What if she never woke up at all?

Mihály’s expression softened into something painfully tender. “I can only help one of you at the moment. I’ll pick you. There’s nothing worse than being too late.”

Csilla shook her head, heavy as it was. “I can’t leave her. It’s my fault. I did this.” The hollow in her was back, and stained.

“Did what, exactly?” Mihály’s lips thinned. “You look a sight, but there’s not a single scratch on either of you that I can see. Surely Tamas wasn’t trying something after yelling my ear off about how stupid it is?”

“I...” He had been there, talking to her. Talking to something in her. A dark understanding dawned. “Oh no.”

“Oh no what? Csilla?”

She ran a hand through a curl of hair, sticky with drying blood. “Yes. Let’s go back to the church. But we can’t just leave her. Find the maid. Tell her we’re getting help.”

She turned up the stairs, back to her room, and stripped off her dress. The bright stains on her skin looked all the more stark against pale, uncovered flesh, and she poured water quickly into the washbasin, sticking her hands in until the water seeped in pink.

It was wrong that her reflection looked no different than it always had as she rinsed her hair as best she could, careless splashes puddling on the dresser wood. She’d held evil, given it her heart and hands.

But you also held light. She tried to pick up a comb, her hand shaking too much to hold it.

A high scream echoed from downstairs, followed by the muffled cadence of Mihály’s comfort. For now they had to get back to the church. She’d see to the breaking of her own heart, then worry about his.

The damaged sanctuary was a makeshift vigil, candles dripping beads of wax and incense that couldn’t cover the bitter smell of powders sprinkled between corpses and those near to, keeping insects away. Those well enough to be moved had been taken to nearby homes. Ágnes wasn’t among them. Wrapped in blankets, she looked like a baby born too early. Fragile. Gray. Strange how Asten brought everyone back to infancy at the end of life.

The fresh linen lying across her stained body was a lie, making everything seem peaceful as it rose and fell too slowly. Csilla knelt beside her, folding her hands and looking back up at Mihály. “Did you heal her?”

He shook his head. Fear rose in Csilla’s throat at the hopelessness of the gesture. “Her lungs were already damaged. The smoke ruined what was left. She’s suffocating.”

Ágnes opened her rheumy eyes. “Csilla.”

“You have to let Mihály help you.” She wiped the woman’s forehead with a damp rag, the cloth already rank.

Ágnes’ voice was weak, but firm. “Stay away from him.” The movement set off a spasming cough. Csilla grabbed for water that had been left for later mercy and tried to force some between her lips, but it dribbled down her chin and wet the blankets.

The helplessness of not being able to care for the person she loved was worse than the loneliness of no care at all. She stroked the woman’s thin hair and hummed softly, a lullaby she’d been sung as a child, not trusting herself to get the words out. The comfort was short-lived. Ágnes’ dry lips were flecked with blood.

“He’s an Izir,” Csilla reminded her. “I’ve seen him heal.” For me, if not for you. It was pure selfishness, and she grasped it. What was one more sin for the night?

“No, my dearest, no. I’m ready. I was ready before he took me out of there.” She closed her eyes. “Promise me before I go.”

“No, please let him buy you time. I’m...” But there was no honest way to finish the sentence. She was never going to be welcomed back. She clutched her skirt in bone-white fingers, hating the richly dyed wool. It was no help at all. “I’m sorry. I tried very hard to be good. And I did one thing.” She wanted Ágnes to know. “I think I felt Them. It was so much more than you ever...”

Ágnes was still. Csilla wiped the woman’s forehead again, but the woman’s skin was no longer twitching under her touch, and when she put her palm to the sunken cheek there was no response. Her chest was unmoving. No breath. No pulse.

Impotent horror seized Csilla, denial thrumming with her heartbeat.

She’d seen this moment dozens of times, offered comfort. Why had no one ever told her there was no comfort to be had? Ágnes was with the eternal now, her work done. Her face had lost all its tension; there was clear peace. It was supposed to be a joyful time.

When Madame Varga died, a flood of divinity had healed her and brought her back, unblemished and as whole as graced Rozalia. Csilla raised a hand, waiting for the shine.

Nothing.

Mihály reached for her, but she shifted away.

“Csilla.” His voice was tinged with hurt, but there wasn’t enough free in her to care.

“She died, and my last words to her were defending you.” She should have been thanking her, telling her how much she loved her, not filling her last moments with worry. She put her hand to Ágnes’ cheek, still warm, and stroked the thin hair that was straw-brittle under her fingers, until the woman’s chest was wet with drops of dark dampness on the mercy gray. The faithful spoke of turning their pain over to Asten, no burden too great for Them. It would be such a comfort to have that option. Csilla would have to keep everything alone. Whatever had touched her was gone.

“Thank you for bringing me.” She forced the grief down into numbness. It wasn’t easy; the grief was very large, and the heart that needed to hold it was broken. “We should go back. Madame Varga will wake up. She’ll want you there, and she’ll have questions.” They wouldn’t have answers, but they could be there.

“I don’t want to be there, so stay here as long as you need.”

She wasn’t overly kind, but she was still a person. And she was alive. “That’s cruel.”

Mihály recoiled. “Cruel? Do you even know what I’m doing for you? Do you think I like being surrounded by Evie’s things? Do you think I like sharing the old woman’s bed? Virtues and vices, the things I’ve done to her to keep her eyes off you, and you can’t even stay put and be grateful.”

“You what?” Csilla spun, fists clenching. Something flashed back in her mind, a diluted memory of being choked by the scent of goats milk and roses, a dark pleasure at the novelty of slitting the woman’s throat instead of kissing it.

Mihály’s laugh was bitter. “You think she lets me stay for old times’ sake? Because you’re such a dear?”

“That’s…” It was more than a sin. It was cruelty itself. “She shouldn’t be allowed to live here.” She shouldn’t be the one Asten chose to live. If Csilla had one miracle in her, it was wasted.

“It’s not much of a sin. I agreed to it.”

Horror and empathy warred in her chest. “You shouldn’t have…”

He grinned, but it was the hollow grin of a skull with no beauty to it. “It doesn’t matter what I do, I’m blessed.”

That dissolved her bitterness. She was only blaming him because he made himself a target. He hadn’t asked to be what he was any more than she had.

“It’s for you.” There was a bite to his last word, a hint of sheathed claws. No wonder he hadn’t cared when he saw the woman soaked in blood. “I never wanted it.”

He’d only wanted Evie. And that was what had damned them all. She tried to find the words to break him, but she wasn’t Ilan. She wasn’t made to hurt people.

But she had. The both of them had.

And the church needed to know.

“Find Ilan,” she said quietly. “Bring him here.” He would deal with them fairly if nothing else. He would know what to do next. And it would give her a moment to think of how she was going to tell Mihály that not only had he been the one to place the targets on the victims’ backs, he’d put the knives there as well. “Please.” She reached out to touch his hand, just to show she forgave him. She always would.

At the brush of skin on skin, the air around them lit, silver and cold.

Her breath caught at the shine and a rolling whisper surrounded her. Once a visiting priest from a coastal parish had brought a shell and let Csilla hold it to her ear. They told her it contained the voice of the sea, something so vast you couldn’t see the end of it, or hope to know its depths. The metaphor had been blatant, even to a twelve-year-old.

But this sound was like that.

Csilla drew her hand back, and the light and gentle roar dimmed.