Tamas sighed. “So he keeps his own faith and drowns himself in weak man’s baptism. Well. I can’t say I haven’t had a part in that, though I wasn’t expecting him to be in the well so long. And I wasn’t expecting you to stay with him.” The accusatory note in his tone was the sting of a lash. “I did warn you to leave.”
Csilla laced her hands and rested them on the table in front of her. She wasn’t here to talk about Mihály. “What did the Inquisitor want? I saw him leave.”
“He thinks I can take responsibility for Mihály. As if anyone could.” He tapped his fingers against his lips, the creases in his forehead deepening. “How is he treating you?”
“Mihály? Fine.” Better than fine when he forgot she was Csilla and not Evie. The echoes of his desperate touches lingered on her shoulders and in her hair, the clinging remains of love with nowhere to go.
“And has he managed to get you a soul?” Tamas gave her a pointed look. “Or save the city, or whatever it was you thought would save you in turn?”
She shook her head, pulling her hope around her. She wouldn’t let his needling hurt. “We haven’t had any luck at all.” Whatever evil was lurking, it was well hidden.
Tamas sighed, then picked up his pipe and lit it. He took a deep drag as a thicker smoke haze danced above them.
“Are you certain you never had a soul?” he asked. “The mercy priests didn’t take you wet from between your mother’s legs.”
His eyes locked with hers, and she flinched. It was like being stripped bare all over again.
“If I’d had a soul and lost it, I’d be dead. Do I look dead?” Anxious prickling made her throat thick, his gentle questioning jabbing her most sensitive spot. At least when she had a soul, even if it was Evie’s, no one would question her right to exist.
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.