A few jumped from their chairs to scramble around him, eagerly raising their hands.
The edges of my vision blurred, and I tunnelled in on Falstaff’s red, watery eyes. I was out of time, borrowed as it was. He’d bleed her dry.
“Is Vetrius any closer to learning the reason her blood destroyed the tree?” Giamo piped, standing so his voice carried above the din.
“I rather think he has been studying her cunt.” A snigger followed the comment, and I searched for its source, ready to add another name to the list of druids marked for death.
“Mind your vulgarity, Timothee, for it treadeth upon blasphemy.”
Timothee,I rehearsed.
“Yet thou art not false…he is somewhat taken with her.”
I gripped the neck of the carafe with as much force as I would squeeze Falstaff’s when I got the chance—tight enough to crush bone.Vetrius, Falstaff, Capriche, then Timothee.“But we all hath our vices.”
He produced a pouch from his robes, hanging limp, apparently empty, holding it up to the hall.
“Sisters, retrieve some fresh grace. My brothers and I shall make merry this eve.”
Chapter thirty-three
Demetri
The Grace
The Blood God hath carried ye here by grace, and by grace ye will carry on.-76:33 The Book of Dendralis
Each sister retrieved a small bag from a different druid, and recovering quickly, I searched to grab one of my own.
“Take mine, Sister Marguerite.” Capriche thrust his pouch towards my waiting hands, its woven “C” catching the light. As I took it, careful not to meet his eyes, he pulled me forward, mouth pressed to my ear. “Can I be as bold as to say, your tits look particularlyripethis evening?” His low whisper tickled my cheek, breath heady with wine. His hand crept up and up over my skirts, and it took a while to realise he was drawing lazy circles around my left breast, where my nipple should be, not a stalk.
Shit…the apples.
“How unexpectedly firm.” He drew back, smile tight and eyes twinkling like rubies.Fuck.Could I end him with my bare hands and a shard of flint or a splinter of wood? I had breaths to decide. “Do try not to brush past anyone too closely; you might take out aneye.” His own flickered to Falstaff before appraising me. “Make haste, then,sister.” He returned to his chalice, dismissing me and joining another in conversation.
I clasped his pouch, trying it alongside the bell at my waist.
Mind reduced to horse dung through the riddle of Capriche’s whisperings, I stared, dazed, ahead. A sister nudged my elbow, prompting me to follow, and I swiftly fell in line, one behind the other, all headed for the doors.
I churned over the revelations, one by one, considering how they each affected our tatters of a plan.To find each other. To fly.
Ashara was being hoarded by Vetrius.
They were going to use her blood. Blood that was supposedlyblessed.
Capriche was either blind as a bat or knew I was masking as a sister and chose not to speak of it, anyway.
And the druids…
I shuffled along, unsure of where we were headed to replenish theirgrace. I’d lost sight of Adelaide and could trust no other to ask. Head down, I trudged onwards, distracted by the new pulling weight at my waist.
Capriche’s pouch.
We stepped through another half-concealed door, nondescript in the shadows, and found ourselves in an open-roofed space, the air no longer stagnant but alive with the sharp bite of a breeze. Above us, great sheets of canvas and leather blocked the moon and the stars, pinned to walls that stretched unfathomably high on every side. We were in a ditch. I sighed, hand rubbing my temple. Fortune indeed, to be led to a ditch in the belly of a templum full of diseased, blood-thirsty maniacs. Crusiax training’s first lesson was simple: the lower you go, the more likely your death, and a ditch is as good as a grave.
The mountains of walled stone stood windowless, the door we had come through the only exit or entrance. Fires in buckets of hatched metal lined the gravel path we shambled down, the sound of crunching grit setting my teeth on edge.
The farther we walked, the louder the crunch became, until the air itself seemed to tremble with the grinding of mulch and stone, louder than anything our footsteps alone could make.
