Page 116
Chapter 26
Sleep wouldn't come. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back there. The moment before Lysander pulled away. The heat, the sudden absence, the echo of his hands leaving her, as if burned.
Her chest tightened. This was how it happened, she thought, not the kiss but the stopping. She rolled onto her side and stared at the dark.
Jovana never hesitated, she thought. Not even when she was dying.
Unrest gnawed at her. Pushing thoughts of Lysander and Jovana aside, her mind kept looping back to the relic's page spread open across the table, the Lodamante, the veil tear. A pathway from the Nexis.
The Templars remained outside, yet something was off. A clamour that didn’t fit with such an early hour of day. A cold twinge ran along her spine.
She went to the window, peering out. A crowd had gathered at the far edge, their voices muted, but tense. Snow had been trampled in a chaotic pattern. Idonea’s stomach knotted as her thoughts raced.
This couldn’t be happening.
Alcaeus arrived moments later, the cottage door clanging open from his haste.
“Idonea,” he said, “another witch…” His voice faltered. “Dead. Like the others.”
Her heart lurched. “Even with all these extra Templars?” It didn’t make sense.
The Grand Templar shouldn’t have sent Lysander away; the only one within their ranks designed to handle a daemon. Sending him away had been reckless, or strategic.
She took a deep breath.
“I want you to take a look.”
Her eyes snapped to his. “What would the Grand Templar think?”
“He took a party into the forest at dawn,” he said. “Aims to track it down.”
“Who?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t Kitsa.
“Cleo,” he replied.
Idonea stiffened. Cleo had been scheduled to leave for her new posting today, one she'd spoken of with trembling excitement.
A sour dread pooled in Idonea’s gut. “She shouldn’t have been outside at night,” she said.
Alcaeus looked away.
She gestured towards the door. “Show me.”
The two Templars flanking the entrance exchanged a brief, questioning look with Alcaeus, but didn't bar the way. They stepped aside just enough to let her pass, though their eyes tracked every movement. She was certain the moment she left their sight, they would report her to the Grand Templar the instant he returned.
Outside, the settlement lay stripped of its usual murmuring life. Templars had driven all the witches indoors. The air was hollow without their presence. Only one Templar remained behind the chapel, standing rigid over the newest body.
Cleo’s body was crumpled, torn up, and shredded like the others. Idonea searched the snow nearby, but found no sigil. Her brows furrowed. Idonea widened her search, scanning the nearby drifts, the tree line, the chapel’s shadowed wall, but there was nothing.
She crouched, ignoring the way the Templar behind her shifted, hand gripping his hilt, but unwilling to interfere.
No drag marks. No displaced snow. Cleo had died exactly where she fell.
The wounds were like the others but messier, hurried. The strokes hadn't been drawn the way Lysander had drawn them in the air over Edik. They had been rushed. Whoever had done this hadn't had time to be careful.
Idonea's eyes moved, against the heavy weight of not wanting to, to Cleo's face. Her mouth had fallen open. The cold had set it that way, and the inside was very dark.
Idonea reached. Her fingers were shaking before she'd decided to use them. She touched the corner of Cleo's lower lip and eased it down a fraction, no more than she'd have to admit to looking.
