CHAPTER 35
Simon can’t keep up with me.
“Cat!” he shouts as I reach the bottom of the spiral stairs. “Where are you going?”
I don’t answer, just run for the steps and down again, feeling my way blindly along the wall. At the first landing I run smack into the religious brother on his way to the bell tower to ring midnight prayers. His lantern crashes to the ground and extinguishes, a metallic clatter ricocheting off bare marble floors. I scramble back to my feet, realizing if he’s up, then the side door is unlocked and that will be faster than squeezing through the window and climbing down.
Simon is right behind me as I race along the gallery level. The elderly brother follows, shouting between wheezes and quickly falling behind. Simon’s legs are longer than mine, and halfway along the nave he manages to grab my arm. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“He’s going after her!” I scream, throwing him off. “He’s going to kill Marguerite and Mother Agnes!”
“What? How could you know that?”
I’m already a dozen steps away.
This time when Simon catches up, he keeps pace rather than try to stop me. “How do you know?” he gasps. “What did you hear?”
There’s no way I can tell him, even if I had the breath to try. Down another set of stairs and out the door into the square—and the moonlight. I stop and close my eyes to listen, though I only expect the same whisper as before.
There is nothing.
I reopen my eyes. The moon is sinking below the rooftops. Simon starts to ask questions again, but I dash for the road heading south, toward the abbey. It’s not a direct route, though it’s the fastest, and every turn on dark streets feels like an obstacle. By the time the corner of the high wall comes into view, I think my lungs will burst, but I don’t stop until I reach my climbing spot.
Simon finally intervenes, pulling me down before I get more than a few feet off the ground. “What in the Light of Day are you doing, Cat?” he demands.
I struggle against him for a few seconds before it hits me. If I heard Marguerite’s thoughts, it means she’s already dead. I’m too late. I collapse against Simon, painfully aware how only a few minutes ago I was in his arms and everything was perfect—and I didn’t know my best friend was dying. “Marguerite’s dead!” I sob into his chest. “And Mother Agnes!”
“Who?” Simon asks, baffled. “That sister you were talking to today? You think the killer went after her?”
I look up at him. “I know he did. Please, Simon. You have to trust me.”
His answer is so quiet his lips don’t even move. “There’s no one I trust more.”
My hand is on Simon’s wrist, and I step back and pull him with me to the wall. “This is the fastest way inside.”
When I release him and reach for the finger-size divots in the mortar between stones, I notice a crimson smear on my palm. Blood? Simon steps up behind me, his arm over mine, and I realize it came from the scratches on the back of his hand. I hoist myself up to the top of the wall, then move aside to make room for Simon, wiping my hand on my breeches as he climbs. Then I show him how to hop onto the roof of the shed and down to the ground, and we run through the garden and around the corner of the kitchen.
Why haven’t the bells sounded for prayers yet? The faint light of a lantern glows from the chapel tower where a sister waits for the Sanctum to start the call to wake everyone. I must have delayed it when I ran into the bell ringer up there.
Paved paths radiate from the fountain in the center of the abbey. I creep around the curved stone as the water laps gently against the edge. No direct moonlight shines on the prioress’s flower garden. The covered walkway leading to Mother Agnes’s private quarters and those of her assistant—Marguerite—casts the building next to it in complete shadow. Beyond it, the door to the sitting room lies open, which would’ve told me something was wrong even if I didn’t feel it to the marrow of my bones.
Simon puts a gentle hand on my back.I’m here, I can almost hear him say.
“That door shouldn’t be open,” I whisper.
“Which one?”
I don’t know if he can’t see it or if he just doesn’t know where to look. Rising from my crouch, I sprint down the slate path and across the corner, where hundreds of feet have already worn away the grass in the same shortcut. I stop in the doorway, overwhelmed by the smell of blood even without magick. My hand rises to cover my mouth and nose, to stifle both the scent and the sob which fill my chest.
The shutters are closed, making it pitch-black inside. Bending over to feel my way to the furniture, it’s only a few shuffling steps before I trip on a soft lump too large to be Marguerite. I drop to my knees, fumbling over the body until my fingers plunge into something warm and wet.
“I always knew this day would come,” Mother Agnes says sadly.
“What?” I cry, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “Mother, it’s me, Catrin! Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”
I always knew this day would come, her voice says again, and this time I realize it’s inside my head.
And from what I’m feeling, she’s definitely dead.