Maeve lurched backwards as the realization shoved her from the memory and back into her body. She choked, eyes flying open as her arms pinwheeled, trying to slow her fall as the world shuddered around her in a mirage of golden light.
Jude caught her before she hit the floor. He lowered her down to the gold-dusted library floor, eyes wild and searching. ‘Maeve.Maeve.What happened? You were shaking while you sketched. I couldn’t break you out of it. Then, you fell—’
Her back protested as she tried to sit up. How much time had passed?
‘Where’s my sketch?’ she asked. Her throat felt scratchy, as though she’d been screaming. Light refracted in glimmering shards across his desk. The library sat in inky blackness outside of the surrounding cocoon of candlelight.
Jude didn’t seem to hear her. He scanned down her body, lingering on her charcoal-smudged fingers, the gold dust sticking to her dress. He gave himself a brief shake. ‘It’s still on the desk.’
Maeve retook her seat at the desk. When she turned the drawing over, it was perfect.Finished.
The level of detail was far greater than anything Maeve could accomplish in even a few hours. The saint’s face was flawlessly rendered – each hair, wrinkle around her eye, and fold of her cloak real enough to touch.
She’d done it again. Maeve remembered everything from Siobhan’s memory.Everything.
‘It worked,’ Jude breathed, leaning over her shoulder. ‘Your magic had another outburst.’
She couldn’t wrench her eyes away from Siobhan’s sketched icon. Slowly, she brought it to the flickering candle. Watched the flame devour it until it was gone.There.It was destroyed. Hopefully whatever magic she’d conjured up in it wouldn’t affect Siobhan.
Could icons be destroyed?
Maeve dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred. She neededto recount Siobhan’s memory as quickly as she could, terrified that she’d lose it again.
She turned to face Jude. ‘The Goddenwood… it’s not real, is it? We were told it was a kind of utopia. A reward for the saints, but that’s a lie. I see that now. And praying – praying makes it worse. Praying is what drains memories.’
Jude shook his head. ‘The Goddenwoodisreal. I can’t go to it. I doubt you could, either. I tried not long after Elden arrived. We went together. Neither of us could get past the initial boundary of the trees. I could barely see with a headache, and Elden started vomiting. I think…’ a wave of trepidation crossed his features. ‘I think it’s where older saints are sent. When their minds are no longer useful to the Abbey.’
‘I’ve never painted a saint over… fifty, maybe,’ Maeve breathed. ‘If that.’
‘I can’t bear to think of it,’ Jude muttered, more to himself than to her.
‘Do all iconographers have memory magic?’ she asked, voicing the thought as it occurred. ‘There was an iconographer in Siobhan’s memory. A young woman. She’d just finished painting Siobhan and the room was…’ she swallowed. ‘It was covered in gold. The iconographer saw it. Touched the gold dust. And her painting – it was newly dried, just like mine. Does that mean she had memory magic, too? Is that why we’re chosen to train in painting and not any of the other masteries?’
Jude blinked. His mouth parted. ‘I… I hadn’t considered that.’
‘You said they knew of my magic long before I did,’ Maeve continued, words tumbling from her lips. ‘Maybe I was chosen. But when my abilities surfaced fully, they thought it time to send me away.’
The words burned. She couldn’t deny the blasphemy in them. The blatant questioning, the distrust – she wasn’t the womanwho had left the Abbey on that cold winter morning, thoughts of devotion and obedience ripe on her tongue. Not anymore.
Brigid mentioned the gold dust in their final conversation, didn’t she?
Maeve reached for the memory, the process of dredging it up more laborious than usual as it worked its way to the surface. Had Brigid known what it was because she herself had experienced it? If so, why had she been allowed to remain at the Abbey for so long?
Jude pressed his fingertips into his temples. ‘I’m not an iconographer. I don’t know the first thing about painting.’
‘Maybe they didn’t notice it in you early enough,’ Maeve replied. ‘If they had, maybe you, too, would’ve been trained in iconography.’
Jude didn’t say anything. He continued to pace across the library, back and forth and back again, both hands linked behind his head. Maeve watched him. ‘Jude,’ she said. He paused immediately, turning to face her. ‘If all iconographers have memory magic, maybe prayer harms more than just the saint. Maybe it hurts the artist, too. What if the elders can harness the magic in both the saint and the artist at the very same time?’
A flash of frustration crossed his face. ‘Maybe,’ he allowed.
‘The loss of memories,’ Maeve continued. ‘Will it be the same for you? For the iconographers too, if my theory is right?’
Itwasright. She felt it in her bones. She’d always felt a closeness in her icons, a connection she never felt with anything else she’d ever painted or sketched. Hadn’t she just affirmed the link when sketching the Goddenwood hadn’t worked to recall Siobhan’s memory, but drawing her icon had?
‘I imagine so, yes,’ Jude replied. ‘My memories will be forfeit as long as the Abbey has an icon of me that they can use.’ His lips twitched into a scowl. ‘Same as the… iconographers. If they’re linked to the icons, as you said, they –you– will experience the memory loss, too.’
‘A different memory cropped up near the end,’ Maeve said, changing the subject. She could tell by his expression alone that he wasn’t convinced of her theory. ‘Of Siobhan getting her most recent icon painted. It looked to be around a decade ago. She begged the iconographer to stop, for no one else to pray for her. She seemed to believe praying made her condition worse.’
