He clucked his tongue.

“Not at all, poor thing. You could still leave. Why do all this work if there’s no reward in it for you?”

Csilla pursed her lips. "I want to rejoin the Church.” The words were a good reminder to herself. She had to believe it was still worthwhile, even as the anger at Ilan’s coldness in bringing in the citizens churned.

“A faith for a god who ignores you. In some ways you’re the luckiest girl in the Union. You don’t have to waste a second of worry on any of it.”

“How can I not?” The words came out in a snap. “If I’m ignored, I’m ignored, but how can you look at people, look at creation, and not try and help?” There was such responsibility that came with opening your eyes.

A sadness passed over his face. “Sometimes help doesn’t look like help on the surface. When you set a child’s broken bone, they wail all the louder. The healing takes far longer than the injury.”

“That’s what the Church does.” It was why the road to Asten’s return was so long. Tamas only snorted, and she clenched her teeth to try to quell the sting of his disdain. “I’ll tell Mihály to come by.”

Tamas pushed his glasses further up on his nose. “You shouldn’t care for him so much.”

The words weren’t an insult, but she took them as one. “Are you going to tell me to leave him again? I care for everyone.”

Tamas clucked his tongue. “I know. Anyone can see you’re raw, lighting yourself on fire to keep strangers warm.”

She frowned but held her argument. If he couldn’t understand caring for someone meant their pain was yours, it was better he’d left the priesthood.

Tamas took another long drag of smoke, the violet gray haze of his exhale surrounding them. “Has he even told you what she was like, other than perfection or grace incarnate or any of the other ridiculous images lovers create? Don’t try to lie, I can guess what he’s planning. I know the boy too well.”

Evie. Mihály had promised she wouldn’t change, and she clung to those words like a life raft. But Tamas’s tone was full of jagged stones to sink her with worry.

“Did you know her well?” He’d been there the night she’d died, and everything had gone so devilishly wrong.

He nodded. “Not well, but I knew her.”

“And?” she pressed.

“Loud,” he said after a pause to think. “Always chattering about this or that, asking questions, laughing. Smart but not wise, and selfish as sin. They were well-suited to each other.” He snorted at some private memory. “If you want to serve the church, you won’t be able to do it as Varga Evaline.”

She stared into the candle flame, the crumbling black wick burning up into pale fire like Asten’s eternal eye. “Nothing will change. I love the Church.” But even though it wasn’t exactly a lie, guilt weighed on her heart. She loved service, and duty, and the pure worship of helping Asten’s flawed creation. But seeing innocents cower from it, its own leader refusing to protect it...that she hated.

“And they never even gave you a choice in that, did they?” His smile was grim.

“I’m choosing now,” she answered, and a strange look passed his face again.

“Choosing Mihály.”

She gave a tiny nod. That wasn’t the whole of it, but it couldn’t be denied.

“Then let me give you something against the night.” He stood and went to a shelf of tins and bottles, picking up one that lit under his touch. Consecrated glass, but old.

Csilla kept her hands in her lap, fingers tightly laced. “What is it?” She’d nearly had enough of holy touches; they never seemed to work out like she wanted.

“Old habits in places from when the angels and demons were around to teach us. They say the well it came from was blessed.” He gave a little chuckle. “Maybe it will do you a little good, anyway.” He pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “If nothing else the liquor in it will warm you.”

“But you’re not a priest anymore.”

He clucked his tongue. “I was when I blessed this bottle. That is good enough. Humor an old man, will you?”

There was hardly enough in it for more than a few drops to be put into the tea he was making. His hand moved over the cup, then reached for a small jar of honey. He added more than would be sensible for a guest, even as she protested that he shouldn’t waste it.

“It’s no waste, I don’t have many visitors and don’t like the stuff myself. Now drink.” His voice was even but heavy with the weight of years of decisions.

“Where did you go when you traveled?” she asked, picking up a cup for a sip. Servants of the Road were nomadic by calling, tending to the spidery cracks that had been settled but not blessed.

“I spent a lot of time in Sol.” He gestured to the window where strings of shells from the southern coast hung, waiting for the weather to be warm enough for open shutters and music-calling breeze.

On the borders, then. “In the war?” The western territory of Pista was one that broke away from the Union nearly fifty years back.

He laughed. “Do I look like someone who went to war? Shall I tell you shiver tales of apostate generals and their demons?”

Csilla shook her head. She’d cared for veterans in her mercy work, and they didn’t speak of war so lightly. Pista hadn’t accepted the Severing, didn’t accept the Union, and soldiers claimed they had dark forces in their army. It was ridiculous- even before Pista had broken off, the demons had been sealed and the bloodlines that could spawn Sotir wiped clean. It was nothing but their powder weapons that made demons out of ordinary men.

Or so she would have thought before Shadow had leaked into their city. She knew everything about the creation of the world, very little about how it was actually run.

She took a deeper drink, the honey not quite covering the herbs, as if it could wash down her discomfort. “Thank you for that. I should be going.”

“Shouldn’t you have an escort? I’ll go with you if you like.”

She started to say it was kind of him, then shook her head. There was no guarantee their little trap had caught the person they were after, and if the killer was still looking for someone involved with Mihály, there was no better target than Csilla. It could also put Tamas in danger, and she didn’t want to draw that onto him.

But there were no footsteps trailing her, not even a prickle of unease as she walked towards the cemetery through gray streets and the scant moonlight. Curfew was soon, and though her hand and jaw still ached, Mihály needed her. It was enough to make her go on.

When she found him, he was asleep against the tomb, medicine bottle loose in hand. Sighing, she took his shoulders and propped him up a little straighter, then wiped the drool from his lips. Even that didn’t cause him to stir.

“Mihály.”

His eyelids fluttered. She pressed a palm to his cheek in case her hands would stir his blood. He turned his face and closed his eyes firmly.

“You’re going to let yourself freeze out here? You’re practically setting yourself up as bait.” And if she thought that would work, maybe she’d let him. But the killer only seemed interested in those who listened to him, and might even be with the Inquisitors now with everything gone so toppled over.

He didn’t respond. She looked around the cemetery. There was no one else save a dim figure wiping down a grave on the far side and a few ash-colored pigeons claiming the highest points of the domed stone to roost on.

“Mihály!” Perhaps she should kick him while she didn’t have a soul to blacken.

The person across the way was looking at them now. Csilla swallowed hard and crouched down close. “Come on. We have to go.”

“She’s not here yet.” Mihály’s words were brittle in their frustration. “She’s always here, but I can’t see her.” He curled his fingers around the side of the crypt as if he could shake the ghost from the stone.

“Do you think she’ll come at all? The seal has weakened. Maybe...maybe ghosts went with it.” It felt cruel to say, but Tamas had been right that sometimes treatment looked like torture from the outside.

“Asten lives in my blood, diluted as it is” he said simply. “The Church’s power doesn’t matter, gone or not.”

Not to you, she thought with a frown, though there was comfort in the reminder. The divine meant hope. Csilla tugged on his arm, but she’d have had better luck moving the stone. Perhaps a different tactic would be more persuasive. “I’m sure she doesn’t want you to freeze.”