His voice faded into menacing laughter.
“Not deliberately?” And now, for the first time, Sir Coriand seemed uncertain. “You didn’t do this deliberately? You didn’t know ahead of time what this place was? You were not trying to keep it for yourself?”
“What is it?” The words burst from Sir Owalan like he was running out of patience. He’d been watching us, head turning back and forth and back and forth like a bird watching the action. “What is this place? Why is she … why is she blaming you for the things that have occurred here? Surely you don’t mean the confessions you’ve given just now. They were to trap her, weren’t they? To keep her from using the demon against us?”
We both turned and looked at him.
“And where is the cup?” Sir Owalan asked, a little uncertainly. “Isn’t it here?”
In the silence, all I heard was the ticking of the clock and the scratching of pens.
“It was never here,” I said sadly at the same time that Sir Coriand said, “It was always here.”
“I don’t understand.” The Penitent looked stricken, eyes darting back and forth between us. “Where is it?”
“At the base of the clock,” Sir Coriand said with a sigh. “Waiting to become the Cup of Tears with what we do here, with what we pour into it and then drink down into ourselves.”
“Just like all the cups, I assume,” Adalbrand said from above, his pen still scratching even as he spoke. “The Cup of Tears, Artar’s Grail, the Holy Chalice — all the fabled cups are this cup, aren’t they?”
I nodded along, certain he was right. They were all holy cups. And none of them were.
“See?” Sir Coriand said, lifting an eyebrow at Sir Owalan. “It has been here all along, waiting to exist. And one of us will complete it.”
His golems seemed to loom higher behind him, as if they had grown, the pair of them, as we spoke.
“Do you want to be a Saint, Sir Owalan, Penitent Paladin? Do you want to bring the Cup of Tears back to your aspect that you all might flagellate yourselves before it and honor your God?”
“I did … I do,” Sir Owalan said, but his voice was uncertain.
Coriand nodded, a small smile on his lips, like that of a cherub. “Then you will finish this task with us. And you will drink from your cup. And you will bring it back to your aspect exactly as they asked. And you will be a god — not the God, obviously. But a god — or, as we say in the church, a Saint.”
I thought for sure he’d reject that. Spit in Coriand’s face. Rip the dagger from his sleeve.
He did none of those things.
“Yes,” Sir Owalan breathed, and then he lifted his chin and for some reason met my eye as if he expected defiance. And when he spoke it was with power and passion behind it. “Yes.”
“No.”
The word was spoken so quietly that it almost couldn’t be heard over the ticking of the clock, but the scritching stopped as we all turned to look at Hefertus. I felt a weight ease off my chest. I was not alone. Even with Adalbrand stuck suspended from the ceiling. Hefertus would stand against this, too.
He ran a hand over his hair grabbed the tie, swept it loose, and shook his long, cascading golden mane out in a wave. It glinted with his pearls and his thick beard and he stood just a little taller, a little straighter, spine tall and firm, and with his shoulders back, he said it again.
“No.”
I lifted my own chin, challenging them to come against us, we two who would defend righteousness and goodness together. And how could I possibly lose with Hefertus by my side? The man was a giant. A monster among men.
“I will have no part in this,” he said grimly.
I put my hand on the hilt of my sword, ready to draw.
And then he startled me.
He stepped forward, but he did not draw his sword, and he did not take up a defensive stance.
Instead, he raised two fingers in a blessing, and intoned softly, “Bless me, O God, and I will depart from all evil.”
A glow like the dawning of the sun erupted from his chest. He smiled a Saintly, pure smile, and then I blinked, and he was gone.
