‘I remember,’ Jude grumbled. He liked the feeling of the wood under his knees less when it was his icon he knelt in front of and not Maeve.
She turned to him and folded his hands between her palms. The back of his neck felt hot. He could almost feel his mentor’s hand there, forcing his head lower. But it was Maeve touching him, he reminded himself. Maeve asking him to pray. Maeve’s words in his ears. He trusted her. He was safe.
Ever obedient, Jude closed his eyes.
Though he was no longer looking at his icon, he felt it watching. Waiting to hear what he might ask for. Looking down at him and finding him wanting and weak.
He gasped behind his teeth. Maeve tightened her grip.
‘You’re okay,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got you.’
He didn’t believe in sainthood. Heknewit wasn’t real. He couldn’t grant requests, couldn’t listen to petitions. Yet, there was power in believing. The icons held secrets in their gilded frames. Secrets he was slowly beginning to realize might be very far from their misguided guesses.
Jude asked for guidance, for memory. For the power to go to the Abbey and reclaim what was rightfully his. For strength to do the impossible. Though his tongue formed words indecipherable to any ears but his own, he kept speaking. Maeve kept her hands firmly clasped over his.
He prayed.
He waited.
And nothing happened.
35
Jude
Jude kept his eyes shut. His head bowed. ‘It’s not working.Whyisn’t it working?’
Maeve’s hands tightened around his. ‘Maybe it’s because you don’t truly believe. In prayer. In the saints. In your own magic.’
His eyes cracked open. ‘I can’t change that. I can’t just suddenlybelieve—’
His voice cut off as a lash of vertigo crested over him, the effect so sudden, so breathtaking that he dropped towards the floor. His hearing pulsed in an out, carrying with it the strain of a frantic voice, a strange humming that grew louder and louder.
Pain built at the nape of his neck and wrapped around his jaw. He fought for air, locating his voice somewhere beneath the nauseating dizziness. ‘Something’s happening—’ he hissed through his teeth. He forced himself to look up.
The face in front of him was unfamiliar.
Jude blinked.
He knew her, didn’t he?
A thrum started just beneath his breastbone. He placed his hands on his chest, felt the vibration. Deeper than that, a shifting in his marrow. The woman was unknown to his addled brain but familiar in his heart. His fingers glanced off the hem of her dress as she stood.
She cast about the room, gaze darting from one side to the other like she was searching for something. A frenetic energyclung to her limbs. Jude crawled towards her, a name on his lips. He knew her. He couldn’t forget her. He couldn’t. Not her. Nother—
Suddenly, she spun towards the window.
She was moving, running.
Then, she was back, a lit candle in her hand.
Before he could pull himself to his feet, before he could even force his muddled thoughts to remember who she was, she drew the candle to the canvas.
The flame started in the corner. A hole punched through the canvas, the edges slowly peeling back with a ripple of orange embers. It ate slowly across the icon before his painted face began to crumple. His eyes, his upraised hand. The halo behind his head. As though it grew tired of a lazy devouring, the fire suddenly consumed the rest of the canvas in one fell swoop until all that remained was the wooden frame and smouldering edges, tattered and gaping like a hungry maw.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Holding his breath, Jude reached one hand towards the burnt icon—
