The snowflakes hurled themselves down, seeming to fly at me with dizzying speed until they drew closer and drifted the rest of the way like eiderdown. They landed on my cheeks in gentle puffs of cold.
“She was only fourteen,” it said, “and she died screaming to your Lady.”
I shook my head in denial, my heart aching. I could easily imagine how Eugenia must have felt, willing to make any sacrifice in her despair. “That couldn’t have been what the Lady wanted her to do.”
“Are you so certain? Even if you’re right, it was done in Her name. In the end, for you humans, does that make so very great a difference?”
For once, I had no words to argue.
“I’ve told you all this because you should know that the Dead despise me as much as the living. One day we may face another revenant—one even more powerful than Sarathiel. And if we do, it isn’t going to be pleased to see me.”
The snow landing on my face suddenly felt like the pricks of icy needles. I pictured the melted crown of Cimeliarch the Bright, dripping down its skull. The skeletal hand of Architrave the Dim, holding its unbalanced scales. Their ancient minds twisted with resentment, grown cruel and clever and half-mad from centuries of imprisonment at human hands.
The Lady had let me keep the revenant. But what if She had done so not in answer to my prayers, but for reasons of Her own?
Before, I had compared Her plans to a game of knights and kings. Now I imagined the checkered board growing vaster, stretching far into shadow. The game piece carved into Sarathiel’s likeness knocked over by an unseen hand. The shape concealed behind it gliding forward from the dark.
Something occurred to me that I had never considered before. If the Lady was playing a game, a great game, a game of life and death, then who was Her opponent?
I shivered and tried my best to banish the image from my mind.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” I said, eager to change the subject. “The first humans who got possessed, the ones who went on to become saints; they weren’t all strong enough to control unbound spirits, were they? They couldn’t have been. At least some of them must have fought with their spirits the same way I do.”
“Yes,” the revenant said, after a long, ancient-feeling pause. “They were our friends.”
“Then does that mean we’re—”
“You had better not push it, nun. I can possess you whenever I want. I could do far worse than make you murder someone. I could make you try on hats.”
Up on the battlements, where no one could see me, I smiled.
We sat together as the sky slowly brightened to the color of milk and the flurries dwindled, revealing the monastery’s thatched roofs dusted in white. Monks began to stir, dim gray shapes shuffling along with bowed heads as they attended to their morning prayers. I was considering returning to my room when I caught sight of new activity below. A pair of horses had been led into the courtyard; their reins were being handed over to a tall, hooded brother who walked with a slight limp, dressed for travel. One of the horses was white, and the other dapple-gray.
I flew down the stairs and through the twisting alley that led to the courtyard, intercepting the brother on his way to the stable. By the looks of it, he had planned to lead Priestbane to a stall before departing the monastery on his own horse. He drew to a surprised halt when I appeared, but did nothing to discourage me from laying my hand on Priestbane’s neck, who turned his head, blowing hay-scented breath against my face.
I distantly noticed that the monk wasn’t one of the brothers I recognized. He was too tall, too slender, his posture too elegant. Then he said, “I didn’t think you would be awake,” and drew back his hood.
It was the first time I had seen Leander since that day in his chamber. He looked ghostly draped in a monk’s woolen robes instead of his tailored confessor’s vestments, their rough weave emphasizing the cold, saintly beauty of his face and the ethereal white of his hair. He didn’t appear quite real, as though he had stepped from a scene in a tapestry.
He surprised me by passing me Priestbane’s reins. “I thought you might as well have him. He’s already yours, as far as the masses are concerned.”
“You mean—”
“I’ve left the contract of ownership with the brothers. You only need to sign it. I doubt you’ll ever have need of it, but better to make the transaction official.” Dryly, he added, “I wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of horse theft.”
Words had vanished from my head like birds taking flight. I couldn’t think of how to answer. I stroked Priestbane’s mane, acutely aware of Leander watching. His gaze was intent, as though he was studying my face, tucking a final memory of me away.
“Why are you dressed as a monk?” I asked, hoping to jar him from his strange mood. I assumed he held monks in as much contempt as nuns; he couldn’t possibly feel comfortable borrowing a Gray Brother’s spare clothes.
His answer pierced me like an arrow. “I’ve decided to take my vows,” he said. “I’m leaving Roischal to study with the brothers of Saint Severin.”
It was the last answer I expected. The brothers of Saint Severin were famous for producing illuminated manuscripts of exquisite beauty, at the cost of growing stooped and half-blind before their time. I tried to picture Leander among them, leaning over a desk with his white hair glowing in the candlelight, swirls of color coming alive beneath his brush. A quiet life, one in which he would hurt no one.
During my moment of distraction, he had mounted his horse. He was already turning, a hand lifted in farewell. “Goodbye, Artemisia.”
Holding Priestbane’s reins, I watched him ride away between the stone buildings, a solitary figure fading into the drifting white. When he vanished, a sense of loss struck me like an unexpected blow. I shouldn’t have stood in silence; I should have said something in return.
Then an odd coincidence tickled the back of my mind. Something Sister Iris had said once, when our convent had been lent a manuscript from the brothers of Saint Severin. A minor, seemingly insignificant detail: that the brothers devotedly followed Josephine of Bissalart’s techniques in the creation of their manuscripts. In my mind’s eye, I saw a lantern’s light glimmering over the revenants’ unearthly, gilded forms.
Again, I felt the Lady’s hand hovering. And in that moment I was seized by the same fierce certainty that I had felt charging into the Battle of Bonsaint—this time a certainty that Leander wasn’t gone forever. One day, the Lady’s plans would bring us together again.
Priestbane stamped a hoof, mouthing eagerly at the bit. Wind rushed from the valley like an invitation, lifting my hair, tugging at my robes. I took hold of Priestbane’s mane and scrambled onto his bare back.
Both the monks and the revenant reacted with alarm as Priestbane charged through the monastery in a snorting clatter of hooves. “Nun!” “Lady, wait—” But I was already cantering away, their protests lost to the wind. A startled flock of ravens burst cawing from the walls, and among their flickering black bodies I thought I made out a familiar white shape rising into the sky, winging away toward the mountains. Filled with thoughtless joy, I turned Priestbane to follow.