by Kat Ross
The cardinal’s own words. He was a brilliant strategist.
And Malach was an avid pupil.
He didn’t know who had flipped Massot’s Mark, but he intended to find out.
He also intended to collect what belonged to him.
Malach unfolded his tourist map, searching for Malaya Sadovaya Ulitsa. It was time to pay a visit to Natalya Anderle.
Chapter Fifteen
Kasia strode along the sidewalk, spiked heels rapping against the paving stones. Two cordials after dinner had done wonders to improve her mood. She loved the city at night, the way the puddles reflected the warm yellow lamps shining through every window, and the makeshift gardens of terra cotta planters that jammed terraces and fire escapes.
Mist shrouded the streetlights, softening their glow to frosty haloes. Tessaria had offered to call a cab, but Kasia preferred to walk. She’d borrowed an umbrella with an elegant ivory handle, which she twirled in her gloved hands as she waited for the light to change at Kronstadt Square.
Disaster had been averted, yet she kept thinking about those cryptic letters. She recalled every word, even the exact spots where the ink had blotted.
“Sixth round of experiments were a failure. Increased dosages of Sublimen induced torpor and hallucinations, but no ability to manipulate the abyssal ley. Results confirm the hypothesis re: genetic predisposition. There must be a work-around, though I am yet to see it. Awaiting further instructions.”
Sublimin was obviously a psychoactive drug and it didn’t sound pleasant. She felt sure this was the message intended for Falke, which meant Dr. Massot was experimenting on his patients with the cardinal’s blessing.
The second letter, addressed to M., contradicted the first. Massot claimed he’d found something important. The letter referred to ”our mutual friend” and warned M. not to trust him. Massot had used the same phrase in his study when he was talking about the cardinal. But who was M.?
The sign is the Lion. The number is 9.
The Marks do not lie.
Kasia shook her head in frustration. Massot was locked away. Whatever plots he was mired in couldn’t happen now, could they? It was time to pick up the pieces and move on. Let the Curia deal with it.
In the morning, she would reschedule all her clients. The rent was coming due and they couldn’t be late again.
She paused in a front of a cobbler’s shop, eyeing a pair of shiny knee-high boots with a sign that read 100% Waterproof! Kasia’s boots had holes so she’d been borrowing Natalya’s. They wore the same shoe size, though Nashka was taut and slender like an acrobat, while Kasia had generous curves. She flattened a palm against the display window, admiring the vicious stiletto heels. On second thought . . . surely they could put off the electric bill for another month.
The curry place was still doing a brisk business as she inserted her key in the lock and started up the stairs. When she reached the third landing, she saw that the hall lights on the top two floors had burned out. Typical. Their landlady was a miserly woman who owned buildings all over the city. She never fixed things until the tenants’ association filed a complaint.
Kasia was fishing for the key when a shadow detached from the wall. She stepped back, but he was already right in front of her.
“Katarzynka Nowakowski?”
The key slipped from her fingers. Fra Bryce bent down to pick them up. “That is your real name, isn’t it?” he said with a hint of satisfaction.
The warm glow of the blackberry cordial evaporated. Sobriety rode in on an icy wind. She stared at him with naked loathing. “How did you find out?”
“A bit of math. Will you invite me in?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He held out the key. “I just want to talk. Then I’ll leave and never bother you again.”
Kasia gripped the umbrella like a sword. “You’re not here to arrest me?”
“No.” He glanced at the burned-out bulb. “Or we could stand here in the dark until your neighbors come out.”
She took the key. Her hand shook and it took three tries to get the door unlocked.
“Coffee?” she asked, jamming the umbrella into a stand and peeling off her raincoat. In fact, she would rather sever her own feet and eat them raw than make the priest coffee, but social niceties died hard, especially when they’d been instilled by Tessaria Foy.
He nodded. “Thank you.”
Kasia busied herself in the kitchen, boiling water and dumping grounds into the pot while he waited in the living room. She wasn’t careful when she poured it through the copper filter, allowing a fair quantity of grounds to sludge into the cup.
“Cream?” she called.
“Yes, please.”
Kasia opened the refrigerator. She sniffed the container and smiled, pouring a generous dollop into the coffee.
“It expires tomorrow, but it smells fine,” she said, handing him the cup.
Bryce sat down on the sofa without being invited, legs spread in that aggressive way men had. Kasia retreated to the window seat. She was dying to take her heels off and resented the fact that she couldn’t. “What do you want, Fra Bryce?”
“Alexei.” He cradled the coffee. “I may not be a priest much longer.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve been ordered off the case,” he admitted. “By the Archbishop of Novostopol himself.”
Kasia shot him a guarded look. “Yet here you are. Why?”
“We’ll get to that later.” He gazed at her levelly. Again, Kasia felt like a witness under cross-examination. “Someone created a false record for you. That’s not a simple matter.”
“A friend helped me to pass as Marked.”
“Tessaria Foy.”
Kasia gave a reluctant nod. “I know it’s wrong to pass, but you’ve no idea what it’s like.”
