I glanced out the loft door. Jean had abandoned his vigil beside the stable to sit down on the ground among the chickens, looking huge and forlorn as they pecked the straw around him.
“Is that what you want to use Jean for?”
“Right now, if I tried extending my power far enough to locate the ritual site, any human using a relic inside Bonsaint would sense my presence immediately. We need a trace to follow more discreetly. He should do nicely as a starting point.”
This was the second time I had detected a suspicious undertone of excitement in its voice while talking about Old Magic. It didn’t just know a great deal about the subject; it was also interested. “Will that hurt him?” I asked, trying not to let my suspicion show.
“That’s what you care about?” I felt a jab of annoyance. “No, he shouldn’t feel a thing. I’m not an amateur.”
“Then let’s do it now,” I decided.
“What? Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“You’re too weak. You need to rest first. No, listen to me. You’ve barely eaten since you became my vessel. You’ve barely slept—don’t argue!” it hissed, when I opened my mouth to object. “Passing out from exhaustion doesn’t count. You need to recover your strength before you tax yourself again.”
“We don’t have time. Now that we’re in the city, we’ve left everyone outside Bonsaint defenseless. The spirits could attack other provinces next. We have no idea what Leander is planning.”
“It will take time for the spirits to rebuild their numbers after yesterday. Old Magic can’t call forth an army that no longer exists.”
“Hundreds of spirits got away.”
“And thousands didn’t. The rest will be in hiding now, too afraid of my power to emerge until they’re compelled again.”
“But more will rise,” I argued. “Even if most of Roischal’s dead become shades—”
“I know what I’m talking about,” it interrupted. It sounded angry now. “I’ve devoured more souls, living and dead, than your pitiful mind can even begin to fathom. Most spirits would rather leap into the Sevre than cross me. Don’t ever forget what I am, nun.” It gripped me and gave me a fierce internal shake, hard enough to rattle my teeth.
It had been a while since the revenant had done something like that. I wished I had my dagger on hand. Then again, even if I did, I wasn’t certain I had the energy to use it.
“I won’t,” I said simply. I was surprised by how tired I sounded, my tongue thick in my mouth. My head felt heavy against the stable’s wall.
The revenant was silent a moment. Then it said, “The Old Magic will take time to fade. Meanwhile, in your current condition—if I attempted to trace it, you might not survive. And I assure you, you won’t be able to help anyone if you’re dead.” Its voice seemed to be getting quieter, farther away. “Sometimes, if you want to save other people, you need to remember to save yourself first.”
* * *
I slept. And slept. Once, I partially awoke to hear the tolling of the fifth bell. The late light slanting through the loft door was the color of melted butter, motes of dusting swirling lazily in its beams.
The next time I awoke it was to the revenant shaking me again, urging sharply, “Nun, you need to wake up. You aren’t well.”
I groaned. My body sweltered in the sun’s merciless heat, but that couldn’t be right, because when I cracked open my eyes, the sunlight had gone. A square of night sky hung beyond the loft door. My chemise clung to my body with sweat.
“You’re feverish. You need to drink water.”
I pushed myself upright, then sagged back down to my side. My eyelids felt heavy, drooping shut of their own volition.
The revenant paused. Then its voice came rushing back, vicious with malice. “It would be child’s play to possess you in this state. I could claim every soul in this convent. Every loathsome nun, every stinking peasant, and you would have to watch.”
The loft wobbled around me. I had bolted upright, standing knee-deep in the hay, my legs trembling like a newborn foal’s.
“Now go down the ladder,” the revenant instructed, still using the same cruel tone. Muddle-headed, I hastened to obey. I felt it steadying my shaking hands on the rungs. I blundered through the door, stumbled out into the darkened yard, fell to my knees in the mud beside the well and drank thirstily from the bucket’s ladle.
“You’re in worse shape than I thought, nun,” the revenant mused to itself. It sounded angry, but not at me; I was barely conscious, an afterthought. It paced back and forth in my head as I leaned against the well’s cool stones, soothed by their chill against my brow. “Of all the problems I expected to have managing an untrained human, this wasn’t one of them. My previous vessels at least understood how to take care of their bodies. Here’s what we’ll do,” it said to me, but I was already fading away. The last thing I heard was “Nun? Are you listening to me? Nun!”
TWELVE
Consciousness returned in a flood of white. This alone assured me that I was still alive. Holy texts described the Lady’s afterlife as a place of restful dusk, lit eternally by stars. Here, wherever I was, the air smelled astringently of healing herbs. Murmuring voices surrounded me, echoing faintly as though carried down a corridor; distant footsteps rapped briskly to and fro. Shifting experimentally, I discovered that I was surrounded by linens. I felt weak and oddly light, like the dried-up husk of an insect.
“Are you awake this time, nun? Ah, you are.”
I dragged in a breath, my heartbeat quickening.
“No, don’t try to get up again—you’ve done that before. They might resort to restraining you instead of merely drugging you. As it turns out, you’re a nightmare to deal with even when you’re half-conscious and insensible with fever.”
I recognized the taste of the syrup that coated my mouth; it was the same kind I had been given in Naimes. I cracked open my eyes, only to squeeze them shut again, finding my surroundings painfully bright. I parted my dry, cracked lips.
