinkled state of his clothes and the smell, he’d been somewhere in the house smoking and dozing.
“I’m fine.“ She gave a small, reassuring smile and removed his hands, though the flush lingered. It was nice to be worried about, even with the sobering knowledge that she wasn’t really the one he was panicked over. “The inquisitor brought me back.” She paused. The least ridiculous way was just to say it. “He wants to work with us.”
“Want is a strong term,” Ilan said, standing.
Mihály’s flustered worry turned slate. “Last time we spoke, you all but threatened to have me flayed.”
Ilan scowled. “You deserve it.”
Csilla looked between them, exhausted shoulders sagging further. This was wonderful. If the two of them couldn’t speak civilly for five minutes, they were all damned.
“Goodbye, Inquisitor.” Mihály gestured to the door. “If that’s all you have to say, you can leave.”
Ilan made no motion to do so. “Csilla tells me you have delusions of saving the city. Why do you think you’ll be able to do what I couldn’t? We’ve been hunting the killer for weeks.”
