‘So you surmise what? That Jacquetta built a Sanctuary for him and was killed in return?’ Bess was incredulous. ‘Our discretion is legendary, and if that is not enough we can have our memories of the build removed. You know that. The angel would need Jacquetta to reinforce and repair the Sanctuary, too. Killing her would mean his build fallible.’
‘After a thousand years perhaps. If he did not need that long, why would he care about the Child who built him what he needed?’
‘Needed for what, Palatyne?’ Bess’s colour returned with his anger.
Now Palatyne’s expression turned cold, a stony glint where they’d been gentleness before. ‘You tell me, brother. For it is all to do with that disgusting daemon you sheltered at Harvington Hall, is it not? He is a part of the angel’s plan, which means you in turn are complicit. They have made you an accomplice to your own sister’s murder.’
‘Oh, feckin’ steady on there, you callous bitch.’ Tyvain had heard enough and she stomped her way up the aisle, wanting to get closer to Old Bess who had recoiled from the sharpness of the words. ‘You’re bein’ told a whole lot of gobshite and eatin’ it all up, lady. You couldn’t even find this bloody Sanctuary, you’ve got nothin’, no dead body neither.’
‘Perhaps he believed the legend, and thinks a Child’s body beneath the cornerstone a way to make his hideaway invulnerable.’ Palatyne eyed Tyvain with a lip curled. ‘But considering your witch hunter has spent hundreds of years hiding bodies and no one is the wiser, I’m sure a High Angel could dispose of a Child.’
Tyvain stiffened, turning about to search for the Valkyrie.
Sybilla had managed to move halfway down the aisle, but now she clutched at the pew, her gaze black as coal and frosty as deep winter mornings. ‘You tread on dangerous ground, Child.’
The church was not nearly large enough to hold all the ill-feeling. Tyvain dragged in a breath, wishing more of the tiny windows were open.
‘Not so dangerous as you, Valkyrie. I’ll pat on the back whoever it is that ruined your face like that.’ Palatyne pinched off her words, giving them knife-tips. ‘For it’s the best you deserve. Revenge for all those you’ve killed off because the Order deemed them a threat.’ She paused. ‘More secrets that had to be destroyed.’
A wind gust sent Palatyne staggering, grasping at the ruined altar to stay on her feet. Almost tripping over the disgusting piles beneath it. Bodies, burned to a crisp by Reginald evidently. Tyvain might curb her tongue when next she met with the daemon.
‘Watch yourself, Palatyne. You are vastly outnumbered here,’ Jane said . ‘And we have little patience for your prattle. You are going to open that–’
‘I do not relish what I’ve done, Palatyne.’ To Tyvain’s eye the Valkyrie looked like she belonged in one of the graves outside, frail and gaunt and haunted. ‘But I know very well what Ihadto do, what I was tasked with doing for the sake of this world.’ Sybilla’s eyes were an unpleasant shade of pale, as though frost had crept across her irises. ‘I punish myself well enough, I assure you. None of those I slayed are forgotten in my mind. Those whose only sin was to have Azazel’s blood in their veins. I recall every moment of when I was last in Pendle Hill.’ She hesitated, her intensity wavering. ‘I can feel them…those who died here.’
‘Those who died because of your forked tongue, because ofyourwhispers which branded them witches. Because the Order deemed it so.’ Palatyne had better be mad, otherwise she was a downright fool to keep goading the Valkyrie this way, especially when she herself looked fit to be knocked over with a feather. ‘And you did not even make it quick here, angel. Instead of a blade you used fear and hatred to do your killing, and did not give a damn who else was caught up in it. Did you watch as they tore themselves apart? Did their bloodlust excite you, witch hunter? Or had you just grown too lazy to do the killing yourself?’
‘Palatyne, enough!’ Old Bess shouted.
Sybilla swayed, her knees buckled.
‘Syb.’ Jane sent a blast of warm breeze at the angel, keeping her upright long enough for Tyvain to dash to her side.
‘You should ‘ave stayed in the damned carriage.’
The Valkryie was a good head and shoulders taller than Tyvain, more if she were being honest, so it wasn’t easy to handle her when the angel slumped onto Tyvain’s shoulders.
‘I wasn’t lazy, Ty.’ Sybilla’s face was practically buried in the crux of Tyvain’s shoulder. ‘I was just tired…so tired of it all. They don’t forgive me. I can feel them here…I can feel their loathing.’
Sybilla was always so damned stoic, so poised and regimented. Tyvain had no bloody idea what to do with her now.
‘Buck up, you ’ear me? Let’s save our fallin’ apart for later, eh? Those fool boys need us with our ’eads screwed on straight. What’s done is done, you ’ear me? And no one who knows you, and loves you, thinks for a minute you didn’t give a shit about the things you did. My ’eart breaks for ya, girl. To ’ave to do what was right, when it must ’ave cut to the bone every time.’
Her skin was spiked with gooseflesh as she said it. Tyvain was feeling all kinds of odd things, here in this church. The place had an aura to it that made her belly growl.
Sybilla’s moan was small, lost in the folds of Tyvain’s coat. ‘Pendle Hill was to have been my last…I didn’t use my blade, she is right, because I could not bear it. There was a child, and I could not do it, Ty. I could not kill another babe. There have been too many. And…since Silas…brought me back…I think I can hear them all.’
The Valkyrie leaned into her and Tyvain rubbed at Sybilla’s back. Beneath her fingertips, despite the layers of Sybilla’s clothing, the burn marks were rough and prominent. ‘We’re going to get you through this, you ‘ear me? Jane and me, and even bloody Isaac, we’re all ‘ere for ya. Let’s find those lads, and end all this shit, eh?’
Tyvain glanced at Jane, who, even here, still held that calm demeanour she was so damned good at. Like she was always at the eye of the whirlwinds she could whip up. She stood between Old Bess and his sister, the pair of them locked in a battle of glares over her shoulder.
‘Bess, we will deal with Palatyne,’ Jane said, smoothly of course, unruffled. ‘And make sure she does not hinder you. Can you open this gateway?’
Old Bess appeared drained, every inch the old in his name. If not for his corset, Tyvain wondered if he would have folded in half. ‘I cannot.’
‘You need some time, to recover?’ Jane held on to her matter-of-fact way of speaking. Airy and purposeful, and a welcome change from Sybilla’s brokenness. ‘How long do you need?’
Bess was looking down, shaking his head, but saying little.
