by Kat Ross
Lezarius watched Mikhail wade into the fray, face set in grim lines. Mad, certainly, but still a knight. Would he dispatch the attackers with the same ruthless efficiency he had shown the priests? Or would he show mercy?
The question turned out to be moot. When Nurse Jeyna’s assailants saw the hollow-cheeked giant with the blade in his hand, they turned tail and ran. Mikhail started to pursue. Lezarius seized his arm. The knight could easily have shaken him off, but he stopped, gazing down with a question in his blue eyes.
A gift from the ley, Lezarius thought, that Mikhail had been called upon to save the one person at the Institute who had treated him with kindness and courtesy. And a gift that he had not been forced to kill again. There would be enough of that later.
“You’re needed here,” Lezarius said. “Let them go.”
Mikhail touched the Raven on his neck, which Lezarius took for assent.
Nurse Jeyna eyed them both warily. She still gripped the chair.
“Let us escort you out,” Lezarius said.
She mutely shook her head.
“We won’t harm you.” He pointed to the sword. “The blood on that blade is from Curia assassins sent to kill me. Mikhail saved my life.”
Jeyna licked her lips. Lezarius sensed that she doubted him, but she also knew he was no threat. Not to her, at least. “My car is in the lot,” she said shakily, setting the chair down.
A few patients milled around the admitting area, more confused than aggressive. Lezarius greeted them all by name with friendly nods. No one troubled them as they exited the building and took the paved pathway leading around back to the parking lot. It was the first time he had been outside the Institute at night. Without the Wards, the grounds were very dark. The air smelled of wet earth, of living things rather than the stench of antiseptic cleaners. He veered off the cement, wiggling his bare toes in the grass.
“Oto left me.” Jeyna wrapped her arms tight across her chest. “He pushed me right at those men and then he ran away.”
“I never liked Oto Valek,” Lezarius remarked. “If he crosses our path, Mikhail will deal with him.”
Jeyna glanced over. “I won’t try to stop you from leaving, Domine Sabran. But don’t you think you’d both be safer here?” Her eyes held sympathy. “I fear the Interfectorum will handle you roughly if it is not Fra Bryce who finds you.”
In private, she always called him by the name written on his admitting file, not the number they had assigned him. But both were lies. He knew that now.
“That is not my name,” he said with great dignity. “I am the Pontifex of the Northern Curia. Lezarius the Righteous.”
“Of course.” She smiled politely and looked down. “Forgive me.”
She did not believe. “Who do you think shattered the Wards?” he snapped.
Nurse Jeyna glanced at him warily and Lezarius tamped down his anger. “It is not your fault,” he muttered. “They misled you, too.”
At his side, Mikhail’s gaze searched the night, alert for any threat. The wooden quality to his movements was gone and he moved fluidly for such a tall man, left hand gripping the sword. Lezarius supposed it was partly because his medication was wearing off. The doctors kept Mikhail on very high doses of antipsychotics, which caused confusion and drowsiness. But he suspected that was not the only reason. Something long dormant was starting to wake.
“Where will you go?” Jeyna asked as they reached the parking lot. It was mostly empty. Only a skeleton staff stayed at the Institute overnight.
“To visit an old friend.” Lezarius patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, we will find our own way. May the ley shelter and protect you, my dear.”
“And you, Domine . . . Lezarius.” She looked like she might say something more, but an unearthly shriek from inside the building hastened her steps. Jeyna jogged to her car, threw it into gear and burned rubber out of the lot.
There was only one vehicle with a Raven ornament on the hood. Lezarius tossed Mikhail the keys he’d taken from the assassin’s body. “Do you remember how to drive?”
Mikhail caught the keys in his right hand. He slid behind the wheel. Lezarius got into the passenger seat, the shoebox resting on his lap. A soft mewing came from inside and he took the lid off, stroking the ball of fur nestled in an old towel.
Mikhail started the car, trailing Nurse Jeyna’s taillights down the long drive to the gate. On both sides, patients capered across the lawn, white uniforms ghostly in the rain-soaked night.