“Don’t bother trying to speak. I’m sure I can guess what your questions are. Let’s see. No, they haven’t figured out who you are. No, I haven’t been trying to possess you. Tempting though the prospect was, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything with your useless body aside from stumbling it around and smacking it deliriously into walls. Anything else?”
A scratchy, questioning sound escaped my throat.
“Yes, you were very ill. You still are, but you’re through the worst of it now. There’s another human helping you,” it added, an inexplicable darkness creeping into its tone. “She seems to know you. She’s claiming to be your friend.”
That was unsettling. My lack of contacts in Bonsaint aside, I couldn’t think of anyone who would claim me as a friend even under threat of torture. Straining to listen, I made out that two people were conversing in soft voices nearby. They didn’t seem to have noticed that I had awoken.
One of the voices was too quiet for me to hear. The other replied, “Thank you for watching over her so closely. You’ve been such a help to us these past days.”
“That one’s the healer who’s been using a feverling relic on you,” the revenant explained.
No wonder it seemed tense. All this time it had been trapped helplessly in my weakened body, waiting to see if a healer would sense it and alert Mother Dolours.
“Let us know if anything changes,” the healer went on. “Otherwise a few days of strict bed rest should put your friend to rights.”
Strict bed rest. A few days. I didn’t have the time. I waited for the rustle of fabric as the healer moved away, then tried opening my eyes again.
A whitewashed ceiling swam into view. I lay on a pallet with the linens drawn up to my chin. The pallet was on the floor at the end of a hall, below a small window with the shutters cracked open for fresh air. Other patients rested on pallets nearby, the closest appearing deeply asleep. The only other person in the room was a girl standing at the foot of my pallet. She wa
s facing away from me, but her plump figure and chestnut hair were unmistakable. I had slept in a bed opposite them for seven years.
“Marguerite?” I asked in disbelief, my voice a terrible rasp.
She started and whirled around, her blue eyes bright above her flushed cheeks. Frantically, she scrabbled for something beneath the neck of her tunic and thrust it between us. A protective amulet, like the ones the vendors had been selling on the street.
We stared at each other. The last time I had seen Marguerite, she had been collapsed in the chapel, half-dead from blight. Now she wasn’t wearing her novice’s robes; she was dressed like a refugee in a drab, patched tunic. The blight on her hands and face had faded to dull splotches of green and yellow, like week-old bruises.
“What are you doing here?” I asked hollowly.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered back fiercely. Her hand was shaking. “A soldier found you collapsed in the barnyard this morning. He said your name is Anne of Montprestre. Now I’ve had to pretend I’m from Montprestre, too. Do you have any idea how many stories I’ve had to make up about goats?” Her voice trembled. “I don’t even know anything about goats!”
“So you do know this human?” the revenant asked in distaste.
My thoughts moved slowly, thickened by the syrup’s lingering fog. “Why?”
She glanced down the corridor, checking the sleeping patients and the sisters walking back and forth through the intersecting hall farther down. “I had to,” she whispered, “to keep the sisters from seeing your hands.”
An ugly jolt of terror shot straight down my guts into my bowels. I pulled my hands from beneath the covers. My gloves were gone, replaced with ridiculous-looking bandages that encased my hands like mittens.
“I told them I knew you. They still think you’re some Unsighted girl from Montprestre. I said your hands were blighted and wrapped them up before anyone could see them. If you hadn’t tied those gloves on, the sisters would have gotten them off before I could say anything….”
My heart was hammering. Gradually, it occurred to me that my uncharacteristic panic didn’t belong to me alone. It was coming from the revenant.
“She took my reliquary,” it said, while Marguerite kept on babbling.
I shoved back the covers and fumbled with my clothes, clumsily lifting the neck of my chemise, which was all I was wearing; my tunic and cloak had been taken away. And so had the reliquary. I gazed at the naked patch on my chest and then raised my eyes back to Marguerite.
She had fallen silent, watching me. She must have seen something in my eyes, because she said quickly, in a low voice taut with fear, “If you attack me, I’ll scream.”
I wasn’t sure what was worse—losing Saint Eugenia’s relic or having to reason with Marguerite. “You can put down the amulet,” I said in resignation. “I’m not possessed.”
She slowly shook her head. “Everyone saw you after the battle in the chapel. The sisters dragged you away screaming. You bit Sister Lucinde.”
“Ah, sweet memories,” the revenant hissed.
I didn’t remember that at all. “Then why haven’t you reported me to Mother Dolours?”
She bit her lip. She glanced down the corridor again, but not before I saw a flash of uncertainty cross her face. “I—everyone’s talking about you. About the battle. All the people you saved… and you saved me, too, in the chapel. But I haven’t made up my mind yet,” she added in a rush. “Even if you aren’t possessed, you’re still dangerous.”
She was right about that, at least. “Give the reliquary back.”
“No.”
Taking her eyes off me had been a mistake. I lunged from the pallet and clapped a bandaged hand over her mouth before she could scream. I hooked the other beneath the leather thong that hung around her neck and yanked it until it snapped—“Be careful,” the revenant said, alarmed—but nothing else came free with the amulet, which chimed delicately as it bounced away across the flagstones. Marguerite wasn’t wearing the reliquary.
