Elden dropped the knife blade first into the chopping block and rooted in his pocket, drawing out a ring of well-worn keys. ‘Here.’
The force of the gold swirling in Jude’s vision momentarily blinded him as he reached for the keys, far too late to stop themomentum of his already moving body. As Elden’s hand accidentally brushed his, Jude’s world spun out from under him.
He sat at a scuffed wooden table, sticky with the liquor remnants. Too loud voices echoed around him, the candlelight overly bright to his feverish mind. He only recently had begun to feel stronger after his sickness, but not enough to leave the house willingly. His trembling fingers jostled his half-full pint. He wanted to leave. To be back under the open sky or tucked under a quilt on his sofa. Anywhere but here. He’d left the limestone halls for a reason. Even a half-day’s ride away was too close for comfort.
But he was meeting someone. Someone who promised the medicine he needed to cure the sickness that had been wracking his body for months. Heneededhis health back if he wanted to return to work, if he wanted to maintain his freedom.
Footsteps sounded behind him, louder than the tread of patrons who maintained a wary distance from his brooding figure. He stilled, taking a deep breath before turning. He didn’t know what to expect. His eyes fell on the dark hem of a cloak. Strange, given the summer’s heat. He looked up, barely making out the curve of the stranger’s jaw—
Air came thin to his lungs as Jude fought to clear Elden’s memories from his mind. They lingered like glimmering smoke, gold-tinged and agitated. Panic turned his movements jerky as he hastily stepped back.
Did Elden realize what had just happened?
Jude met the other man’s eyes, worried what he might see. The pale blue was hazy, irises glinting almost metallic before he blinked. Elden rubbed one eye with the back of his hand. When his gaze met Jude’s, it was clear once more. ‘You all right?’
Jude took a moment to reply. Elden had never mentioned battling sickness before. He’d never seen him with so much as a running nose. And… perhaps more importantly, had Elden honestly not noticed his memories had just beeninvaded?
At least, it was a rare occurrence for the most part. It had onlyhappened twice before with Elden and once, very briefly, with the barman Sean, nothing more than a hazy memory of a bare back and rumpled sheets. Never on purpose, and always when Jude was feeling particularly strung-out, his grip on his emotions tenuous.
It didn’t make sense.Nothingmade sense.
For the hundredth time since leaving the Abbey, Jude wished for answers. Instead, he was left stumbling in the dark with only his unwieldy magic to guide him, tainted by the Abbey’s touch. More broken than it was whole.
‘Jude?’ Elden’s voice brought him back to the present. ‘Are you? All right?’
His brain chugged slowly into action—‘I’m fine.’
‘You’d forget your head if it weren’t attached,’ Elden said fondly.
He tried to smile as Elden returned to the sprout he’d chopped into a near-mashed state. ‘Probably.’ With that, he slunk away from the kitchen and headed towards the front hallway.
He needed to visit the library and release the poison from his blood like a leech held to his skin. Keep the magic from ruining his carefully maintained sense of stability. If he didn’t… well. Elden wasn’t the only one at risk of having his memories viewed without his consent. Jude’s magic loved memory, even if his own resembled a moth-eaten sheet. Threadbare and rendered useless with holes.
Before Elden arrived three years ago, he’d been a woodsman somewhere up north. Whenever he spoke about his past, which wasn’t often, his words were stilted and awkward on his lips like he was dredging them from somewhere deep within. Stories about the moors and highlands, the perils of the ever-mercurial weather, and conversations with strangers under a star-filled sky. He painted a picture of a quiet life. A simple one.
Jude had long nursed a poisonous, tenacious worry that the reason Elden couldn’t remember much of his life before Ánhagawas because Jude had stolen his memories. An accidental touch that had taken far, far more than he could control.
Elden was only a few years older than him. Had he grown up as Jude had, with prayers and bowed heads, salt in his nose? Jude guessed he had some connection to the Abbey – who else would’ve sent him? It had made him suspicious initially, but the other man’s quiet patience and kindness had worn Jude down in time. If the Abbey had sent Elden for some nefarious reason other than keeping him alive, keeping him somewhat functioning, he would’ve acted by now. The Abbey needed him whole if they wanted to continue using him. A pig kept healthy for slaughter.
Jude shuddered.
Elden might not have been working under ulterior motives, but theiconographer—
He needed to lock the house down. There wouldn’t be a room, a singlecupboardavailable for her to pry into that he wasn’t aware of. Especially the library. The secrets he kept there were for him, and him alone. In no world would she ever be permitted inside his library.
His study, the dining room, the drawers on the empty sideboard he’d never used. Even the broom cupboard was sealed tight, home to little more than a mouldering mop and a handful of spiders. He breathed easier with each lock click.
Rolling out his shoulders, Jude walked up the stairs to the first floor and opened the door to his library. The scent of books and magic hit him with a gust of heated wind, the subtle smokiness of a candle blown out, underpinned with a faint metallic edge that stuck to his lungs when he inhaled.
He locked the door behind him and rubbed his chest with the flat of his palm. He’d put off coming here a few weeks longer than he should have. It was painful, sometimes, going back to his knees, though Jude had never shied away from what hurt the most.
The days where he wished himself back towards devotionwere the worst. He was never sure if he missed the person still haunting the rose-tinted halls or if he grieved a life already decided for him. The urge to bow his head and pray wasn’t easily fled from. It’d worsen onceshewas here. A constant reminder of everything he’d left behind, both stolen and forgotten. He stared at the tall expanse of books, unable to dismiss the feeling he’d lifted his head in the wrong direction.
His mind wasn’t as boggy as it used to be, in his earliest days away from the Abbey. Each day, each month and year brought more clarity, like the Abbey’s grip on him was at the end of an ever-fraying rope he still felt the tug of. He would never lose it completely as long as they still held his magic. As long as icons still existed.
Gold flickered with growing intensity in his peripherals. The voices grew louder in his ears, shifting from hum to chant as he crossed the space towards the window, searching for one final, desperate sign of reassurance.
He found it in a small robin perched on the sill. Its reddish-orange chest was vibrant against the grey stone and even greyer sky. The robin cocked its head. Jude took a deep breath.