“I wish I could help them,” Lezarius said sadly. “But we have other business this night, Mikhail.”
The knight stared straight ahead, seemingly mesmerized by the windshield wipers.
“You are doing well,” Lezarius said. “I know it’s not easy to leave this place, as much as you might despise it. They’ve convinced you that you are unfit to be anywhere else. That it is all your fault.”
Mikhail shot him a sharp glance. So he was listening after all.
“They congratulate themselves for being so enlightened, so compassionate, and yet they cage us like laboratory animals.” The edges of his mouth pulled down. “I fought for them, just as you did. And where has it gotten us? We must make our own justice.” He touched the inverted flame on his neck. “Lux et lex. No, no, I need a new motto. One with some real flair. The mad shall inherit the earth! What do you think, Mikhail?”
Lezarius chuckled, but his laughter died when they found the gates locked tight. Jeyna’s car was pulled off to the side, but she was nowhere to be seen. A guard stood silhouetted in the window of the gatehouse. He held a telephone to his ear and gestured frantically. Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer with every passing moment.
“Mikhail,” Lezarius said gravely. “We have trouble.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rivulets of rainwater streamed down the diamond-paned windows of Cardinal Falke’s library. A fire crackled in the hearth, though instead of bringing cheer it made the room stifling. Kasia glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was a beautiful, intricate piece with a moon dial and painted background of a hilltop fort overlooking a pale blue harbor. The hands stood at just after nine o’clock.
She’d been waiting in her bedchamber, hoping Tess would leave and Nikola Thorn would return, when Cardinal Falke arrived with a posse of aides and informed them that the Castel Saint Agathe had been deemed insecure. It was too large, with too many entrances and exits. He had reason to believe Malach might find his way into the Arx.
Kasia had objected, but there was no convincing argument against it. So she’d slipped the deck of cards into a pocket and allowed them to escort her and Nashka to Falke’s own residence.
“Where’s our minder?” Natalya slouched in an armchair, slim legs tucked beneath her. “I expected she’d be here, poking us with her umbrella and making me recite declensions in the old tongue.”
“Probably off reporting to Kireyev.” Kasia shuffled the cards. “I need your advice.”
“That bad, eh?”
“I saw Bryce. I think he’s been framed.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Falke is covering up his ties to Dr. Massot.”
“Can’t really blame him. Stop looking at me like that. You only know one side of the story. The cardinal was a fogging badass during the war.”
Kasia glanced pointedly at the closed doors to the library, where two of Falke’s aides stood outside. Nashka lowered her voice. “Give him the benefit of the doubt. You have no idea what those letters mean.”
“No, but don’t you think it’s wrong to keep them from the Pontifex?”
“I think it isn’t your responsibility.”
“Why not? I read them. I can’t pretend ignorance.”
Nashka sighed. “It’s eating at you, isn’t it? But you don’t owe Bryce anything. You hardly know him. Maybe he did kill Massot. Will you throw yourself to the wolves for a priest?”
All valid and reasonable points.
Yet Kasia had learned that her first instinc
ts were not to be trusted. It seemed clear that sometimes the greater good required the sacrifice of an innocent, yet most people would call such an outcome unjust. If Kasia did nothing, Bryce would likely die. If she spoke out, her secret would be revealed and people she cared about would suffer for having protected her. But the same thing might happen if she refused to continue spying for Kireyev, which was an immoral action in the sense that it harmed others for little tangible benefit.
When faced with such intractable dilemmas, Kasia generally did whatever she wanted.
She remembered the clever gleam in Bryce’s blue eyes. His dry laugh. From what I can tell, Domina Novak, you’re more well-adjusted than I am.
“He’s a mess,” she said, “but he’s an interesting mess.”
“I have a weakness for those, too.”
Kasia shuffled the cards.“I suppose you’ll say things are complicated enough and I oughtn’t make them worse by sticking my neck out.”
