As Harper lay Belimai down on the bed, he realized that Belimai had regained consciousness. He stared at the far wall.
"My God," Belimai muttered, "are there clouds all over the walls?"
"Yes. You should get out of these clothes." When Harper reached for Belimai's coat, Belimai flinched back from him. Then he suddenly cupped his hands over his face.
"Are you going to be sick?" Harper felt a slight burst of panic as he glanced around for a basin of some kind.
"No." Belimai slowly lowered his arms. "For a moment I thought I was in the Inquisition House again." Belimai scowled at the far wall, with its scattering of fluffy white clouds.
"Where the hell am I?" Belimai demanded.
"We're in the nursery. And you need to get undressed and lay down." Harper gently tugged off Belimai's shoes and then took his coat. "These are the only rooms that have been improved much in the last hundred years. Hopefully the pumped water and heating will make up for the blue sky and little clouds painted all over the walls and ceiling."
"Maggots," Belimai mumbled.
"Maggots?" Harper asked.
"There are sticky piles of maggots eating through the walls."
"They're not real," Harper said.
"I know." Belimai continued staring. "It's quite a convincing hallucination though."
Belimai seemed oddly calm. Harper wondered if it was because he was too tired to react or if Belimai was already deeply familiar with hallucinations. Harper watched him for a moment. Belimai continued to glare at the wall as if it were to blame for what he saw.
"You know what the worst thing about them is?" Belimai didn't look at Harper when he spoke.
"What?"
"The fact that they're coming from my own mind." Belimai forced an unnaturally bright smile. "All those ugly little bodies are worming out of ugly little me." He continued staring forward at the wall. Harper began to worry.
"I never realized I was so familiar with maggots," Belimai continued. "So white and pulpy. Their wet little mouths never stop chewing. They glisten."
"Try not to think about them. You're going to have to try to sleep." Harper gently took hold of Belimai's arm and worked his shirt off him. It was damp with sweat. Harper tossed it aside. The skin of Belimai's chest was deathly pale, and the scars left by the prayer engines looked alarmingly red.
"I don't want to close my eyes," Belimai said. "I don't want to keep seeing them inside my head."
"They'll go away, I promise." Harper stripped off the rest of Belimai's clothes. Belimai took a short, sharp breath each time Harper's hands contacted his skin. His yellow eyes searched the far wall. Harper pushed him back down into the blankets.
"You have to sleep, Belimai," he said.
"No. I don't," Belimai whispered, but he wasn't even looking at Harper. His eyes were wide and focused on the empty space to Harper's left.
Belimai's eyes had been open so long that tears welled up and dribbled down the sides of his face.
"Belimai," Harper said softly. "Close your eyes."
"Close yours," Belimai hissed.
"Why?" Harper asked.
"I don't want you to see me like this." Belimai pulled his gaze away from the ceiling and stared hard at Harper. "Close your eyes."
Harper closed his eyes.
He heard Belimai shifting through the blankets.
Harper cracked his eyes just enough to take in a shadowed impression of Belimai's motions. Belimai crouched on the far side of the bed. He was still for a moment, then he hunched over and vomited into a bedside washbasin. Harper closed his eyes again and gave Belimai his privacy. After a few minutes, the room seemed too quiet. Harper opened his eyes. Belimai knelt on the floor. Harper watched Belimai cram himself under the small bed and collapse.
As Harper lifted Belimai back up onto the bed, he noticed with alarm that blots of blood colored Belimai's chest. The holy words scarring Belimai's body were bleeding. As Harper watched, a delicate line on Belimai's shoulder split and bright red beads of blood welled up. Letter after letter opened, as if a phantom blade were re-tracing each of the ophorium-packed scars that the prayer engines had laid down.
Harper reached down to daub the blood away with his handkerchief. Belimai's eyes snapped open.
"No!" Belimai shouted.
Before Harper could react, Belimai punched him hard in the chest. Harper grabbed Belimai's hand and caught the other as Belimai took a swipe at his face. Instinctively Harper reached for his handcuffs. He quickly locked Belimai's hands to the headboard. It was easy to do, but Harper hated it. It felt like betrayal to restrain Belimai just as the Inquisition had trained him to do.
Belimai fought hard against the handcuffs, screaming and kicking. He twisted and jerked until his wrists bled. Then, in absolute exhaustion, he collapsed back to the bed.
Harper backed away and sat down on the floor. He stared up at the orange sun painted on the ceiling. When he had been a child, it had seemed magically real. The entire world had been as simplistic as that painting. Bright blue days and deep, sleepy nights had encircled his existence while his parents enfolded him in a constant sense of adoration. Harper wished he could still feel so perfectly happy.
He didn't know when exactly he had lost his hold on that life. Small, corrosive deceptions had steadily eaten away at his innocence. He had learned that his father was actually a stepfather and that Joan was only a stepsister. He'd often lied about that, sometimes even to himself. He had answered to two different names: Foster, at chapel, and Harper, at home. He wore gloves, as his sister and stepfather did, to disguise a Prodigal nature that he did not possess. He still wore them now. Sometimes, when he had been young, he would stare down at his gloved hands and forget that he was not one of them.
He had told lie upon lie about his family, about his beliefs and even himself. After years of it, all he could remember were the lies.
When his stepfather had asked him why he was becoming an Inquisitor, Harper hadn't dared to give him an honest answer. Harper had flushed with shame, knowing that what drove him was loneliness. He had burned with the desire to be with Prodigals. He had ached to caress their bodies, to kiss their hot mouths. But only an Inquisitor could consort with the sons of devils and not be suspected of heresy. He had wanted to find a Prodigal lover but not be hanged for it. He hadn't even known how to say those things. His longing had been shadowed beneath his fear and shame.
At last he had blurted out a string of lies, claiming a desire to avenge his real father. He had ranted over his family heritage, eight generations of service to the Cross. He had sneered at his stepfather and railed against the Prodigals in Hells Below. His words had tumbled out in a red-faced rush of confused passion. At some point he had crossed the line of forgiveness. Harper could still remember the pain in his stepfather's face.
Harper looked down at his bare hands. Clean, white priest's hands. They didn't seem like they should be his at all.
"Master William?" A soft female voice intruded into Harper's thoughts. Mrs. Kately smiled at him from the doorway. She was a plain woman, but her warm smiles lent her beauty.
"Giles said you brought a friend." She stepped into the room. "I was wondering which rooms you wanted aired—" She stopped the moment she caught sight of Belimai.