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Water. Just water.
His fingers twitched, a slight movement that no one else would notice unless they were watching for it. But Lore was, Lore couldn’t look away. Not even when the bloody water around Amelia’s head started creeping toward her hem.
“It was Apollius.”
Lore didn’t know why she was keeping her voice down. They were all in the confessional booth, the curtain was closed and so was the door beyond it, shutting the bloodcoat who’d been ordered to accompany her to Gabe’s lessons behind it—after Amelia, Apollius had overridden Bastian’s orders again, giving Lore another constant guard.
“So now we’re accusing a god of murder.” Malcolm ran his hand wearily down his face.
“Doesn’t seem that far off to me.” Alie sat on the bench by the wall, waving her hand in her face to try and generate a breeze. It was cooler inside the Church, but four people in a booth built for two ovened the air. Lore couldn’t help thinking that she could generate a breeze, very easily, but Alie didn’t seem interested in using Lereal’s power to keep from sweating. “Nothing in the Compendium ever gave me the impression the gods were kind. There were all sorts of Tracts about destroying your enemies, revenge killings…”
“Point taken,” Malcolm said. “I’m not saying He didn’t do it, I’m saying that it doesn’t change anything. We can’t accuse the King—”
“It wasn’t Bastian.” Lore’s voice came a little louder, that time. Her engagement ring cut into the meat of her finger. “It was Apollius, in Bastian’s body. He’s pushed Bastian out entirely, at least during the day.”
A shiver went through Gabe, leaning against the latticed wall that separated the penitent and priest halves of the confessional. She’d glanced at him as they left the apartments. His face was stricken, lost, as if seeing Apollius wearing Bastian’s body had grabbed his heart and twisted it.
“I understand.” Malcolm seemed like he was getting tired of being contradicted every few words, which Lore supposed was fair. “But I’m saying that if we accuse Apollius, we’re accusing Bastian. Unless you want to explain what’s happening to him, to us, to the entire Court of the Citadel, and I can’t see that going well for anyone.”
“For Him, maybe,” Alie muttered, capitalization clear in her tone. “But certainly not for us.”
“The last thing we need right now is a murderer King,” Gabe said quietly. “An empty throne would be as good as a written invitation to Jax.”
“You have far more faith in the justice system than I do.” Alie scowled. “Arceneaux Kings have gotten away with worse than murder.”
Gabe rubbed at the empty socket under his eye patch. “If there was someone we trusted who we could install as regent, someone the court would accept, then we could take Bastian somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone, couldn’t hurt himself…”
He trailed off, caught in what he assumed to be futile wishful thinking. But Lore’s and Alie’s eyes met across the tiny confessional room. A moment, then Alie looked away, chewing on her bottom lip.
“We don’t know why Amelia was killed,” Malcolm said after a minute of considering silence. “Or why Apollius did it like… like that.”
With Spiritum. He’d killed her with Spiritum, manipulating it somehow, then sliced her open as if to hide the evidence. At least from everyone but Lore. He’d made it clear He wanted her to know exactly who had murdered Amelia Demonde, and bloodied the entire damn solar to do it.
“Not just Spiritum.” Lore sank down onto the bench beside Alie. “He used water magic, too.”
“That’s impossible.” Malcolm shook his head. “He can only—”
“He did, I promise you. I watched Him do it.” Lore crossed her arms against a shudder, thinking of the cold look in His eyes, the way he tipped His cup so she could see the water in it as the bloody pool inched across the floor.
The elemental gods had claimed their new vessels, and all of them were accounted for in this room. All except Caeliar of the sea.
Lives lived parallel.
Lore thought of those memory-dreams, the ones that hadn’t returned since she and Nyxara had begun communicating in earnest. A slender figure admonishing her—admonishing Nyxara—for having doubts about Apollius’s proposal. Saying She would accept, if Nyxara didn’t.
Amelia wasn’t a friend, but she was someone affected by Lore staying in the Citadel. More than most, even, since Lore had interrupted Amelia’s plans to be Bastian’s Queen. A congruency to the lives Nyxara and Caeliar had lived before, one chosen and one vying.
“Caeliar,” she murmured. “Caeliar came to Amelia. And when Apollius killed her, He took that power.”
She expected someone to push back, but apparently they were all inured to strangeness now. Other than a slight ripple of surprise, none of them really reacted.
“If that’s the reason He killed Amelia, surely He could’ve done it in a less ostentatious way.” Alie sounded almost insulted. “Why would He make it so public?”
“To cast suspicion on someone else, maybe?” Lore said.
“Maybe,” Gabe agreed, though he didn’t sound convinced. “Though I can’t think of anyone it would behoove Him to frame.” A harsh laugh. “Other than me, maybe, but I have a fairly ironclad alibi.”
The last thing Bastian would want was to harm Gabe. Lore hoped, fervently, that Bastian could hold on enough to keep that from happening.
