There was a new tint to the Izir’s blood, and for the briefest second, it pulsed, struggling for fresh life. The droplets rolled then stilled, dying a second death.
He’d moved a soul.
The bastard wasn’t lying.
Csilla’s lips were slightly parted, breath shallow, her large eyes lit with warring disgust and reverence. Ilan fought the urge to step in front of her and block the wretched sight, cutting off whatever hope it had ignited.
Mihály looked up, his brilliant smile back. “There, now you’ve seen it. A little bit of blood, a little bit of soul.”
Ilan made a gesture over the blood, warding it against dark uses. He wasn’t entirely sure that what he’d just seen wasn’t dark. “That’s...”
“Shadow work?” Mihály’s tone was obnoxiously teasing. He was breathless, elated, intoxicated by his own success. “You just saw a miracle, and you’re going to complain?”
“I’m…” Not complaining. Concerned.
“I know you want to kill the man.”Mihály continued. “Do you really care how much of his blood gets spilled if you’re the one to do it? If it doesn’t work at least we’ll have taken a murderer off the streets. And if it does, Csilla gets her blessing.”
The open hope in Csilla’s eyes was painful in its sincerity, an ember to be smothered before the blaze took the whole house down.
“You’ll give her a soul that stained? She’ll have to work it off the rest of her life.”
Csilla only lit more brightly at that, and he looked back to Mihály, far easier to maintain the proper disdain in his tone.
“I’ve got a soul,” Mihály sniffed.
“You’ve got a soul.” Ilan repeated the words, eyes darting around the dim room. He wasn’t a child grasping his mark against ghosts. He still wanted to.
“Not here,” Mihály said. “But one close to me, one I know will welcome a second chance.” He smiled at Csilla in a way that could have been mistaken for warm if Ilan weren’t so used to looking for sin. There was avarice behind his gentle touches, and Csilla wasn’t aware. Maybe even Mihály wasn’t aware. The worst sort of people wanted nothing more than to think of themselves as good.
Csilla stiffened, tilting her head. Maybe she was more aware than he gave her credit for. He could push again if it would help wake her from whatever thrall Mihály held. “Is this why you’ve been preaching that there can still be form beyond death? Trying to make yourself feel better about your own ghosts?”
The Izir’s handsome face sharpened into something fierce. “I think everyone has the right to know that what is dead is not necessarily lost. There’s precedent. Angyalka. Rozalia.” He spoke with too much fire for it to be beautiful.
“Angyalka never fully died, and Rozalia was the lover of an actual angel. Your theology is rather self-serving.” Miracles were miracles because they were rare.
“And yours is far too narrow. Csilla will be quite comfortable, don't worry for her. I'm seeing to that." He reached out, a finger gliding along the cream lace at her neckline.
She’d gone pale, and Ilan raised an eyebrow as her lips parted, closed, then tried again. She pulled at her collar like it choked her.
“Csilla? Are you alright?” Mihály ran a hand over her head again, a master being gentle with a pet.
“I don’t feel well,” she said, not looking at either of them. “I’d like to go back.”
The first sensible thing that had been said here, really. And she did look incredibly pale. As pale as the bled corpses, marked with words to erase everything holy.
She just liked that he was divine.
Kovacs Lili. And then the server at the club, killed only a few feet from where Mihály had passed.
The Izir had death among his followers and death in his secret home. If he knew more, that thread of connection could lead back to the source.
Ilan stepped back from the table, resisting the urge to yank Csilla behind him. But she had made her own choice even after seeing all of this.
"Well, Inquisitor?" Mihály asked. "Will you help us?"
He should ask to pray on it, to take it to a higher power. But it was a struggle to conjure images of righteous saints and not shaking blood and screaming rabbits. The draft on the back of his neck felt too much like ghostly fingers, the settling sighs of old wood like something unseen breathing in the room. The Izir didn't even seem to understand the horror of what he was saying. A soul stuck to this plane wasn't some academic curiosity: it was a person's very essence being tortured.
And there was Csilla, the same age as Lili, just as enraptured. She hadn't asked to be saved. Hadn't asked for anything except that he'd listen. And yet there she was, alone as an untethered boat in a storm. Eyes on him even as she shook, as if he were a light on the shore.
"Yes," he answered, the mark on him heavy. "Damn me, but I will."
17
Csilla
Ilan had asked that they come and look at the latest body in the morning before Matins and Prime prayers when the fewest people would be up and about. That meant far too many hours for her to keep to her own troubled thoughts. She’d excused herself to a bath as soon as they returned, and Mihály had been happy enough to leave her to it; the trip back had been awkward enough with her feigning cramps and exhaustion, Ilan split between what seemed to be mild concern for her and less mild contempt for Mihály, and the Izir himself lost in some reverie with his ghost.
Evaline’s ghost. Csilla had been wearing her clothes, likely drinking from her cups, costuming herself in her jewelry, being made a puppet of what Mihály wanted in truth. She should have put it together more quickly. She should have asked more questions, been more suspicious from the moment he was delighted to find a hollow girl among his admirers.
If Csilla had thought her guest room opulent, that was nothing compared what was given to the cherished daughter of a wealthy house. She pulled back the sky-blue window curtains, quilted with tiny pearls, each one worth a day’s portion of food and still lovely despite the dust dulling their luster. The view faced the cathedral, where the gilt of the towers turned what little light there was into haloed glow. Below were gardens of the house, beyond, public lawns that would be green come full spring. What had been designed to please Evaline also pleased Csilla. That was some comfort. Perhaps a part of her would feel at home.
But there was no ghost. She held her breath to see if anything stirred the air, but it was silent as a snowfall.
Had Mihály even told Evie what he thought about souls? Csilla dragged her fingers over the spiraled mahogany bed posts, Evie’s marble-topped writing desk, nicked with careless pen-knife strokes, the small bottles of perfume gone rancid. Little things untouched by the grieving hands still in the world.
Perhaps she loved Mihály regardless. Love often stole sense and self-interest. At least, that’s what Csilla had gathered from overheard confessions. And Mihály’s looks and charisma likely made up for his...eccentricities.
