Where my emotions should have been, there was a hard black lump inside my chest, burning like a coal. “Maybe we should have.”
I felt it digesting my reply. Then it said, “Check the book’s binding.”
I suspected it merely wanted to distract me, but I checked anyway. As I ran my fingers over the binding, I reflected that I wasn’t surprised—only bleakly disappointed. If someone could bind a spirit through sheer force of will and the Lady’s grace alone, then I would have done it to the ashgrim. I would have burned all of myself, not just my hands, to be rid of it. I thought of Eugenia’s smiling face—that doesn’t look anything like her—and thought of the vendors hawking my blood and hair and clothes and wondered who she had truly been, if she had thought of herself as a saint or just a girl, if she had been glad to immolate herself so that the only thing people could take from her was the one she could control. I could ask the revenant. Perhaps after this was over, I would.
But for now I’d found where the stitching had been cut, creating a hidden pocket between the two sheets of parchment that made up the prayer book’s back cover. Pressed within, revealed by an uneven edge of sliced vellum, was the missing page.
I tugged it free and moved to Leander’s desk stool, bringing it to the lantern’s light. The revenant read faster than I did, but it could only read the writing that my eyes were focused on. It jerked my gaze down the page until it reached the entry: Year of Our Lady 1155, A small casket crafted of gold and ivory, set with twelve rubies and eight sapphires, heretofore stored in Chantclere, containing the Holy Ashes of Saint Agnes.
“Those fools,” it hissed. “Those festering imbeciles! They should have scattered her ashes in the Sevre, the ocean—they shouldn’t have kept them!”
I was getting a bad feeling. “Revenant, what did you sense in the tunnels?”
“I thought that I had imagined it. The darkness, the silence—after a time, I start seeing things that aren’t there…” A tremor ran through it. “I sensed another revenant. Here, in the city.”
For a moment, the words didn’t make sense. I stared at the page, its text suddenly incomprehensible. “You don’t mean a revenant bound to a relic.”
“No. I felt Sarathiel’s presence. Impossible, of course, unless it wasn’t truly destroyed; unless it was merely weakened to the point that it seemed to be and has been hiding in the ashes for the past three hundred years, slowly rebuilding its strength.”
“Spare relics that aren’t used very much are often stored inside the altar, beneath the altar stone.” My thoughts had begun careening like a wagon down a hill, gaining speed. “The casket might be there too. But wouldn’t someone have sensed it? They use the altar every day.”
“Weakened, its presence may not have been noticeable. As it recovered, it would have regained the ability to hide itself. Out of all of us, Sarathiel was always the best at concealing its presence.” I remembered its page in the manuscript—Sarathiel the Obscured, its tipped chalice pouring mist. “The better question is how it’s managed to recover in the first place. It wouldn’t have been able to heal without consuming life of some kind…”
“The rats,” we both said at the same time. I found that I was standing, the stool toppled over. I hadn’t heard it fall.
Leander had found dead rats, the curist had said, their bodies unmarked. I wondered how many rats had been discovered dead inside the cathedral over the centuries, a few here, a few there, and no one had paid them any mind.
“We need to destroy it now,” the revenant said urgently. “Before it takes a human soul. That’s when it will have enough strength to leave the casket, and it will act soon. It almost certainly knows I’m here—”
It stopped at a faint sound. Somewhere in the cathedral, echoing, came the panicked cries of a raven.
TWENTY-FOUR
I was halfway to the chapel before I realized I had left the lantern behind in Leander’s room, but there was enough moonlight to see by, to take the stairs down from the gallery two at a time. A raven was flapping in circles above the pews. “Dead!” it screamed. “Dead!” Its shrill voice rang from the high, shadowed vault.
The stairs let me out into the transept. When I reached the nave, I drew up short. The sacristan lay collapsed at the center of the aisle, just shy of the sanctuary’s steps, in a heap of crimson velvet. His eyes were still open, his waxen face frozen in an expression of surprise. And behind the altar, an almost perfect match for my vision in the stable, stood Leander: his robes swallowed up by the dark, the casket in his hands. The altar’s slab had been pushed a few inches to the side, revealing a hint of the cavity where it had rested.
I drew my dagger. “Put it down.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he replied. He didn’t seem surprised to see me; there was no emotion in his voice at all. “I went to some effort to leave the procession unseen, and this might be my only chance. Do you understand how rarely the cathedral is empty? It’s a pity about the sacristan, though I never did like him.”
“Put it down,” I repeated, stepping over the body and onto the stairs.
“Are you going to fight me?” he asked, remote.
“Don’t,” the revenant interjected tightly. “Sarathiel is still confined to the ashes, but it’s nearly strong enough to escape. If there’s a struggle—if the casket falls…”
“If you do, you’ll win,” Leander admitted. Drawing closer, I realized I had been wrong about his lack of emotion. His hands were steady around the casket, but now I saw the strain in his eyes, vivid against his bruised face. He was trying his best to hide it, but he was afraid.
I mounted the last step and faced him across the altar. He took an immediate pace back, putting himself against the altarpiece. I stared at him, trying to figure out how to take the casket.
“Talk to him,” the revenant urged.
I raised my eyes to Leander’s face, at which he was unable to hide a flinch. I asked, “Why did you lie about what happened in the crypt?”
He swallowed, noticeable only by the slight movement of his collar. “The answer to that is complicated.” He hesitated. “The most practical reason, perhaps, was that I didn’t wish the death of any cleric who tried to apprehend you.”
“I’m not the one who’s been killing people.”
“What?” For an instant, he looked thrown. Then his face shuttered. “Believe what you like of me, but I’ve never used my relic to take a life.”
“I was talking about the Old Magic,” I said. “Or does murder only count if you commit it with your own hands?”
“You thought—” He broke off as though unable to finish. He glanced at the sacristan, then back at me. He began again, slowly, with a very strange expression on his face, “You thought I’ve been practicing Old Magic?”
I already knew he was a skilled liar, or at least he was talented at concealing the truth. I didn’t believe his act for a moment. But the revenant gave a forceful hiss, as though letting out a swear. “Nun, ask him if this is the first time he’s touched the casket.”