I repeated the question aloud, and Leander gave me the same narrow, piecing-things-together look he’d given the Divine earlier. “No,” he said carefully. “I examined it the night I returned to Bonsaint after you escaped from the harrow. I had been meaning to take a closer look at it for some time.” That was the night of the vision—the point at which he had started smelling of Old Magic. “I thought it was strange,” he went on, seeming to take my silence for permission to continue, “that all records pertaining to it seemed to have mysteriously vanished from the cathedral’s archives.”
Was that what I had seen in the vision? He hadn’t been practicing Old Magic. He had been straightening after touching the casket. Looking at it now, I noticed for the first time how firmly he was holding it shut.
“Do you know what’s inside?” I asked, not meaning the ashes.
He met my gaze. Beneath his forced calm, I saw a bottomless well of horror. “As of two nights ago, yes.”
“I was wrong,” the revenant said. “The smell of Old Magic has been coming from Sarathiel—from the ritual that nearly destroyed it. It’s been leaving a trace on everything it touches. It’s been in command of the spirits all along. The attack on Bonsaint may have been a response to the priest discovering its reliquary.”
Leander asked, “Is Rathanael saying something to you, or are you just thinking? I can’t tell. Your face is very hard to read.”
The question’s directness sent a ripple of shock through me. But if he meant to throw me off-balance, that wasn’t going to work. “It doesn’t like being called that,” I said.
He let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. He was looking at me in a way I didn’t understand—an intense, burning look, as though I were the only thing that existed in the world. Around us, time seemed to have stopped. Shafts of moonlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, and motes of dust winked within them like particles of frost. “In the crypt, you said you wanted to stop me. When you said that, you meant—”
“I thought you were responsible for the attacks on Roischal. Practicing Old Magic.”
“I see.” He hesitated. His lips parted, but nothing came out. I had never seen him appear so uncertain. “I’ve been investigating the situation for some time,” he said finally, swiftly, with an air of disbelief that he was revealing this out loud. “Before the first soldiers were possessed, there were a few suspicious incidents here and there. But the more I looked into them, the more I found myself being assigned… errands. I was sent to Naimes, to conduct evaluations. Sent to the countryside, to battle spirits. And then—”
“Sent to retrieve me in the harrow,” I finished.
He gave me a humorless smile. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. All along, even then, we had been on the same side. The anger I had seen on his face in the evaluation room, learning about the possessed soldiers—that was because it had happened while he was leagues away from Roischal, forced to put his life-and-death investigation on hold to administer tests to dozens of giggling novices. No wonder he had wanted to get it over with.
I thought of the notes filling the margins of his prayer book. The impersonal emptiness of his chamber. This had consumed his life for months, I wagered, and until now, he had confided in no one. With an uncomfortable twist in my stomach, I realized that the dedication must have been written by his dead brother, Gabriel.
“So the revenants aren’t in league with each other,” he said slowly, almost to himself. “Rath—your revenant wants to stop Sarathiel, not free it? When it sent the thralls to Naimes, that was to destroy Saint Eugenia’s relic, not find your revenant a vessel.”
“They don’t like each other very much,” I explained.
“This is mad,” Leander said. “I shouldn’t…” He glanced away; a muscle shifted in his jaw. Then he looked back at me and said as though it cost him, “Help me. I understand that you hate me, but this must be done. I need to see it through.”
I had forgotten I was still holding the dagger. When I stuck it back through my belt, he relaxed minutely.
“Ask him what he was planning to do with the casket,” the revenant said.
“What were you planning to do with the casket?”
“I was going to throw it into the Sevre.” He paused, looking at me warily, and I realized he was addressing the revenant when he asked, “Will that work?”
“Most likely.” I waited for the rest of the revenant’s answer, then relayed, “It would be easier to dump the ashes over the altar and let the Old Magic finish the job, but there would be a risk of Sarathiel escaping.”
“And tell him to keep holding the lid shut,” the revenant added. “Right now I’m fairly certain that’s the only thing keeping Sarathiel inside. The lid must have been left a little ajar for it to have snuck out enough of its power to kill the sacristan. I’ll bet the priest picked up the casket just in time.”
Hearing this, Leander turned a shade paler beneath the bruises. “Ah,” he said calmly. He stepped out from behind the altar and went down the chancel’s steps, avoiding looking at the sacristan’s body. It struck me that he hadn’t even known whether his plan would work. Any mistake could have killed him. This was a burden he had been prepared to shoulder alone.
“Why have you decided to trust me?” I asked, catching up with his long strides and his dramatically billowing vestments.
He shot me a sideways glance. “In the crypt, you didn’t kill me. I was unconscious and at your mercy, and you let me live. If Rath—if the revenant were in control…”
“I’m not a saint,” I said, because I could see where this was going.
Looking down the empty transept ahead, he smiled. It wasn’t his condescending smile from before, but instead a rather pallid real one.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing,” he said. “The procession is due to return soon, but we have enough time to slip out the back. From there the walk to the parapets overlooking the river will take us only a few minutes. Anyone who sees us will keep their distance. I’ve made certain enough of that.”
Anger throbbed to life dully in my chest. “Is that why you torture people with your relic?” I asked. “To ensure they don’t get in your way?”
“We’ve already established how much you dislike me. If it’s any consolation, I don’t like myself, either. One can’t, in order to be a confessor.” He stated it plainly, as though he hardly cared, but opening the door to the vestry, he paused. “When I used Saint Liliane’s relic on you in Naimes, I will admit—I was not entirely…”
He trailed off. The Divine was standing in the vestry, her many layers of ornamentation being removed by an attendant. The smell of cold winter air and incense clung to her robes. With her miter set aside, I saw that her hair was brown and curly, cut short for tidiness, which made her look even more girlishly young.
“Leander?” she asked in confusion.
Both of us stood frozen: Leander in the open, me halfway behind a garment rack, still conspicuous to anyone who bothered glancing in my direction.