CHAPTER 53
Athene moves between the kitchen and another room beyond used for washing, carrying water to a tub as I talk. I begin with my parents, telling Simon of their falling in love and marrying without her family knowing. Then I touch on how they died and why I was left at the Abbey of Light.
“Because they didn’t think you could use Selenae magick.” His emphasis on the wordmagicktells me it’s not something he quite accepts. “But you can.”
“Yes.” I describe their ability to use the Light from the Moon, which is really a reflection of Sunlight, to enhance their senses. I show him the moonstone in my pocket and explain that it does the same, and how I used it to listen to his uncle and cousins and then guide us here in the dark.
I bring out the voidstone and say only that it’s used to absorb unwanted magick before sliding it back in the pouch. Its capacity for consuming power makes me nervous, even if it was useful last night. Simon asks a few questions, which I answer as best I can, but I haven’t even touched on blood magick yet.
A deep voice makes me turn to the doorway. “You realize that by telling a Hadrian all this, I may be forced to keep himin the Quarter for the rest of his life,” says Gregor. He’s calm, but I expect a storm to break at any second. His eyes narrow. “You’re a wanted man, Simon of Mesanus, but you’re not wanted here.”
Simon raises his eyebrows. “I thought you just said you wouldn’t let me leave.”
“For the rest of your life,” my uncle replies coolly. “That doesn’t have to be a long time.”
I stand to face him. “Are you going to throw me out again?”
The scars on Gregor’s jaw tighten. “I haven’t decided.”
At least it’s not an immediate yes. My eyes dart to Athene. “How did you know I was here?”
“A note from Mistress la Fontaine saying you never came home last night.”
I wrinkle my brow. “I can’t imagine the magister’s housekeeper willingly writing to a moon worshipper.”
“It takes a great deal of worry on your behalf.” His cheek twitches as he looks over my bloody clothes and hair. “And it appears her concern was warranted.”
“I’m fine.”
Gregor snorts, then exhales in resignation. “What should I tell her?”
I think for a few seconds, catching sight of what must be Marguerite’s wool dress hanging to dry in the washroom. Apparently Sister Berta didn’t care about it or Marga’s modesty when she dragged her back to the convent. “Tell her I’m at the abbey, tending to Marguerite.”
“Very well.” Gregor regards me silently for several heartbeats, then stands straight, tugging his jacket down. “Will you join us tonight?”
A hunger for the magick rises in me as strongly as my earlier desire for food. “That depends,” I say. “May I bring Simon?”When Gregor doesn’t answer right away, I add, “He wouldn’t be the first whose company you accepted.”
“No,” he says firmly. “Your Hadrian must stay hidden.” With that, he turns away and disappears down the passage. The front door opens and closes.
Simon looks up at me from his seat. “I assume that was your uncle. We weren’t properly introduced.”
“Yes,” I say wearily. “And there’s still a great deal more I need to explain.”
“Later,” calls Athene from the washroom. “Your bath is getting cold, and if you go to the Moon Pool smelling as you do, everyone will pass out from holding their breath, even if they use voidstones.”
I clean myself as fast as I can, though my hair is never a quick task, and it’s matted with dried blood. Fortunately, the cut on my scalp is well into healing. Athene leaves to hunt down a Selenae outfit in my size. Her own clothes would be too short, and Hira’s too tight. She’s not back by the time I finish, so I put on Marguerite’s dress. It doesn’t fit that well either, but one almost can’t tell, considering how shapeless it’s meant to be. My calves are exposed by the short length, though.
Simon waits at the table with a fresh bowl of stew he must have limped across the kitchen to get for me. I’m hungry again, and it tastes almost as good as my first meal two hours earlier.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says after I’ve eaten a few bites. “Maybe you’re wrong about Oudin. There were reasons I dismissed him from suspicion in the beginning, and I don’t see my way around them now. The probability of someone climbing in Juliane’s window is remote, though, compared to it being someone in the house or close enough to the family or the provost’s office to not be out of place. They were very private, especially as Juliane got worse.”
Neither Juliane nor Lambert had friends I knew of. Outside prostitutes, Remi was the only person Oudin spent his free time with. “A servant, then,” I say. “Or the Comte de Montcuir himself.”
“He’s not my first choice.” Simon avoids my eyes. “But he is a possibility. Juliane told me several times that he killed her mother, but that’s a common delusion in a mind like hers. Maybe she was right to be afraid of him.” He taps his long fingers on the table. “He keeps a braid of his wife’s hair in a prayer book by his bed, too. Lots of people do things like that, but it seems like an odd coincidence.”
It’s not difficult for me to come up with motivation, either. “The comte is obsessed with looking like a perfect family. Juliane endangered that image with her illness, as did her mother before her.”
For some reason, Simon still won’t look at me directly. “That’s true, too.”