‘The tattoo is a facade like everything else,’ he replied. ‘The elders can’t see who’s a saint. They can only see when the gold starts appearing. Then, they take you. Theymarkyou as a sign of ownership. It’s a brand disguised as an honour. It means nothing.Nothing.’
The hand on her braid slipped around to press against her shoulder, right where the mark ought to lie. Rain coated her face, freezing on her overheated skin. ‘You’re still a saint, with or without the tattoo.’
‘Why let me go?’ she pleaded. ‘Why not mark me?’
Jude paused. For a long moment, only the harsh sound of his breathing filled the empty space around her questions. ‘You’re an iconographer. They need your skills perhaps more than anyone else, both as an artist and as someone with memory magic. The Abbey knows they can use your work to control us. They sent you here to paint me, didn’t they?’
He turned her to face him. She tracked the path of emotionacross his face – desperate for anything he’d give her, even disappointment, even hurt. In a moment of helpless weakness, she thought looking at him would always feel like looking at the moon. The darkest parts hidden behind brilliant light.
His hand brushed hers, their fingers twisting together. Despite the fear in her chest – memories of Siobhan, of the Goddenwood, of everything they stood to lose – Maeve squeezed tight.
‘Jude,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know how to bear it.’
He reached for her again, this time his touch was an offering. Arms banding across her back, pulling her tight to his body. His cheek resting atop her head. Merging them into one beating heart.
A hug. He washuggingher.
She pressed her nose under his ear, breathing him in. Her eyes drifted shut, thinking of a hearth long gone cold and wind carried from snow-covered moors. She slid her hand across his ribcage until her palm rested over the words etched into his back. Searching, finding.
‘Jude,’ she whispered again, pleading this time. For what, she didn’t know.
He held her for what felt like hours as she listened to the evenness of his breath. Would she ever have the chance to be in his arms again? Fearing the answer was no, she held him tighter, committing every heartbeat to memory. She wanted to turn her head and place her lips against his neck. Draw so close she would no longer be able to separate where he ended, and she began. But all she could do was hold him.
She, him—
Both of them saints.
Both of them in danger.
33
Jude
Jude had nothing more to say. Nothing more he could give to soften the truth. He could only hold her, and even that wasn’t enough. Not for her, not for him. He should pull back and set her free. He had years of experience denying himself touch; Maeve shouldn’t be any different. He just needed to slide his hand from her hair, loosen his fingers from her hip. Take a step back and let the sheeting rain fall between them.
He should, he should, heshould.
It was selfish, maybe. Taking what wasn’t his. But he didn’t want to miss a single one of her heartbeats, not when they aligned with his. She was safe in his arms; he wouldn’t let her drown. He told her as much in whispered words pressed against where her pulse beat frantic in her throat.
Maeve sagged against him, trembling. Slowly, she eased out of his grip. ‘Asaint.’
His arms ached without her, cold in the frigid night air. She wobbled on her feet like a newborn colt. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, flashing gold before she looked away.
The watchful confines of Oakmoor surrounded them. He imagined a twitch of a curtain, a whisper passed from ear to ear. If he looked down, would he see Siobhan’s blood mixing with the mud?
Unable to help himself, he reached for her hand and curledhis fingers tight around it. Her skin was cold, bones fragile. So human it hurt.
‘Felix is right. We’re not safe here.’ He closed his eyes briefly, gathering strength. ‘Siobhan. She’s dead. The Abbey killed her.’
Maeve’s face slackened as her eyes snapped to his. ‘What?’
‘That’s what Bethan came to tell me. She and her mother found her. Here—’ he waved a hand across the shadowed town square. ‘Alone. Her dress cut open. Her saint tattoo had been burned from her skin. They martyred her.’
Both hands banded over Maeve’s mouth. ‘Burned?’
‘No one remembered her.’ He took a breath. ‘Or knew what happened.’
He didn’t tell her Elden was there when she’d been buried. That his memory had been tampered with alongside the villagers’ – another victim of Jude’s mistakes.
