‘I was sent to Ánhaga as an informant. A spy. I tampered with your research, library, your life. I did all those things, reported them all—’ he cut off. His eyes flew heavenward as anguish turned his face briefly unrecognizable. ‘There were hours… days, even, when I couldn’t remember what I’d been doing. Myfingers would be ink-stained, or there would be mud on my boots despite not having written anything or left the house. I’d receive mail, open it, and forget immediately what it contained, no matter how many times I reread it. And I couldn’t… I didn’t know how to stop it.’
The full impact hit Jude like a battering ram.
Elden continued doggedly—‘Then, Maeve came, and it only got worse. They were interested in you, Jude, always.… ButMaeve.’ His gaze fell to her. ‘With your iconography skills, they wanted you somewhere you could be watched. Once I told them you had painted Jude’s icon, they wanted you to return to the Abbey as soon as possible. And when it wasn’t fast enough, when I told them about what you had figured out, they sent someone to kill Siobhan.’ He heaved a breath. ‘I tried to stop them, but it was too late.Iwas too late.’
Jude shut his eyes briefly. The worry that Elden had been the one to kill Siobhan had haunted the furthest recesses of his mind, something he had refused to think about too deeply, knowing it would wreck him. Hearing that it hadn’t been Elden brought indescribable relief.
‘And then, in Whitebury, I had meant to—’ Elden’s voice cracked with the strain. ‘I was supposed to lock you both in the room at the inn. But it didn’t work out as planned. Jude was taken, and Maeve was not. And I was too unwell to help any further. I was no longer useful.’
‘The Abbey was controlling your memory? Your actions?’ Jude clarified.
‘Not the Abbey,’ Felix whispered. ‘Ezra. His father.’
Jude whipped around towards him. ‘You knew?’
Felix paused. His throat worked with a swallow. The gut-wrenching anguish was back in his eyes as he stared at Elden, a downturned softness to the corners of his mouth that Jude remembered from when they were boys. It seemed to take effort for him to clear it away and focus on Jude’s question.
‘I knew,’ Felix replied. ‘My mother is…wasliving in the Goddenwood. Each day there worsened her mind, and there was nothing I could do.Nothing.But if I complied and helped Ezra find Elden, convinced him to go to Ánhaga and inform on you, they told me they would cease praying to her icon. She would be allowed to leave.’ He studied the ground beneath him. ‘It was a lie, of course. She’d been dead for over a decade. I thought she was alive all this time. I only just remembered…’ he trailed off, clearing his throat.
Jude rolled his lip between his teeth. Felix’s involvement stung like a thorn just under his skin. He understood what it was like to be manipulated, to be trapped under the Abbey’s thumb, but he couldn’t deny hearing about his role in Elden’s deception was a difficult reality to swallow.
‘Saints,’ Maeve whispered. ‘Is there no limit?’
‘What happened after the Abbey guards took me?’ Jude asked.
At this, an unexpected smile pulled at Elden’s mouth as his gaze shifted to Felix, like his words were for him alone. ‘Brigid found me. She used her magic to break some of the Abbey’s control, at least for a little while. I got some of my… best memories back.’ He shifted, rubbing a hand over his chest. ‘There’s something else. Brigid – she’s my mum.’
‘What?’ This time, it was Felix who gasped. ‘I had no idea. This whole time?’
‘That’s generally how it works, yes,’ Elden remarked with a smile. ‘No one knew. Not even me. Her continued loyalty to the Abbey and her promise to keep quiet about my parentage were the only things that kept Ezra from seeking me after I escaped. If she remained at the Abbey and did her work, didn’t try to harm the Abbey with her knowledge, I would be safe.’ He raised a brow. ‘Until, of course, Ezra decided to find me anyway. Keeping promises isn’t one of his strong points, I’d reckon.’
‘Brigid,’ Maeve whispered, wonder in her voice. ‘Elden,that’s…’ she checked his face. ‘Good, right? She’s family. Someone to rebuild your life with.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I think it is.’
Silence weighed down, heavy and suffocating.
The weight of betrayal hadn’t left Jude’s chest. He didn’t know if it ever would, both towards Elden and Felix for his involvement. But neither would the view of Elden, laying his darkest secrets out for his forgiveness, unflinching in his honesty. Jude wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that the Elden he knew hadn’t been a fabrication. The memories they held together, both as boys at the Abbey and as men at Ánhaga, weren’t a lie.
He could learn to trust him again. It might even be easy.
The part of Jude that longed to forgive stretched its limbs. It hadn’t been Elden’s fault. Like Jude, like Maeve and Felix and every saint who had come before them, every person the Abbey had crushed beneath their feet, Elden was a victim, too.
Slowly, Jude reached out a hand.
Elden’s warm palm met his, squeezing tight.
55
Jude
Elden brought them to a cottage a few hours’ walk away from the Abbey. A quaint, sea-worn structure nestled in a quiet cove outside Little Westworth he claimed had once belonged to his grandmother, Brigid’s mother. It had a small dock jutting into the sea where a two-person boat bobbed, a rusted fishing contraption secured to the back of it. The sides of the cottage were whitewashed plaster; the roof, door, and windows framed in dark wood. As Elden pushed open the door and ushered them inside, Jude felt something in him break off and release.
This was Elden’s home. Not Jude’s house. Not Ánhaga –here.
It was all his, from the stack of hand-stitched quilts in a basket by the oversized, frayed sofa to the scored wood of the small dining table. It smelled of dried flowers and sea breeze and something unmistakably Elden.
He’d been forced to leave all this to come to Jude. Guilt dug talons into his stomach.