She trembled in my grip, taking short, rapid breaths like a frightened rabbit. I waited until she made eye contact, then moved my hand away enough for her to speak.
“I don’t have it with me.” Defiance shone through her fear. “I hid it. Somewhere no one will find it.”
I shouldn’t have gotten up. The infirmary tilted sickeningly around me. I backed away, reaching the pallet just as my legs gave out and deposited me in a pathetic heap. I had the humbling realization that even if I’d found the reliquary concealed somewhere else on Marguerite, I wouldn’t have had the strength to take it from her.
She was looking at me strangely. After a moment I realized she had never seen me in a state like this before. Whenever I hadn’t felt well in the convent, I had always crept off and hidden in the stable until the malady passed. Probably, from her perspective, that had made it seem as though I never fell ill. Perhaps she hadn’t even imagined it was possible.
She hesitated and then said, “You were really sick, you know. If that soldier hadn’t found you, you could have died.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. “What are you doing in Bonsaint?” Terrible possibilities filled my mind: more thralls attacking Naimes, the chapel burning, the sisters fleeing.
She frowned. “I ran away, obviously.”
I stared at her, speechless.
She turned slightly red. “I told you I would rather die than stay in Naimes!”
“I didn’t think you were serious.”
Her face hardened. “That’s right. No one ever thinks I’m serious. Everyone thinks I’m just a stupid, silly little girl without a single useful thought in her head. Well, I’ve been planning it for weeks. None of the nuns noticed. You didn’t notice, and you lived with me. They probably haven’t even noticed I’m gone.”
“Of course they’ve noticed. You can’t believe that.” But seeing her expression, I wasn’t so sure. I wondered if she had even told Francine. I’d thought she told Francine everything; I never imagined she was capable of keeping secrets. “You could have gotten possessed.”
“As if you’re one to talk. Anyway, I thought of that. Obviously.” She hugged herself and evasively glanced away, rubbing her arms as though to scrub away my touch. She was still keeping an eye on the corridor.
Of course. The sisters here didn’t know she was a novice. “You’re afraid I might tell someone you’re a runaway,” I realized.
She rounded on me. Her furious blue gaze reminded me of the day I had returned to our room to find her aunt’s letters strewn across the floor. “They can’t send me back to Naimes,” she declared, angry tears welling in her eyes. “They can’t.”
I wasn’t certain I could handle watching Marguerite cry. “I’m not going to tell on you.” She didn’t look reassured, so I added, hopefully more convincingly, “I couldn’t do that without explaining how I know you, and then I would get caught, too.”
That seemed to get through to her. I watched her scowl and wipe her eyes on her sleeve. If she was so afraid of being sent home, why had she risked her own cover to help me when she could have simply faded into the background and watched me get taken away by the Clerisy? I didn’t understand.
She’s claiming to be your friend.
Something twisted in my chest. I wondered if the fever had caused organ damage. “The same is true of you,” I went on. “All we need to do is keep each other’s secrets.”
The revenant had been listening to our exchange with something approaching horror. “Oh, I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong.”
“But I can’t stay in the infirmary,” I finished, ignoring it.
Marguerite rocked back. “You have to. Didn’t you hear what I said? You almost died.” She was giving me that look again.
“I’m better now.”
“No, you aren’t,” Marguerite and the revenant said in unison. The revenant cringed. “You can’t even stand up,” she continued. “Anyway, healers take an oath not to talk about t
heir patients. If one of them sees your hands, they won’t let word of it spread outside the infirmary.”
That was what I should have been worried about. In actuality, I had merely been thinking I might go mad surrounded by this many people, especially if any of them tried to talk to me. Pretending otherwise, I asked, “How do you know that?”
She stiffened as though I’d reached up and slapped her. “You never noticed where I spent all my free time in the convent, did you? Ever since Mathilde had the sweating sickness.” Her expression turned bitter when I didn’t answer. “I need to go now. You aren’t the most important person in the entire world. I have other patients I need to look after.” She returned a moment later, her cheeks pink, snatched up the fallen amulet, and hurried away again.
The revenant thoughtfully watched her go. “Well, it appears we have no choice. We’re going to have to torture the location of my reliquary out of her, and then kill her.”
I slumped back, exhausted. “We aren’t killing Marguerite.”
“Just think how satisfying it would be to dispose of the body.”
“Revenant.”
“I know a great deal about thumbscrews,” it said. “One of my previous vessels—not my favorite one, mind you—liked to use them as a self-mortification technique.”
I pulled the covers over my head, as if in doing so I could block out the revenant’s voice. At the very least, it would prevent anyone from noticing that I was talking to myself.
“We need to get my reliquary back,” it hissed angrily. “She could hand it over to the nuns at any moment.”
“I doubt she will,” I answered, imagining how that conversation would go. “She could have died trying to come here. She wouldn’t throw all that away unless she felt she had no other choice.”
“Providing prior examples of her poor life choices fails to reassure me, nun.”
Vespertine Page 15
