“Constructs of Craft,” Denovo said, “cannot be taken from a person without his consent. An untrained individual may be tortured, or tricked, into relinquishing one, but Judge Cabot spent too long in the shadows to be fooled, or swayed by torture. Pain was just one more sensation for him.” Revolving on his heels, he took three measured steps and came to rest in front of Shale, immobilized in iron. “Shale does not know what he carries. There was time only for the Judge to pass on his burden, not explain it. Allow me to produce this evidence for the court.”
Shale was tense with terror. He shook his head, but could not protest through his iron gag.
“He is,” the Professor noted, “distracted and fearful, thus uncooperative. But if he does not know how to help himself, I will have to take on the burden of assisting him.”
Denovo extended one hand, fingers splayed, and closed his eyes.
Every light in the grand hall flickered and grew dim. Denovo shook with tension. A silver mist rose from the slick stone of Shale’s body and hung around him like a halo. The gargoyle began to scream.
Tara closed her eyes, too. The Professor was a spider of thorn and wire, limbs innumerable and barbed. His claws struck into the tangle of Shale’s soul and began to pry.
He pierced knots of empathy and love and compassion, and seized something beneath them, a core of absence in Shale’s heart, a tightly wound ball of invisible threads. Opening her eyes, Tara saw the mist tinged with reddish gold. Denovo’s face was a sweat-slick mask, his lips peeled to bare white teeth. He was not enjoying his work. However Kos and the dead Judge had protected the key to their Concern, Denovo was straining even to see, let alone to extract, it.
He stood vulnerable before her. Her fingers flexed, preparing to summon her knife. She could strike him down, and be slain by Blacksuits. Who would subsequently consider her case a fabric of lies, and find the gargoyles guilty. The Church would never benefit from her discoveries. Abelard would lose his god. But she would have her revenge.
Was that enough?
She forced her fingers to relax.
Besides, Blacksuits were fast. She might not be able to kill him in time.
Torn free of Shale’s body, the mist rose and coalesced into a rotating sphere made from interlocking rings of fire and ruby-orange light. The cold hall felt suddenly warm, its immensity confining.
Denovo smiled in cold triumph. He looked as she remembered him on the day he threw her from the Hidden Schools. Reflected in his eyes, that fiery sphere was every horror in the world. He reached out to grasp it.
With a silent apology to Abelard, Tara clenched her hand into a fist and gathered her power to strike. She undid her bonds with a charm and a whispered word. Iron slipped from her, and unburdened, she raised her knife.
Then the skylight shattered, and shards of glass and fire rained down.
*
Roiling flame scored the rough marble floor, and a column of coherent fire engulfed Alexander Denovo. Crying out, the bound gargoyles rolled back from the blast, their iron restraints clattering on stone. Tara threw up her arm and hardened the air above her into a dome to block falling shards. Ms. Kevarian did not duck, did not call upon her power, did not betray any sign of shock. Which settled the question for Tara: Denovo must have gotten to her somehow.
Bastard.
A wave of fire scattered Blacksuits and prisoners both. Raz fell, screaming, and rolled to extinguish the flames caught on his jacket.
The sphere of ruby-orange light revolved in midair, unperturbed by the chaos.
A robed figure descended through the broken skylight.
A deep bass rumble shook the hall, and the pillar of fire about Denovo broke like morning mist to reveal him, scorched but shimmering with protective Craft. His right hand rose to the glyph above his heart, and a knife of lightning flashed in his grip, ascending through the mystic and deadly curve of Kethek Loes, blade bearing shadow and swift death.
Before he could complete the motion, flame struck again, surgically precise. Denovo’s shield muted the heat of the blow, but its impact tossed him across the hall like a twig in a tornado. He slammed into the floor twenty feet back and skidded.
The figure hovered above the marble and debris, wreathed in fire. Its robe was brilliant crimson, its hood pulled back. The face thus revealed, contorted in the throes of righteous anger, belonged to Cardinal Gustave.
*
Abelard took cover beneath his robe when the skylight caved in. The clustered stone bodies of the Guardians shielded him from the fire. Heat seared his face, scalded his nostrils. His clothes were burning. His cigarette, at least, remained undamaged, and with hasty handwork he preserved it as he rolled over broken glass to extinguish the smoldering rest of him.
Recovering, he glanced about himself, and took stock. Denovo stood pinioned by a spear of flame, unharmed but immobile, forearms crossed before his face. The arrayed Blacksuits did not move; the Guardians struggled in futility against their chains to rise, to fight. Captain Pelham flailed, but could not extinguish the flames devouring his flesh and his clothing. Tara stood near Denovo, alert and ready to ward off attack. Abelard’s gaze rose to the figure in midair.
“Father!” he cried, but his voice did not carry.
Professor Denovo’s, on the other hand, overruled all other sound. “Cardinal,” he said, sly and stable, betraying no sign of strain. “Pleasure as always. Have you joined us for some evening conversation? A spot of theological discourse perhaps?”
Rage filled Gustave’s face and form. “You have poisoned this assembly with your lies.”
“What lies? You must have heard Tara as you lurked up there: Judge Cabot was killed by a cleric of Kos, with the god’s own stolen power. I wonder if you can help us compile a list of suspects. We’re looking for someone who can fly and call upon the fire of a dead god. About your height and build, I’d say.”
“Traitor!” Gustave cried. A second line of flame struck Denovo with the force of divine judgment. Smoke rose from the Professor’s jacket. His defenses trembled, but held. “I name you traitor, Alexander Denovo. You gave me this blasphemous power to ward against a greater blasphemy. I will use your own gift to destroy you.”
“You’re not improving your predicament, my Lord Cardinal,” Denovo replied. “What do you hope to gain by attacking a man in the presence of Justice herself?”
Gustave’s lips twisted in a sneer. “Justice cannot move while I press the attack. My every strike against you drains her. My God will be avenged.”
Abelard smelled smoke. Was his robe still burning? Glancing over his shoulder, he jumped to see Ms. Kevarian five feet behind him, apparently unperturbed, though her skin and suit had been torn by falling glass, and her black jacket was on fire. She betrayed no sign of pain.
Her lips moved. He could not hear her words. Abelard looked from her to the Cardinal and back. Flares of color surrounded the man as if he were a saint in stained glass, lit from behind by a setting sun.
Abelard encircled Ms. Kevarian in his cloak and bore her to the ground. She lay unresisting amid the debris as he smothered the flames under heavy folds of cloth. Blinking, she seemed to recognize him. When he laid the back of his hand on her forehead, he found it cold and damp, like a stone wall after a long night—feverish compared to the ice of her earlier touch.
“Lady Kevarian,” he shouted over the clash. “Are you okay?”
Her body was stiff, almost lifeless, but her mouth moved. The same movements, over and over again. A single word.
“Lady?” He bent forward. “I can’t hear you.” He lowered his ear to her lips, and understood.
“Dagger,” she repeated, over and over.
He turned, not to Professor Denovo, nor to Cardinal Gustave, nor to the Guardians nor Tara, but to Cat, wrapped, trapped, in her Blacksuit. She held the crystal knife Abelard had discovered in the Sanctum’s boiler room.