Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The significance of natural phenomena in fluctuations of divine power cannot be overstated. Apollius was the god of the sun, and Nyxara the goddess of the moon. Their union proved to be a volatile one, and one that spelled destruction for the world as we knew it before the Godsfall; however, when their symbols come together in the sky, it can be a time of great power for those who know how to use it. An eclipse signifies change, change to the very nature of magic. It is a time when opposites can come together.

—Solenne Bacque, lecturer in Cosmological Theology at Ularha College in Kadmar (pre-Kirythean conquest)

Ouch.”

Gabe’s voice startled Lore awake, much closer to her ear than it should be. Her eyes flew open, registering the world at an odd angle—sideways, and from below. Every muscle in her body felt like it was on the verge of cramping, and something behind her back pressed her forward uncomfortably.

It was Gabe, arching away from the door. Gabe, lying next to her with his chest bare. Gabe, whom she’d slept with the night before, chasing warmth and not thinking about how it’d leave them in the morning.

Lore scrambled up, taking the blanket with her, clutching it around her shoulders. She’d slept with plenty of people, in both senses of the word, and didn’t much care about modesty besides. But something about it being Gabe, pious, vow-bound Gabe, made her cheeks heat furiously and an uncomfortable vulnerability crawl through her chest.

The flush across Gabe’s cheekbones said he was having his own uncomfortably vulnerable moment. She saw the decision flash across his face as he chose not to address what had happened last night, and she was absurdly grateful for it.

Gabe reached behind him, picking up whatever had come through the door. She wondered how long he’d been awake, if he’d just lain there with his arm around her as she slept.

It was another envelope, pushed under the door, Remaut once again scrawled in elegant script over the front. A seal covered the envelope’s closure, deep-purple wax impressed with an image of the Bleeding God’s Heart. The Arceneaux seal.

“Is it a summons?” Lore asked as Gabe sat up and ripped the envelope open.

His eye tracked over the paper, then he handed it to her. “Not quite.”

An invitation to a dinner and a ball, to celebrate the coming eclipse. The ball was a large event, but the formal dinner afterward was only open to a select few, and she and Gabe counted among the chosen.

The date on the paper stared back at her. Midsummer. She hadn’t realized her birthday was so close.

A solar eclipse on her birthday, and a ball to celebrate.

A tremble in Lore’s fingers made the paper quiver, just a bit. Surely it had to be a coincidence. Anton had said they would plan a Consecration for her, but a ball was not a Consecration—

“Lore?”

Gabe looked up at her from where he still sat on the floor, face twisted in concern. There was stubble on his jaw—she’d felt it last night, rough against her hair. “Are you all right?”

She forced a smile. Waved the invitation limply in the air. “It’s on my birthday. My twenty-fourth.”

His brow climbed up his forehead.

“It doesn’t say anything about a Consecration, though. Hopefully I can avoid an embarrassing ceremony. I assume there’s no getting out of the dinner?”

“Not if August purposefully invited us.” With a groan, Gabe stood, stretching out his back. Lore looked away. “It’d be obvious if we didn’t attend.”

Lore nodded again, lip between her teeth. She went to go place the invitation on the table with the others—next to the remains of last night’s dinner; she’d have to find someone to take care of that before it got too disgusting—and another envelope stared up at her, one inscribed with just Lore, not her false surname.

Alie’s invitation to tea. At the croquet game, she’d said it was standing, that she and some friends got together every Sixth Day. “What day is it?”

“Seventh,” Gabe answered, headed to the door of his unused bedroom to find clothes.

So she’d just missed the tea. She should probably try to make it to the next one. It’d seem strange if she didn’t go at least once, and she might find out something valuable.

Even if she didn’t, it’d be nice to pretend to have friends for a couple of hours.

Lore changed quickly, once again opting for whatever dress was easiest to get on by herself. This one was a deep gold, with a flowy skirt made of layered chiffon that swished around her legs. The sleeves were chiffon, too, long and gathered at the wrists. Part of her wanted to dig further in the closet and find the winter gowns she was sure were waiting. She was still chilled.

The thought came that she could ask Gabe to hold her again, but she shook her head, physically pushing it away.

When she emerged from her room, Gabe was dressed, morosely rolling his voluminous sleeves to the elbows in an attempt to make them more manageable. He gave her a wry look. “I suppose you’re wanting to go straight to the Church library?”

She gestured grandly. “Lead the way, Mort.”

After a moment of consideration, Lore placed the dinner tray Bastian had brought her beneath the Bleeding God’s Heart candelabra across the hall. He’d said he’d send around a maid—hopefully they wouldn’t mind picking this up, too.

Lore scowled down at her dirty dishes. She’d successfully avoided thinking about the Sun Prince for at least an hour while she and Gabe got ready, but now she’d have to reset her internal counter. It felt strange to think about Bastian when she could still recall the press of Gabe’s chest against her back.

None of them had time for silly romance games—were this any other situation, she’d just sleep with them both and have done with it, so they could concentrate on the important things like finding a stash of dead bodies, figuring out why August and Anton had hidden them, and learning what made them dead in the first place.

But one was the Sun Prince, and one was a celibate monk, and thus the circumstances were a bit more complicated.

One had chased Mortem away from her with nothing but the touch of his hand, and thus the circumstances were extremely more complicated.

When Gabe arced a pointed glance from her to the dishes, Lore shrugged. “Bastian said he’d make sure a maid came up here sometime soon. He was less than impressed with your housekeeping.”

Gabe rolled his eye, then reached up and itched at his patch. He’d removed the bandage on the tip of his finger, and Lore was relieved to see that the damage wasn’t all that bad—part of the appendage was simply gone, as if someone had amputated it right below the nailbed. Dark stitches still showed in the skin, but it looked like it was healing cleanly.

