The geist was so close they could have reached out for it. Merrick’s partner, crouched at his side, twisted under his grip. The Active training was kicking in, and she reached for her Gauntlets. Grabbing her hand, Merrick shook his head firmly. This is not the place. Words were getting easier to send.
This was the type of Bond that Deacons dreamed of; a true symbiotic partnership, and yet Merrick was scared by the reality of what it could mean. He recalled dark tales of such closeness, taught to Sensitives in those special history lessons no Active was ever allowed to attend. History could well be repeating itself.
He couldn’t think of those possibilities now. Merrick flicked his head upward and risked opening his Center. The geist was moving away from them. He found he was squeezing Sorcha’s hand tightly—half to keep her from reaching her Gauntlets and half to steady himself. It was strange what a couple of weeks could do. The man terrified of his own partner was long gone. He’d seen enough in the intervening time to give him far more to worry about than Sorcha.
He probed gently toward the geist with as little Sight as he could open. This one had no sign of self-awareness and was merely operating on a single track, probably a repeat of its living habits. It might not belong here, but it was not inherently evil. He gestured his two companions on, toward the Arch Abbot’s quarters. They could not dare a cleansing until things were clearer.
The hallways were still deserted, but they had only a few scant hours until novices would be about. Some kinds of training required darkness, and the moments before the sun rose were often the best times for new recruits to glimpse a little of the Otherside, the boundary being at its weakest.
Together, the three of them padded through the corridors to the door. It looked just as it had last time Merrick had been here. He recalled standing nervously outside this very portal, waiting to go in and find out if he had passed the test to be accepted into the Order. However, it had been nothing like the nerves he was feeling at this moment. The pounding in his chest and the sweat on his brow were matched only by the tremble in his hand as he reached out for the door handle.
Inside was the small antechamber where the Arch Abbot’s secretary slept. Their entry was quiet, until Sorcha managed to trip over a small stool in the half-light. And then she swore. The clattering and the exclamation broke the silence like a rock dropped into a still pool. Merrick winced, sure that they were about to be discovered.
All that came from the niche by the window was a gentle snore. Sorcha straightened as the three of them shared a cautiously hopeful glance. She stepped over the stool and walked to the sleeping secretary. Merrick joined her. It was easy enough to see, even without Sight. A silver pattern gleamed on the lay Brother’s forehead.
A cantrip! Merrick couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A cantrip used on a Deacon, even a lay one, seemed impossible.
Sorcha shrugged in his direction and he saw a wry smile on her lips. Cantrips, like many of the lesser magics, were only barely taught to novices. If they wanted to learn them, it was generally done in their own time, and yet here was one blatantly used in the very hallowed halls of the Arch Abbot. Merrick bent to look it at a little closer. It was indeed the curled spiral of the cantrip for sleep.
What that could mean, he couldn’t say. “Are you ready for this?” Sorcha’s words were flat and void of emotion. He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her that this was a mad idea, and they should turn around and go back. Yet what other choice did they have? They were hunted, and come morning there would be nowhere for them to hide. Without the Arch Abbot clearing their names, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Sorcha read these thoughts in him. He read her thoughts reading his. For a moment, they were seamless. One creature reflected in itself. That creature felt its own power. That creature wanted answers.
TWENTY-ONE
All Is But Mere Flesh
Merrick pressed his ear to the door, cocking his head and listening to something that the Pretender could not hear. Sorcha’s blue eyes were turned toward him, gleaming and unnaturally bright in the half-light.
Part of Raed wanted to touch her, reach out and reclaim some of that heady magic that had grown between them on the dirigible. The other part of him, the royal rebel, was still seething with anger.
He’d been chained his whole life to a curse that he hadn’t had any part in causing. The knowledge that he was responsible for his own mother’s death was a nightmare he also could never escape. To be tied unwillingly to anyone, let alone the woman he found himself falling in love with, was a terrible blow. He had yet to decide if he could forgive her.
He wondered if she knew how close she had come to waking the Rossin when she’d tried to break that unsanctioned Bond. The Beast was not far away; that much he could feel. Sorcha’s attempt at un-Binding, and then the hint of geist presence, had enflamed the Rossin. It yearned to rampage through the Mother Abbey—nothing would have given it more pleasure. The image of ripping Deacons limb from limb as they slumbered tasted delicious to the stirring Beast.
“Sorcha.” He touched her shoulder, and the gesture, meant as nothing more than a warning, flared into something more. His body responded to her nearness even as the Rossin howled for her blood. “What is your plan, exactly?”
Her smile was a ghostly flicker of a happier one. “This is my Arch Abbot, Raed. He will set things right.”
Could the Arch Abbot negate the bounty on the Pretender’s head? Unlikely. But he was here now, and they had to find out what the conspirators had in mind for the people of Vermillion. His capital, even if he might never claim it.
Raed straightened as if he were one of his father’s soldiers. “Then after you, milady.” He gestured to the open door as if it were the portal to a throne room.
She drew in a little, shaky breath, a combination of what she was no doubt sensing across the Bond and the weight of the terrible situation. He followed on her heels. Inside was even more deathly quiet.
Raed might have thought a lot of things about the Arch Abbot from across the sea, but after seeing his bedchamber, he would not think him ostentatious. The cell was as bare as a sunbaked rock. The domed roof gave the impression of one of those isolated cells that communing Deacons sometimes took to in the wilds, and the furnishings were nearly as sparse as a hermit’s. One niche contained two hard-backed chairs, a tapestry-covered stool and a carved wooden table; the other niche on the far side looked to serve as a sleeping area. Merrick was already there, standing above the rumpled blankets. It was obvious that the Arch Abbot wasn’t in.
Sorcha was frowning and turning about slowly, as if she expected the man to emerge out of the shadows—but there was no one else present. Nor were there any doors apart from the one they had come in through.
“Looks like he is not receiving guests right now,” Raed muttered, folding his arms and trying to calm the yammering of his chest; he knew it was related to the Beast’s desire for chaos.
Sorcha pushed back the thin blankets as if she expected to find him curled up in there somewhere. “Something must have happened to him,” she muttered with real concern in her tone.
“Not prone to nighttime wanderings, is he?” Raed couldn’t help the sharp tone in his voice. The Deacons had been so sure that coming here would solve everything.
“Not at all,” Merrick whispered, leaning back against the cool stone with a ragged sigh. “The Arch Abbot is always supposed to be available, should the realm ever need him.”
“Someone put that cantrip on the secretary,” Sorcha hissed back. “I think he’s been kidnapped.”
Raed was about to ask who would have the power to do such a thing, but then he thought of what they had faced back in Ulrich—and swallowed the question.