Idris removed the golden eyes and implanted the brown ones. Rune kept his lids closed for a few minutes. Idris gave Seraphina a damp cloth, and she used it to gently clean the blood at his temples and on his cheeks. She heard him sigh, saw his shoulders relax. She went further, ran the cloth down his jaw and neck, over the rough stitches embedded into his skin. She brushed the tips of her fingers over his lips.
Rune’s hand shot up and caught her wrist. He opened his eyes, and Seraphina felt a vise squeeze her heart so viciously that she thought she might faint. He was made from dead bodies. She’d accepted that. He was made from two people she loved. Through him, she could have them back in a way. She could hold Matteo’s hands and look into Briar’s eyes. And underneath it all, there was him – Rune. His soul was his alone, even if the rest he’d borrowed from others.
“There you are,” she said, smiling.
He smiled back. “I like the way you look at me now.”
“Then I will look at you this way, always.”
He kissed the palm of her hand.
“I must finish here,” Idris interrupted them.
“Of course,” Seraphina said. “We can leave as soon as you’re done.”
Idris shot her a saddened look.
“Seraphina, I’m not coming.”
She turned to him abruptly, eyes flashing with a mix of disbelief and panic.
“What? Why not?”
Rune stood up behind her. She felt his large hand on her lower back, where her daggers should’ve been. She’d lost them again and would have to get new ones. In the past, she would’ve felt completely stripped. Defenseless. Now, every time a rush of helplessness or anxiety coursed through her, the thrall relic implanted between her ribs warmed up and reminded her she was deadlier than ever.
“I’ve seen enough war,” Idris said. “I will ask the sisters if they’ll allow me to live in the cottage. Many were injured tonight. They’re gathering the wounded now and bringing them to the infirmary. I promised I would help.”
“But I need you,” Seraphina said.
“I know. I also know you will be all right.”
They argued for a while. Idris didn’t yield, which was a new development considering how many things he’d done for her. Seraphina understood why he’d agreed to take out Briar’s eyes and give them to Rune. It had been his last gesture, and the hardest for him. Seraphina had to let him go, had to stop asking and taking, when her friend showed he’d reached his limit.
“I will find you again,” she told him.
He grinned. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Will you do one more thing for me?” He sighed, and she hurried to add: “It’s not for me, actually. It’s for Matteo. I found the ledger. The Sentinel’s right lung is his. Will you extract it and put it somewhere, keep it safe until I find the other parts of him? I will give him the burial he deserved, one day.”
“I can do that,” Idris said.
“Thank you.”
They hugged and held onto each other for a long moment. Seraphina didn’t know when she’d see him again. She’d lost one friend; she didn’t want to lose another. To keep him, she’d have to leave him for now.
Hand in hand, she and Rune walked out of the church. On the steps, Sister Margaret waited with barely concealed agitation. Rune looked away, and in the dark, she didn’t notice anything out of place. The woman rushed into the church, along with a few other nuns. Seraphina kept walking, not once turning to look behind. She took nothing else with her. She didn’t think to visit the armory and find new daggers, she didn’t stop by the stables to take Nettle. The ledger was in the house on the hill, and she didn’t go to retrieve that, either. She had all she needed.
Rune.
Matteo’s journal, which contained the pattern for the Bastion Weave hidden between his notes and sketches.
The list she’d made.
Earlier, she’d slipped the Obedience Lattice in her pocket.
She had two relics and her sharp mind.
But again, and most important, she had him.
