No one ever expected Sensitives to be physical—but like the Actives they had their own training regime. Geists were supposed to ignore Sensitives, but that didn’t mean that humans always would, and geists were not the only threats a Deacon faced. The other two jerked to a halt, and he pressed them down among the pews with a hand on each of their backs.
Something white was indeed floating in the opposite direction from them, only a few feet away. He could barely believe it—there had not been any geists, any shades, in the Abbey, since the first few days after their arrival. And yet there it was; a shade in the deepest sanctuary of the Order. The pale, flickering form lit up a corner of the vast building with a shifting blue-white light, a shimmering flutter to normal eyes. But when Merrick used his Sight, he could make out far more detail. What he Saw took his breath away.
The face, tilted slightly upward toward the rose window, was bone-white and skeletal, so the victim was long dead. But it was the robes it wore—the cloak of a Deacon—that appalled him. He could make out the hint of blue about the clothing, through the Sight, and when it turned, even the glimpse of gold could be made out at the shade’s shoulder. It was the mark of an Order, indeed, but a graceful circle encompassed the five bright stars, rather than the fist and eye of the newcomers from Delmaire. The stars were the symbol of the native Order, the one that had destroyed itself nearly seventy years before the Emperor and his Arch Abbot had come across the water.
Raed’s eyes widened and Merrick knew why. The Rossin twitched, stirring with that hidden part of the Pretender. The thought of the Beast loose in the Abbey was a nightmare that Merrick couldn’t let become real.
The younger man called not on his training, but on his past. He whispered across the Bond, words of comfort and calm—the words of a mother to a restless child; soothing balm to a creature not even human. And they worked. Sorcha might not have known what she was doing when she made that Bond, but there was no doubting the strength of her work.
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 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.
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