The priest took a sip of coffee. He made a choking sound and set the cup down. “So that’s how you got past the hound at the gate. They only smell Marks. I should have guessed.” Blue eyes studied her. He didn’t seem shocked or repelled, just . . . .
“Now you pity me,” she said, annoyed.
“I’ll admit, I’ve never known anyone in your predicament. It must be difficult.”
Kasia gave a tight smile. “Believe it or not, cartomancers with antisocial personality disorder aren’t in high demand, Fra Bryce. If my clients found out, they’d drop me in a moment. Natalya would be shunned by association. We’d lose everything, though at least she has family to turn to.”
“I saw your file. You’re an orphan.”
“Not exactly. My father died of a heart attack when I was ten. After the funeral, my mother confined me to my room. She said the stress had killed him. That she couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
Bryce frowned. “Your own mother?”
“I ran away. Domina Foy took me from the streets. I never want to go back to that life.”
“Did she offer to Mark you?”
“She said it was too late. I was too old.”
He nodded. “I was given my first Mark at nine. The rest came later, over the course of many years, but the first must be done before the age of ten.”
“Why?”
The question seemed to catch him by surprise. “It has to do with the mind. The sense of self and the way the ley interacts with it. I’ve read books, but I’m not sure I can explain it very well. Young children are different. More open.” He glanced at the coffee. Now that it had cooled, the surface was speckled with curdled cream. “Do you think I might have a glass of water?”
There was something liberating about having her worst secret out in the open. And he hadn’t treated her like she was a monster, the way most people would. “If you’ll let me take my shoes off.”
He smiled. It was a nice smile. “I don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry I tried to poison you,” she said with a wince.
“You should taste Spassov’s coffee.”
“Spassov?”
“My partner.�
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“Ah. I’ll be right back.” She kicked her heels off and went to the kitchen, filling a clean glass from the tap.
“Finish your story,” he said when she returned.
“There isn’t much more to tell. Tessaria had connections. She changed my name and created a false record. I told her the names were too close, but she said it would be easier to remember.” Kasia looked away. “I suppose you saw my test results.”
“Yes.”
“I’m a sociopathic deviant. That doesn’t trouble you?”
The priest barked a laugh. “From what I can tell, Domina Novak, you’re more well-adjusted than I am.”
She gave him a level stare. “What is it you want, Fra Bryce?”
“Alexei.”
“What do you want, Alexei?”
“The truth.”
He hadn’t explicitly threatened her, but he didn’t need to. “Why?” she snapped. “What business is it of yours anyway?”
“I have a personal interest in locating the mage.”
“I can’t help you with that.”
Bryce leaned forward. He still had his gloves on, hands clasped loosely over his knees, but Kasia tensed. “Did he come to the house?”
Oh, how she wanted to lie. But the priest had a nose for deception. “No,” she admitted. “I made that part up. We were alone the whole time.”
He was silent for a long minute. “It might have been me,” he said at last.
“Pardon?”
“Do you understand how the ley works?”
“Of course. Marks harness one’s innate talents. They make us better.” She flushed, regretting the collective pronoun, but Alexei didn’t seem to notice.
“Civil Marks, yes. The Sanctified Marks given to a priest are different. Both connect to the unconscious, but mine can project the ley outward.”
It was all on her final exam on Science and the Ley. “Holy Marks decrease the entropy of the system to manifest a single outcome, or a much narrower range of outcomes,” Kasia recited.
Alexei looked surprised.
“I have an excellent memory,” she said.
“And what’s the final ingredient to achieve that single outcome?”
“Intent.”
“No, intent is conscious. It matters, but there’s something more powerful.”
Kasia thought for a moment. “Need,” she said.
“The night Massot Turned, I’d taken my gloves off to read a book. I dozed off. Only for a few minutes.”
Kasia frowned. She still didn’t see what he was getting at.
“I might have worked the ley,” Alexei said softly. “By accident.”
“But you’re Interfectorem. You don’t want people to go mad, do you?”
“Not consciously. But there’s something else I wanted, very badly, and it’s all connected.”
Kasia felt intrigued. It was a startling confession. “Could the ley really do that?”
“I don’t know, but Nightmarks rarely Turn on their own. Not like normal Marks. You’re telling me you were alone with Massot at the instant he inverted. So it wasn’t the mage.” He studied her. “What else do you remember?”
“Massot took his gloves off. He touched me.”
The priest tensed. “Did he . . . ?”
“Just my face. But I’d given him a reading moments before. The first card was the Mage, upside down. Do you think the ley could have worked through the cards themselves?”
He frowned. “But they’re just paper.”
“And Wards are just stone.”
“Those are different. They were made with the ley.”
“So are the cards. Natalya is Marked. She’s the artist.”
Bryce looked skeptical. “A thousand everyday objects are made by people with Marks. It doesn’t make those objects conduits for the power.”
Kasia shrugged. “I think that’s when Massot Turned though. That moment. He wasn’t violent before, though I do think he planned to proposition me. He had it in mind all along.”
“He has a history of abusing women,” Alexei said with disgust. “I learned about it from a nurse at the Institute.”
