He reached out, pressing the crumpled letter into Maeve’s hand. Her fingers curled around it. ‘Are you going to send any more letters?’ he asked. ‘If I tell you everything I know, if I explain the gold, the books – all of it. Will you tell them?’
Her eyes skittered across his face, down to his mouth, the line of his throat. The seconds stretched, becoming bloated, unable to hold up the weight of the one word Jude was waiting to hear. The word heneeded.
The longer she remained silent, the worse the pressure grew, until he could bear it no longer.
Jude took a single step towards her. He reached out, brushing the inside of her wrist with the tips of his fingers. The fingers clenched around the paper gripped tighter. ‘Maeve,’ he whispered.
Slowly, her eyes rose to meet his.
Somehow, he already knew what she was going to say.
18
Maeve
Maeve weighed up the set of his jaw and the steady determination in his gaze, undercut by something raw, almost vulnerable. Unable to bear it, she moved towards the chairs near the unlit fireplace and sat, crumpling the letter in her fist. Jude knowing she’d been sent here to spy should have unmoored her, but instead, she felt oddly relieved. Like unlacing a tight corset or taking off a pair of ill-fitting shoes.
Jude wore a restlessness to his movements as he sat in the chair opposite. The lazy cross of his legs, the careful way he’d thrown an arm over the side of his chair. All of it orchestrated to seem unbothered. All of it betrayed by the unwavering intensity in his eyes.
The air pulled somehow tighter around them. He waited patiently for her to break the silence, but he wouldn’t for much longer.
‘I want to say no. I want to trust you,’ Maeve said slowly. ‘Everything I know is the Abbey. I can’t just… throw away everything they told me, including why I was sent here.’
He didn’t move, his gaze remained locked on her. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
‘However—’ her throat clicked. ‘I don’t think I can. Report on you, that is. At least not right now.’
His shoulders curled in with an exhale. ‘You do realize that’s a complete contradiction.’
‘I know. But for now, it’s all I can offer.’
He studied her for a long moment. ‘How about I start at the beginning, then?’
At her nod, Jude drew a book from his pocket and flipped it open. His eyes moved rapidly across the page, a strange blankness lurking behind them like a mist. Maeve leaned forward to look. Runes, just like the book in his library.
Suddenly, he snapped the book shut. ‘The memory is fully in here. My head only has a shadow of it. If I read it, I can recall what I saw for a few hours after. What’s left of the memory, anyway.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘Inthe book? How does that—’
Jude held up a hand. ‘I’ll get to that. May I continue?’
She quirked a brow. ‘By all means.’
A ghost of a smile pulled at his lips, disappearing just as quickly. ‘When I was fifteen, I altered someone’s memory for the first time.’
‘What?’ she breathed. ‘How?’
He shot her alook. Maeve pressed her lips tightly together in response.
‘It happened right before the memory you saw in the book – a few weeks, maybe,’ Jude said. ‘I’m not certain. But I remember a fellow acolyte and I going to Whitebury. We were picking up a pile of freshly altered habits for the elders. I remember going to the tailors clearly, but only flashes of what came next.’
He paused to skate his palm restlessly over his head. ‘We went to a pub. The barman took us to a cellar beneath it. The other acolyte I was with… he was my friend, I think.’ The furrow between his brow deepened. ‘He handed over the coin. Lots of it, too. Far more than alterations cost. For what, I don’t know. Not habits, at least. Whatever happened for the rest of the afternoon is gone, but I remember waking up the next day, back in my bedroom, and my hands… my clothes—’ he spread hishands wide. ‘They were soaking wet. And I had this black powder smudged all over my fingers.’
‘What was it?’ Maeve asked.
‘It smelled like the oil used in lamps. Kerosene.’
She hissed in a breath. ‘Why would you be covered in oil? Isn’t it extremely flammable?’
