Briar’s gaze traveled over the convent wall, up the hill. Rune was blind, the path was abrupt and dangerous, Seraphina couldn’t speak. Why was she standing here when she should’ve followed them?
“We need to get it back,” Idris said.
“What?”
“The tongue. I can reattach it. I’m a surgeon.”
Briar’s eyes snapped back to his. Dark brown met darkest brown.
“You reattached her eyes…”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think Mother Superior will hand it over easily.”
They both looked at the jumping, flailing nun.
“Seraphina caused a lot of damage today,” Idris said. “Still, she didn’t deserve to be punished so terribly. What if I have something to offer the Mother Superior?”
“Like what?”
Idris tilted his chin toward the gate. Beyond it, Bramble was waiting with the cart, only a few paces down the road.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
No one paid them any mind as they slipped through the gate and walked to the cart. Briar’s mother followed them silently. Idris reached inside, where the Sentinel’s body lay wrapped in a tarp he’d found at the water mill. He lifted a corner to reveal white hair and a white face, the skin marred by deeply etched stitches.
“A revenant,” Briar gasped.
“A Sentinel. He called himself Nine.”
“But how…” She looked at Idris with different eyes now. “It’s not possible.”
“We thought so too.” He dropped the edge of the tarp. “Is there a place that’s less open? Where we can talk more privately and I can show you something the Mother Superior might accept in exchange for Seraphina’s tongue. I know the sisters collect relics for their vault. What I have to offer is more valuable than a sacred bone.”
Briar took him to the cottage in the woods. The track was barely wide enough for the cart, but at the end of it, there was a small barn for Bramble, stocked with hay, and a spring that rushed over rocks. The inside of the cottage was simple – a stove, a bed pushed against a wall, a table and two chairs. While Idris and Briar brought in the medicine chest, Sister Margaret setabout making the fire and heating a pot of water. There was a narrow pantry the nuns had filled with basic supplies. Idris went out again and came in with a bucket filled with snow. From it, he pulled out a bundle stained with red, gently placed it on the table and undid the knot.
“I… I don’t understand what I’m looking at,” Briar said.
“It’s his heart.”
Sister Margaret touched her daughter’s arm, and Briar knew she had many questions she couldn’t voice. Briar sighed and kept her composure. Her mother frustrated her greatly. Hadn’t five years been enough? When she took the vow of silence, Briar didn’t think it would last for more than a few months, maybe a year. She’d thought her mother would definitely end it at the two-year mark, then at the three-year mark. Here they were, still, half a decade later. She’d forgotten her mother’s voice.
“Nine allowed me to open him up and see what was inside,” Idris continued. “This is a lattice, wrapped around it. No linen, the heart muscle is the base onto which the bone shards were sewn.”
“But it’s still beating!” Briar said.
“The revenant gave his last breath once I removed it. However, his heart is very much alive, I believe due to the lattice. And this isn’t all. Even if it’s cold, the body should’ve shown signs of decomposition. I checked it regularly, and all tissue is intact. It’s like a vessel, waiting inert, and if I were to place the heart back inside the chest, Nine would wake up and live again as if nothing happened.”
“And you want…” Briar pointed at the throbbing organ. “To trade it for Seraphina’s tongue.”
Sister Margaret took hold of Idris’s arm and squeezed hard as she shook her head violently.
“Why not, Mom?” Briar asked. Then, to Idris: “This is my mother, by the way. She took the veil and the name Margaret.”
Her mother pinched her.
“Aww! I think it’s a good idea. Mother Superior is upset, but she’ll listen if we bring her this.”
