‘Burn? Why… okay?’ Maeve jumbled out. She didn’t understand what Brigid was asking, not entirely, but they needed to burn the icons anyway, so Maeve would do what she asked. She nodded, firmer this time. ‘Okay, but then I need to—’
‘Yes, yes,’ Brigid interrupted. ‘From there, you can searchfor your Jude or whatever else you need. But please, promise me,’ she grasped Maeve’s hands in both of hers, ‘once you find him, you take him and run. You can start a new life. Make new memories.’
Before Maeve could reply, footsteps sounded down the hall. She shoved Maeve towards the doorway, pushing her unceremoniously inside. ‘Go.Now.’
Brigid shut the door behind her. Silence pressed against Maeve’s eardrums, broken up by the steady pounding of her heart and her panting breaths. She pressed her ear to the door. Voices: Brigid’s and someone else’s. A man, his voice unfamiliar. Reluctantly, she peeled away and descended a short flight of stairs.
How long had Brigid known of the power in her icons, the power in herblood? Why would she choose to comply with the Abbey using her abilities to harm? Brigid was an iconographer – a saint. Why had she been allowed to stay at the Abbey? And why couldn’t she burn the icons herself?
Maeve turned the questions over in her mind as she walked down the dank tunnel. She couldn’t erase the memory of the naked fear on Brigid’s face. The warning in her voice.
Regularly spaced openings were dug into the walls, peering into various rooms and hallways. She stopped to look through the closest one. The corridor hung lower than the room she was looking into, putting her eyes at ground level. The faint pounding of the sea trickled through the thick walls. These passages would be the first to flood if the waves ever gained entrance. Their occupants, herself or the maids they’d been built for, wouldn’t stand a chance against the tide.
She hurried on.
The path curved to a slender iron staircase jutting up from the floor. A sudden echo of wings flapping slipped down the corridor. Maeve pressed against the wall as her heart leapt into her throat.
Nothing. No birds, no maids.
Her hands trembled. The corners of her eyes glinted metallic as the pressure in her chest increased. She closed her eyes, giving in to the gold, the memories that weren’t hers.
Immediately, the passage changed. Lamps now hung from the ceiling, casting the dank surroundings in an oily glow. Cool air came in through the windows above her head, bringing the scent of dusty books and stone wet with seawater. Before she could inspect further, voices sounded from the narrow door at the top of the stairs. Whispering.
‘He’s asleep,’ a male voice mumbled, not a child’s voice, but not an adult either. ‘It worked.’
A prickle of awareness slid down Maeve’s spine as another person laughed. It sounded likeJude, his voice younger and higher-pitched than his friend’s. His answering whisper confirmed her guess—‘I have the key.’
Their footsteps faded out as the gold leached from her vision. Maeve blinked. Whose memory had she just viewed? It wasn’t hers, and she doubted it was Jude’s without a book present. How had the memory been triggered?
The urge to slam open the door she leaned against and find him was stronger than anything she’d ever known, even if what she’d just heard was little more than a faded memory. She wished it was real. She wished Jude was here. Safe.Hers.
Maeve had little experience with secrets. She knew gossip – where the cook kept the tins of biscuits or who had sneaked out to meet a local boy. She knew the power of hidden words whispered between friends and lovers. She’d never had much reason to keep secrets from herself.
Butthis…this feeling like she was drowning, like everything was dull without him, was new. Something she’d kept hoarded away like a precious jewel. It consumed her. Transformed every part of her being until Maeve was rewritten entirely. A new creature made with trembling fingertips upon malleable clay.
She wouldn’t put words to it. Not yet.
Holding her breath, Maeve pushed open the door, leaving behind a scatting of gold dust covering what was once dirty and neglected with the gilded remnants of what she would not name.
45
Jude
The next time Jude awoke, he’d been moved. No longer was he in a bed. Chains hung heavy from his arms, holding him to the damp, sandy floor. The walls cried ink-black tears from the creases between the stones. He’d been here before. The wretched stink of blood and sea was one scored into his flesh, words on his skin that would never entirely disappear.
His whole body ached, the juniper in his mouth heavy and lingering. Why,whyhad he drunk the water? Why had he trusted the Abbey for even a second?
Jude clamped his hand over his mouth, the chains squealing with the movement. Fresh tears trickled down his cheeks. He squeezed his fingers tighter to his face, fighting the urge to scream.
Suddenly, he was fifteen again, consumed by the rancid smell of his nervous sweat as he lay on the stone, waiting for his mentor to come and find him.
He’d done something, hadn’t he? Something more than try to burn the Abbey’s icons, something with a motivation that ran far deeper. He couldn’t remember what, only a pounding desperation in his limbs to save someone, to save themall. He’d remembered recently pieces of what had got him exiled, but here, in the Abbey, the start of his unravelling.… gone. Still out of reach.
He was eight again. He was fifteen, he wasalone—
‘It appears not much has changed, after all, Jude.’
He stopped breathing entirely.