“What a vile man.”
“Would you show me the cards?”
Kasia fetched her best deck, which Bryce had kindly returned in the car, and recreated the spread she’d drawn for Massot. “I understand it a little better now,” she said. “First off, they’re all Major Arcana, meaning they represent significant archetypes in the subject’s life, not just passing events.” She touched a card depicting a man in leg irons straining to reach a barred window. A chest overflowing with gold coins sat at his feet. “The Slave could be Massot himself, in thrall to the mage who Marked him.”
Kasia moved on to the next card, an armored man astride a horse. “The Knight would be you, of course. A foot solider of the Church. But I’m uncertain of the Fool and the Martyr.”
“What do they mean?”
Kasia found herself warming to his interest. Here, she felt on solid ground.
“The Martyr implies a loss of health and vitality through oppression by some controlling force. We suffer at the hands of our own contradictions.” She touched the image of a man dangling upside-down from the bole of a tree, one knee bent. His hands had been severed at the wrist. “Thus, we hang from our former ties that defined us in the physical realm. But a fresh perspective will turn the world upside down.”
“And the Fool?”
“He’s a trickster.” She regarded the barefoot figure in motley. He wore a traveler’s knapsack slung on one shoulder and played a pipe. “There are many layers of meaning. New beginnings. The life of a vagabond, or one who travels between worlds, unconstrained by time and space. The Fool is the first card in the Major Arcana, so numerically it’s considered zero. A nullity. But I wonder . . . .” She tapped a tooth with one finger.
“What?”
“If it doesn’t represent the nihilim himself. I’d assumed it was the Mage, inverted, but that might simply represent Massot’s ultimate fate.”
Alexei stared at the cards. “They look like Marks,” he said softly.
“That’s deliberate. We live in a culture of symbolism. Of archetypes. My clients draw comfort from the familiar. We all want to impose some kind of order on our lives, to find meaning in what can seem like chaos.”
“Do you believe they tell the future?”
Kasia thought of all the times she’d accurately predicted births and deaths, sudden windfalls and impending financial ruin. It helped to know something about her clients, but she’d seen twists of fate foretold in the cards that no one believed until they actually happened. One or two blamed her and never called again, but the vast majority refused to undertake a major decision without consulting her first.
“Yes.” Kasia met his eye. “For me. Not for Domina Anderle. I don’t know why that’s so. There’s nothing special about me.” Her mouth twisted. “Excepting that I was never Marked. But it’s possible. . . .” She bit her lip.
“What?”
“The ley might be sentient.”
She thought the priest might scoff, or worse, accuse her of heresy, but he did neither of those things. “I’ve wondered the same thing,” he admitted.
“Because we don’t really know what it is, do we?”
“No,” he agreed. “We don’t.”
A quiet intimacy stretched between them. He had striking eyes despite the shadows beneath—a shade of blue you noticed from across the room and alive with blazing intelligence. She had a sudden urge to feel his bare hands on her skin. To find out just what priests wore under that cassock.
A flush crept up her neck.
“Are you all right?” Bryce eyed her with concern. ”You look unwell.”
“I just need some water,” she muttered, striding for the kitchen.
Kasia filled a glass from the cold tap and pressed it to her forehead.
How could she go from debating the physics of the ley to mentally undressi
ng him in fifteen seconds? A priest? If there had been a Hell, she would surely burn in it.
It was the cards. All that talk made her think of The Lovers. But it didn’t mean him. It couldn’t possibly.
Kasia gulped down the water, then refilled the glass and returned the living room. She busied herself collecting the cards, not even glancing in his direction, but now that the idea had been planted, it was hard to banish.
“Kasia?” he said.
“Hmmm?”
“Is that what you prefer? Kasia?”
She nodded and retreated to the window seat.
“If you tell me what happened that night, all of it, I’ll tell you why I have to find the mage.”
She’d been waiting for this. Kasia met his gaze. “It’s not my secret to share,” she said. “I could get others in trouble.”
“I promise not to involve Natalya. Or Domina Foy.”
Kasia believed him, but she had to be sure. “Swear it on the virtue of the Pontifex.”
Alexei touched the Raven Mark on his neck, holding her eyes. “I swear.”
“It all started with Cardinal Falke.”
Bryce’s face gave nothing away. “Go on.”
“He holds Natalya’s Mark. He told her to attend a dinner party at Ferran Massot’s house, but not only to give readings. The doctor had a message for the cardinal.”
For the second time that night, Kasia told her story, leaving nothing out this time. “When I saw you, I’d just taken the papers from his desk. I was afraid of you, but more afraid of what Cardinal Falke would do if I returned without them.”
Bryce leaned forward. “Do you still have them?”
“I gave them to Tessaria Foy. Just to hold until the cardinal asks for them.”
“The building at Lesnoy Prospekt?”
Kasia nodded. Alexei closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “So you had them in your possession when I drove you there?”
She nodded again.
“Did you look at them?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “In the elevator.”
Alexei waited.
“There were two separate messages. One was for the cardinal. It talked about experiments with Sublimen, but said they were a failure.”
