Bolt moved to intercept, weaponless, but a half-dozen swords swung his way, and their owners positioned themselves so they each had a clean line of attack.
Before the guards could get to Custos, I stepped in front and pulled my gloves. “I won’t stand idle while you kill him. I don’t expect to win, but if this goes badly, I will die before you can take the gift. Your apothecary is not here.”
A sharp retort of sound echoed in the room, and I saw Bishop Gehata applauding. “This is better than a play.” He pointed to Custos. “Isn’t it ironic that as the curtain goes up on the next act, it’s actually coming down on his life?”
Bolt shifted closer to me, and the cosp closest withdrew a step, nervous. For months he’d been my constant companion, the purity of his gift an illustration of just how far humanity had fallen. But in all that time, even during the fight with Duke Orlan’s pet killer, I had never seen the focused intensity, the capacity for explosive violence that I saw now.
The last Errant stood beside me.
Instead of being chagrined or angry at the prospect of more than a little violence in his quarters, Bishop Gehata looked pleased. He held the tip of his tongue against his upper lip as if in anticipation of some delicate morsel he’d never tasted before, and the pupils of his eyes had dilated like a lover’s.
“Excellent,” he said. He raised his hand, pointing at Bolt. “Let us see what the Errant—”
A clatter from the hallway interrupted him, the shock of a single sword rebounding from the stones of the corridor like a clarion. Its ring hung in the air—a repudiation—before being joined by another and then more. The cosp filling Gehata’s quarters thinned as they moved to investigate. Then I saw them dropping weapons and kicking them away.
The six cosp closest to Gehata closed in, forming a ring around him, tense, as the rest moved away. I still couldn’t see the reason for the surrender, but the clatter of dropping weapons continued to sound.
“Bishop Gehata,” a voice rang from the hallway, “you are commanded to surrender yourself to the authority of the Merum church.”
Bolt straightened from his crouch. “Serius.”
“I am the church now, you fool,” Gehata snarled.
A crowd of soldiers moved into view, filling the doorway, each one of them leveling a loaded crossbow at the bishop and his remaining men. Bolt pulled me and Custos out of the line of fire. The remaining cosp surrendered, their swords hitting the carpet with muffled rings. One by one they were manacled and led away, stripping Gehata of his protection. When one of the guards signaled Mirren to step forward, I held up a hand.
“Not her,” I said. “She freed us.”
Serius entered the room, his eyes clear, lucid. “My thoughts and reason have returned to me, Bishop Gehata.”
Gehata laughed. “Do you expect me to grovel, Serius? You’re a fool, like Vyne before you, wasting an opportunity for the true church to take control of the north and erase the errors of the past.”
Serius didn’t bother to answer but turned from Gehata as he would an object that held little significance. “Are you well, Errant Consto?”
Bolt nodded as he stepped forward with his eyes on the floor, examining the swords. He stooped, selecting one and then fastening it to his belt. “This will do until I find Robin’s.” Turning, he pointed through the floor. “There’s at least one man dead by Gehata’s order in the prison cells below us.”
I searched Bolt’s face for some satisfaction or regret over Peret Volsk’s death, but he’d always been hard to read, and now was no exception.
Serius nodded. “I grieve your loss.”
Bolt’s expression didn’t change, but his chin dropped toward his chest, and his eyes narrowed momentarily. “Do I?” he whispered too softly for any to hear. Except me.
“What will you do with him?” I asked Serius as I pointed at Gehata.
Serius mused for a moment before answering. “With your aid, Lord Dura, we will question him to determine just how far his influence has spread.”
I noted that he’d addressed me, not Bolt. He knew about my gift. Confirming my suspicion, I heard Rory’s voice coming from the press of soldiers in the hallway.
“It’s over, you stupid kreppa. Let us through.”
A moment later he and Gael shouldered their way into the room. In the tales, whenever a woman discovers her beloved has survived, she falls into his arms. I wouldn’t have minded that, but the writers of those tales had obviously never met Gael. She noted Gehata, her blue eyes darkening to the shade of an overcast sky, and took my hand, the bare one.
Divining her intent, I let myself fall into her mind, where I became one with her memories and emotions. In an instant, I knew what she and Rory had done, how they had retrieved Bishop Serius and, after his muddled mind had settled, convinced him of the danger Gehata represented. Emotions swirled among her memories, anger, and enough fear to cripple anyone, but Gael had channeled all of them into action.
Just before I surrendered our communion, one last thread of emotion washed over me. I blinked and found myself looking at my beloved in the midst of a sea of armed men and women. “You wouldn’t really want me to do that,” I said. “Not here and now.”
No one outside of the two of us would have any context for the remark, but Gael only favored me with a smile and a lift of her brows. I tried to maintain some measure of reserve, but I must have failed.
“Bonkers,” Rory snorted. “You’d think they’d been apart from each other for a lifetime instead of a few hours.”
His amused disgust sobered me. Before I left that room, I knew what I needed to do. Stepping around the table we’d used as our puny defense, I approached Gehata where a handful of