He followed her gaze, but didn’t comment. Apparently, they weren’t going to talk about his wound or how he’d gotten it. That suited Lore fine.

They took the back staircase without needing a discussion first, both of them wanting to avoid running into anyone who might ask what they were doing. Especially Bastian.

Despite the connection she felt—despite that he cared—Lore didn’t want Bastian to know about her suspicions regarding Spiritum. Something about the knowledge felt volatile, as if it could tip a perfectly balanced scale.

No one was on the narrow stairs, and no one but two bloodcoats were at the southern double doors leading out of the Citadel. The guards let them through with no comment, expressions bored. It made Lore think of the guards who’d seen her enter two weeks ago in a borrowed dress flanked by Presque Mort, made her think of what Gabe said about them being sent to the Burnt Isles.

“The Church library is in the south wing?” she asked as they stepped out onto the green. “That’s unexpected. I thought it’d be near the North Sanctuary.”

Gabe shrugged. “The nobles don’t have much use for a bunch of old manuscripts and Compendiums.”

“But they’re extremely valuable, right? That seems like the kind of thing the Church would want to keep away from the common rabble.”

“Malcolm gets far more requests to view manuscripts from commoners than from nobles, actually.”

Surprise nearly made her foot get caught in her skirt. “That’s allowed?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure what the protocol is,” Gabe answered. “But ever since Malcolm was promoted to head librarian, he’s tried to make sure everyone who wants to view a manuscript has the opportunity. At least, all the manuscripts that don’t need special dispensation. No one can waltz in and ask to look at prophecies without Anton’s permission.”

Lore thought of Anton, of his scarred face and how he’d gotten it. She frowned.

“Malcolm told me a story, once,” Gabe continued thoughtfully. “From when he was a kid, before he had the accident that scarred up his arms and led to him joining the Presque Mort. He was fascinated by books, but his family only had a few, and he heard there were more in the Church. He walked right up to a clergy member and asked to see the books. It didn’t even occur to him that it might not be possible. Books are for everyone, he thought.”

“Did the clergyman think the same?”

“He did, fortunately. He took Malcolm to the library, and the head librarian at the time let him look at whatever book he pleased.” Gabe’s voice was quiet, contemplative. “After, when Malcolm got the ability to channel Mortem and joined up with the Mort, he insisted on being able to work in the library. Eventually, he took over from the other clergyman.”

“Seems like he stays busy.”

Gabe huffed a brief laugh.

She peered at him from the corner of her eye as they made their quiet way across the green, the walls of the Church looming up ahead to block the thin morning light. Gabe held his lips pursed, contemplative. Lore wondered if talking about his friend’s life before he joined the Presque Mort made Gabe think of his own, of the boy who had a father and a home and two working eyes.

The Church door opened on soundless hinges, and they stepped into the quiet darkness inside. Gabe went in the opposite direction he’d taken on the day of the Mortem leak. The highly polished wooden rafters reflected the light of the stained-glass windows.

Six such windows lined the hall they walked down. The first was Apollius, in shades of white and gold, dark hair flowing around His shoulders and blood on His hands. The second was Hestraon, god of fire, pictured bent over a forge and engulfed in orange flame. Lereal of the air was third, Their face upturned to the drifts of iridescent wind carved into the glass above Their head. Then Caeliar of the sea, Her arms outstretched in a sparkling blue wave, followed by Braxtos of the earth, flowers sprouting from His hands. At the end of the hall was a window made of nothing but panels of dark glass, deep blues and purples and shimmering black.

Lore frowned as they passed, the light dappling her skirt. “It’s strange that you have depictions of the other gods. I thought Apollius was the only one you were allowed to revere?”

“Depiction isn’t reverence,” Gabe said quietly. His eye swung to the dark window, then away.

The hallway ended in a short wooden staircase; Gabe jogged up and turned to an arched doorway on the right, rapping a knock.

Lore came up the stairs much more slowly. The walk from the Citadel had left her winded; that week abed was doing her no favors.

The door creaked open. Malcolm cocked his head curiously. “Gabe? Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“We have some questions,” Lore said, trying not to sound as out of breath as she felt.

“Questions that will probably involve a lot of religious theory and other technically heretical pursuits,” Gabe grumbled.

The head librarian grinned. “Then you, my friends, have come to the right place.”

He pushed the door wider and beckoned them inside.

The Church library rivaled the one within the Citadel, as far as sheer volume went. It was just as beautiful, too, though in a different way. Where the Citadel library was bright and airy, the Church library was austere, everything made of dark, gleaming wood and lit with the golden glow of gas lamps. The room was at least four stories high, though the upper floors were reached by a sliding ladder rather than clever staircases. Long tables ran the length of the room, and down the center of each was a domed glass lane with small hinges placed at equidistant points. A few ancient-looking books rested beneath the glass, where they could be read but not touched. A small door set into the shelves opened on what looked like a reading room, with another glass-covered table. The shelves in that room were full of much thinner books, with covers embossed in gold lettering too ornate for Lore to make out from a distance. Small potted plants had been placed along the bookcases, green tendrils snaking over shelves. There were no windows to provide sunlight, so Lore didn’t know how they grew, but they all appeared to be in perfect health.

“Religious theory, you say?” Malcolm walked to one of the books on the long tables and opened a small door in the glass above it. He slipped his hands into a pair of pale gloves before gingerly reaching in to close the cover, then picked the book up with the care of a father to an infant. “That’s a rather broad topic. Narrow it down for me.”

“Information on Spiritum,” Gabe said. “Mostly theories on how it might manifest.”

“Easy enough.” Malcolm opened one of a series of drawers on the back wall and gently placed the book inside before soundlessly sliding it closed again. “That’s the same thing Anton’s been researching.”