‘I was sent away?’ she asked, her voice small and choked. ‘But the Abbey… my mentor – he wants me to come back. He said I was being considered for lead iconographer.’
She refused to believe it. Shecouldn’t.
And whatever this…magicwas – the gold dust. The memory tampering. She closed her eyes. Felix’s finished icon stared backat her from behind her lids, vivid, watchful. Jude said the magic could alter perception, play with time. Cast the world in bright, gleaming gold once it had finished its terrible course.
Something he claimed prowled inher. Under her skin and in her blood, foreign and unwelcome.
Maeve took a step back. Another. Swallowed. Words locked in her throat. ‘You’re wrong.’
The closed library door hit her back. She reached for the doorknob. The metal was hot to the touch, almost burning. It shocked her into action. She couldn’t stay here. Shecouldn’t.
For the second time that day, Maeve fled.
Jude followed as she left the library and headed for her bedroom. ‘Maeve. Maeve, please listen to me,’ he asked, voice muffled and far away.
She watched her hands throw items into her bag as if from above. Dresses, tubes of paint, a half-filled notebook. Her fingers slipped on a glass jar of hair oil, spilling the liquid down her wrist. A scrap of fabric cleaned it off, Jude’s presence too close as he gently wiped the bandage down her arm. His hands shook in fine tremors against her skin.
Maeve pulled away, shoving the half-closed jar into the bag and wrenching the straps tight. ‘Leave. Please leave,’ she whispered, hating the tears in her voice. ‘I need to be alone. I need to think.’
His lips parted. ‘Maeve.’
She shut her eyes. Asked again—‘Please.’
The door shut softly behind him. Then, silence.
Maeve lowered herself onto the bed and dropped her head into her hands. Uncertainty clouded around her, thick enough to drown in. She longed for the steadiness of the Abbey. A surety that she was on the right path, that her steps were watched and measured by those who knew better. There were no surprises, no gut-wrenching upheavals. Not like here. She’d been set adrift, dropped in the open sea without a sail to guide her.
And she wanted to run. Desperately. To gohome. Back to safer waters.
Like she had so many times in her life, Maeve tilted her head to the ceiling as a prayer formed on her lips. For answers, for guidance. A desperate plea for a candle in the dark to show her the way. She wasn’t expecting an answer, wasn’t even sure she wanted one, exactly, but it settled her to ask all the same.
She opened her eyes to a startling realization.
It was Jude’s face she’d pictured as she prayed.
‘Fuck,’ Maeve sighed, the word unfamiliar on her lips. ‘Fuck.’
A gentle knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts. A second later, the door creaked open, revealing Elden. She pulled upright in surprise. He’d never come to her room before.
‘Maeve?’ he asked. ‘May I come in?’
She nodded, curiosity outweighing the simmering turmoil in her stomach. The blackness of the hall beyond obscured his expression as he stepped inside. A cream knitted jumper was pushed up around his elbows, a streak of mud on his forehead underneath a hank of rain-soaked hair. He scanned the room. ‘Are you packing?’
Maeve fiddled with the strap of her bag, tucked up against her hip on the bed. ‘Maybe.’
Elden cocked his head. ‘You all right?’
‘A very good question.’ Her voice cracked pathetically at the last word.
Elden’s eyes softened, and that was all it took.
She banded her hand across her mouth and wrenched to her feet, heaving breath after breath through her nose as she crossed the room to the window. Footsteps sounded behind her. A hand gently touched her shoulder, and, like a cast-aside dog, she turned to the first kind touch offered.
‘Shh,’ Elden hushed into her hair as he folded her into his arms. ‘I promise you he’s notthatawful. At least not always.’ She loosened a damp laugh, letting herself be held for anotherheartbeat before pulling back. ‘It’s not easy for Jude. He spent too many years alone, I think,’ he said, pity clear in his voice.
Maeve nodded, wiping her eyes. She directed her gaze back out the window. Watery moonlight illuminated droplets racing down the glass. The silence between them had the air of the confessional. She was far from its sacred quiet and velvet bench, but the weight on her soul and words on her tongue felt just as heavy. Just as impossible to resist.
‘Has Jude ever… I mean, does he—’ she pressed her lips together. ‘I went into his library.’