“No, I’d never say that.” Natalya had found a pen and pad in one of the cabinets and was idly sketching. “We’re screwed anyway. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory.”
“Serious or joking?” She couldn’t always tell with Nashka.
“Serious.”
“What about the cardinal?”
Natalya looked up. “I still think he’s a good man. But I promised to support you no matter what stupid thing you decided to do.”
“You won’t try to talk me out of it?”
“I know you. No point.” She glanced at the cards. “Go ahead, ask them. It’s obvious you’re dying to.”
With a flick of her thumb, Kasia spread the cards across a polished rosewood table. She was wearing gloves out of habit, but she wanted to feel the stiff, slightly waxy stock against her fingers. She tugged a glove off and chose a card.
The High Priestess again.
She sat on a throne, hair flowing down across her shoulders. A diadem circled her brow. As a symbol of fertility and the sacred feminine, breasts and hips were exaggerated beneath a simple white gown. The figure bore an uncanny resemblance to herself, but Nashka had painted the cards and she often based archetypes for the Major Arcana on people she knew.
Kasia drew a second card and was unsurprised to see an armored man astride a charger. Knights didn’t ride horses anymore, they drove cars like everyone else, but Natalya was secretly a romantic. The Knight’s helm was tucked under one arm, his gaze stern yet somehow beseeching. She touched a finger to the sword in his hand—and snatched it back as lines of blue fire traced the design.
“Nashka,” she croaked, just as the pulsing light subsided.
She looked over to find Natalya staring.
“Did you see it?” Kasia asked faintly. “Am I losing my mind?”
“I saw it.” Natalya leapt from the chair, the sketchpad sliding to her feet. “I saw it! Fog me, did you do that? You must have. How, Kiska?”
“I’ve no idea.” Kasia tentatively touched the card again. Nothing happened. “But I’ve been seeing the ley since last night. When Malach attacked me on the roof, then again after I got here.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d believe it.”
Natalya took her arms. “Darling,” she said in her best Tessaria voice, a snooty drawl one only heard in Arbot Hills. “You know you mean the world to me. I would never, ever doubt—”
“All right,” Kasia laughed giddily, prying herself free. “Point taken.”
Natalya’s forehead notched. “Did you try to make the ley do something? Did you make a wish?”
“No.”
“Then the cards could be acting more like Wards. Protective. But if they’re not, if they are like Marks, you mustn’t ever touch the abyssal. Only the surface ley. The other is dangerous.”
“I’m not sure I’d know the difference,” Kasia said uneasily.
Nashka nodded at the Ward above the library windows. “What do you see?”
“Blue light.”
“That’s the surface ley. The other two layers are underneath.”
“This is crazy,” Kasia said. “It must have been you who did it.”
“Don’t be daft. I’m wearing gloves. And I wasn’t anywhere near the cards.”
“But how could you have made Marks? And how could I possibly channel ley without a patron?”
Nashka shrugged. “You handle the cards all the time. Maybe they’re a part of you now.”
It wasn’t really an answer. She thought of the eerily similar conversation she’d had with Bryce at her flat, except that he’d been the skeptic and she’d been the one suggesting that the cards might have Turned Dr. Massot.
But they’re just paper, Alexei had protested.
And Wards are just stone, she’d replied.
The windows looked out on a broad expanse of lawn. Lamps illuminated the avenues beyond, leaving deep pools of shadow in the gaps between buildings. Far in the distance, pinpoints of light marked the outer wall.
“I’m going to seek an audience with the Reverend Mother,” Kasia said. “I probably won’t get within a hundred meters of her, but if I don’t try tonight, it will be too late.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “I can feel it in the air, can’t you? Something is coming.”
“The mage?” Natalya asked warily.
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll go with you. I’m far more charming.”
“No, you must stay here.” She glanced at the doors. “Keep talking and make some noise now and then, or they’ll get suspicious.”
“What if Falke comes back? Or Tess?” Nashka thought for a moment. “Not sure which is worse, really.”
“Tell them I went stir crazy and snuck out for a walk.”
