Of course I was. At least that wouldn’t be difficult. After the service, it was customary to line up along the nave to touch the altar. Considering yesterday’s events, I predicted that a lot of people were going to want its blessing.
Just then the Divine appeared, heading toward the chancel, the long train of her robes gliding behind her. And as my luck would have it, Leander followed after her like a wolf trailing a lamb. I was so busy wondering how I was going to avoid him that I almost didn’t notice the way some of the clerics were giving him sidelong looks and gossiping behind their hands. I suspected he was aware of it; his back was very straight going up the steps to the sanctuary.
The balcony was packed full now. A hush descended. Everyone watched the Divine the same way they had looked at me in the house, desperate for guidance. Despite myself, I pitied her. I remembered how sorrowful she had looked in Naimes. The knowledge that she had been the second choice for Divine surely weighed on her. She couldn’t afford to fail her people again.
She folded her hands. Her sweet, clear voice filled the nave: “Goddess, Lady of Death, Mother of Mercy, bless us with the stillness of Your regard.”
The Lady rarely sent a sign in response to the traditional invocation. In my seven years at the convent, I had seen it happen only a handful of times. But today the Divine was clearly hoping for one. Everyone could see it. After her voice fell silent, there came a long, waiting pause, the congregation holding perfectly still, suspending its breath, trying not to exhale and disturb the candles.
At first it seemed it might work. The flames were tranquil, betrayed by only a few slight flickers here and there. Then the candles on the altarpiece ruffled in an unmistakable draft. The Divine bent her head. Only then, when it was obvious no sign was forthcoming, did the cathedral rumble with hundreds of voices repeating the refrain.
Beside me, people fearfully gripped each other’s hands.
The Divine had no choice but to continue. She spoke of the soul’s tribulations, of the Lady’s mercy in troubling times. I let her voice wash over me as meaningless noise, using my hidden vantage behind the screen to observe Leander.
He was pretending to listen, but I caught him giving the Divine narrow-eyed looks, as though making calculations. I wondered if she had begun to suspect him, if the clerics had said something to her. Perhaps she was beginning to doubt his advice.
It struck me as darkly ironic that they interacted with Leander daily, spent hours standing around the altar, and had no inkling of the Old Magic’s presence. If any of them had bothered making friends with the spirits bound to their relics, they could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble. Perhaps none of this would have happened in the first place; Leander never would have gotten away with it.
That was when understanding dawned.
They were trained not to listen to me, the revenant had said. They didn’t hear.
Mother Katherine liked to say that our Lady was a merciful goddess, but She wasn’t a nice one. I remembered the sorrow on her face when she passed me the candle in the chapel, and it struck me that she could have sent anyone: one of the sisters, someone who had been trained to wield a relic, someone older and more prepared. But the Lady had spoken to her. She had sent me.
Someone with training wouldn’t have asked the revenant for its help. They wouldn’t have listened to it. They wouldn’t have learned about the Old Magic, and wouldn’t have followed it here.
If you wish to stay in Naimes so badly, perhaps that is the Lady’s will.
Wandering the convent at night, I had sometimes caught glimpses of Sister Iris and Sister Lucinde playing a game of knights and kings through the refectory window, their faces still with concentration as they moved the carved figures across the board. One piece selected over another, its neighbor sacrificed so that it could advance. I thought of Sister Julienne dead on the crypt’s floor. And I felt the Lady’s shadowed hand behind me, hovering.
I understood what She wanted me to know. She had chosen me for this role, but She wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice me, too, if doing so allowed Her to win the game.
Except it wasn’t a game; the stakes were the lives of everyone in Roischal. I thought of the carved toy abandoned on the mantelpiece, the child in the camp holding out a piece of bread, Thomas touching my scars. If I had to die for them, then so be it. If I had to suffer, then I would. The Lady already knew that. She didn’t need to hear me say it. But still I felt Her presence, waiting in silence, and knew there was nothing She had done to me that I had not accepted first.
I prayed bitterly, Do what You will.
The Divine was still speaking when the Lady answered—when the flames of the candles on the chandeliers, in the sconces around the pillars, in the candelabra on the altarpiece all stopped flickering, filling the cathedral with shining, still light. Gasps and sobs rose from the congregation. The Divine slowly raised her head, tears luminous in her eyes, her face transformed with joy.
A strange sensation filled my chest as everyone around me laughed and cried, embracing one another in celebration. I thought it might be the humorless urge to laugh.
“Was that your doing?” the revenant asked. “On second thought, don’t tell me. I suspect I’m better off not knowing.”
A mood of almost delirious relief suffused the cathedral as the service ended and the congregation began to stand. As I had hoped, people were already queueing up along the aisle, bending one by one to touch or kiss the altar. From the shuffling movements on the balcony around me, it seemed we would join the end of the line.
I silently willed Leander to leave, but he remained in the nave, conversing with a lector. Eventually I had no choice but to merge with the descending crowd. If I waited until I was one of the last to reach the altar as the cathedral emptied, I would risk drawing his attention even more.
I kept an eye on him as the line inched forward. His back was turned to the aisle. Worshippers still sat scattered in the pews, their heads bent in solitary prayer. I watched them gradually depart as I made my halting progress up the aisle.
Halfway there. Two-thirds. Finally I reached the steps of the chancel.
I waited as the woman in front of me lingered over the altar, ostentatiously signing herself as her lips trembled in prayer. A tear dripped from her chin onto the altar cloth. “The blood of Saint Agnes,” she whispered, touching the altar with shaking fingers.
The stone did have dark marks on it, but they weren’t blood, not even old blood. After spending the past seven years around corpses, I would know. They looked more like scorch marks from a fire—as though at some point in its past, the altar had been engulfed in flames.
Someone behind me coughed impatiently; another shuffled from foot to foot. Oblivious, the woman continued praying, tears streaming down her face in earnest. Occasionally we had gotten pilgrims like that in Naimes, ones who liked to put on a show. The sisters had always been able to tell they were faking it.
At last she turned to leave, glowing as though the Lady had answered her prayers. I hoped not, because based on personal experience, I was fairly certain she wouldn’t like the results. I moved forward for my turn, tugging off my glove. I’d gone only one step before noisy tears erupted behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see the woman sinking to the carpet, her face raised as though beholding a vision in the air.