Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(101)

At first I thought something had fallen off a shelf and broken, even though that didn’t make any sense. Then I saw how limply the Divine hung in Leander’s arms, the unnatural angle of her lolling head.

“I regret that the altar was destroyed,” Sarathiel said, gazing over her shoulder at nothing. “It would have been a fitting way to dispose of Rathanael. Rathanael, naughty Rathanael, with its vile little obsession with Old Magic. But I will confess, I almost find it comforting that some things haven’t changed. The world is so very different now than it was before.”

My nerves screamed with the urge to move, to fight, to run, as Sarathiel crossed the room, the scrape of the Divine’s slippers dragging across the carpet the only sound in the silent apartment. It settled on the chair opposite me, laying the Divine down so that her head was cradled against Leander’s chest, almost the same way she had held it in the chapel. Her open eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. I remembered comparing her to a doll, and felt sick.

“She was starting to doubt you,” I guessed.

“Indeed. Perhaps I should have tried being more like Rathanael. But I’m not certain I could stand it. I hate humans so very much, you see.” Seemingly unconsciously, it placed a hand on the Divine’s curls and began to stroke. “All those nights she prayed in the dark, yearning for someone to listen. How lonely she was, how uncertain. How desperate to prove herself as Divine. She required so much reassurance; it was sickening. And even then, it took me years to persuade her to trust me. How long did it take Rathanael? Days?”

I swallowed. “I didn’t trust it.”

“Oh, come now,” it said.

“I controlled it.”

The revenant winced. Leander’s hand stilled. “Is that what you believe?” it asked, in what seemed like real curiosity. I wondered again how much of this Leander was experiencing: if he could see and hear and feel it all, the warmth and weight of the Divine’s body, the softness of her hair, and if he were somewhere inside screaming.

“We came to an agreement,” I conceded, hearing how pathetic that sounded even as the words left my mouth.

“An agreement,” Sarathiel repeated, in a slightly marveling tone. “Rest assured that the moment you resort to bargaining with a revenant, you have already lost. The only reason you aren’t Rathanael’s thrall this very moment is because it chose not to make you one. It could have possessed you a thousand times over—every little moment that you were sleeping, injured, distracted. Quite honestly, I am surprised it didn’t possess you by accident.”

I remembered suddenly how it had vanished after the Battle of Bonsaint. It had nearly taken over my body, and then it had stopped. It had pulled itself back. It hadn’t abandoned me after all—at least not in the way I had thought.

“Silly Rathanael,” Sarathiel said, watching me through Leander’s eyes. “It always did care for its human vessels.”

Blood pounded in my ears. “The same way you cared about Gabrielle?” I asked.

It was as though the air had been sucked from the apartment. Sarathiel went very still. My revenant did too. The question had been a gamble, but it was increasingly obvious to me that its decision to kill the Divine hadn’t been logical. She would have been the perfect vessel, far better than inhabiting Leander in every respect, yet it had chosen to remain in his body instead. And the way it was holding her; I didn’t think it realized how it looked.

“Is that why you killed her?” I persisted.

“Nun,” the revenant warned, but now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. Pieces were falling into place. I remembered the things the revenant had raved about in the tunnels beneath the city—what it had said about Saint Eugenia.

“If you’d kept her around, she might have betrayed you.”

“Stop antagonizing it, you idiot. It just murdered another human in front of you.” There was true panic in the revenant’s voice now.

“Better to kill her than suffer her betrayal,” I continued, relentless. “That makes sense. But what if she hadn’t betrayed you? What if she had decided to remain your friend?”

Sarathiel still hadn’t answered. It sat as though petrified, its thoughts crawling slowly behind Leander’s unblinking eyes. Then it did something strange. It let out a faint gasp, as though gripped by a sudden pain, and buried Leander’s head in his hands. After a long pause, it stirred to pluck one of Leander’s hairs and lower it for inspection. In the candlelight, the strand shone white.

“The priest,” the revenant said in surprise. “He’s resisting it. I very much doubt he has the strength to regain control, but he’s trying.”

This could be my chance. The rest of the room disappeared, my focus narrowing to Sarathiel—Sarathiel, and Leander. “Or maybe you weren’t worried she would betray you,” I went on. “I could have had that backward. Perhaps you didn’t want her to watch you betraying her.”

I had no idea whether I had hit the mark. Sarathiel barely seemed to be listening. It had buried Leander’s fingers in his hair, searching. It plucked out a second white strand. A third. It hissed and dug Leander’s fingers against his scalp. Clenched them, as though to restore clarity through the pain.

I swallowed. It was working; I had to keep talking. “Or perhaps you just couldn’t admit to yourself that you might care about a human. Is that it? You killed her to make sure you would never have a chance to find out.”