“They won’t believe that for an instant.”
“Well,” she said, “by then it won’t matter.”
“Do you really care about Bryce so much?” The tone was more curious than judging.
“Yes. But I’m not doing it for him, I’m doing it for me. Because I won’t like myself otherwise.”
“A selfish selfless act,” Nashka chuckled. “If you save him from the dungeon, maybe he’ll put out, you know? He ought to.”
“Yeah, he really ought to,” Kasia agreed.
“Too bad you don’t have sensible shoes.”
“Give me yours.”
Natalya tugged off her ankle boots and tossed them over. “Take the cards,” she advised. “I haven’t a clue how it works with you, but priests can tap the liminal ley. It’s the violet stuff just below the surface. It twists chance in their favor.”
Kasia unhooked the latch and opened the windows. “I could use some of that,” she said, “since I haven’t a fogging clue where her bedchamber is.”
Kasia pulled her gloves on. She swept up the cards, tucking them into her jacket pocket. Then she swung her legs across the sill and dropped down, low heels sinking into the sodden lawn. The air smelled of bitter orange blossoms, warm and floral. She encountered no one until she reached the Pontifex’s Palace. Six vestal knights in blue and gold cloaks stood before the engraved bronze doors of the main entrance.
She crept around the huge domed building, searching for a darkened window. More knights patrolled the grounds around the palace. A pair came around the wing just ahead and Kasia crouched behind a stone planter until their steps faded. At last, she found a small mullioned window with no light behind it. Kasia waited for a flash of lightning. When a rumble of thunder followed, she used a rock to break one of the panes and undo the latch. The Ward above didn’t flicker as she climbed inside. Just like the Markhound outside Massot’s house, she was invisible to it.
Kasia closed the window, hoping the darkness would conceal the broken glass for a while. She stood in a long marble gallery. Ley flowed at her feet in a phosphorescent blue river. Like water, it swirled and eddied around obstacles, moving in a sluggish but visible current towards the end of the gallery. Curious, she took a glove off and
crouched down to dip a hand into the light. The ley around her fingers darkened to violet. Kasia drew a card. Nothing happened. She tried to sense the power, but although she could see it, there was no sensation of contact or control.
How on earth did she do it before?
Or maybe she hadn’t at all. In which case, it was unlikely she’d get very far.
Kasia slipped the boots off and started walking in her stocking feet. She passed chapels and libraries, vast halls and administrative offices, all lavishly decorated with frescos and tapestries and decorative plasterwork. There were Ravens everywhere, set into the marble floors and sculpted on panels in the bronze and gold doors. Huge ones two meters across and tiny ones the size of hummingbirds. Ravens in flight and Ravens in profile.
Wards shone over every door and window. No nihilim could come anywhere near the Reverend Mother.
A few times she heard soft footsteps and hid herself while a gray-clad char strode past, but most of the rooms were unoccupied and lit only by standing oil lamps. She had no idea where the Pontifical apartments were. Surely it wouldn’t be long before Tessaria or Falke decided to check on her and Natalya—if they hadn’t already.
She picked up the pace of her search, growing increasingly frustrated. Then she heard voices approaching, low and urgent. There was nowhere to hide. She darted down a long passageway with slender fluted columns and around the corner at the end. Three vestal knights in blue and gold strode towards her. She spun around. Two more approached at a fast jog. One raised a crossbow and aimed the bolt at her chest.
“On your knees!”
Kasia sank down, fixing her gaze on the floor.
“She’s ungloved.”
“An assassin?”
“How did you get in here?” Rough hands dragged her to her feet.“Perhaps the inside of a cell will loosen your tongue.”
She palmed the oracle deck, trying to hide it, but the action drew the knight’s attention. “What is that?”
Fingers gripped her hair, jerking her head back. A card fell from the deck, floating on the surface of the ley.
The Knight of Wards.
She lay on a bower of white flowers with glossy, dark green vines wound around her armor. The barred visor of her helm was raised. Her eyes were closed, her expression serene.
