Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(37)

The woman returned to the fire and gathered her family around her, speaking quietly. I couldn’t make out what she was saying.

“The poor girl,” the man said. “She’s so thin. I wonder what happened to her family.”

I caught a snatch of her reply. “Better not to ask, I think. That look on her face…”

As far as I knew, I hadn’t been making any particular expression. She was likely referring to my normal one, which I supposed, in certain lighting, could look somewhat disturbed. I burrowed deeper into the blanket.

I didn’t emerge when she stealthily returned to set something down nearby: close enough to reach, not close enough to frighten me. I looked after she had gone and discovered that she had left a crust of bread. I wondered if it was the same one that the children had been eating previously. They were still in the cart, watching.

Her charity made me uncomfortable. I should eat, but the children needed it more. I rolled the bread over to the cart and waited for one of them to pick it up before I turned away.

The revenant would be angry when it came back and discovered that I hadn’t eaten, but it had chosen to abandon me, so it didn’t have the right to complain.

As I drifted off, I listened to the man and woman speak in hushed voices. I learned that they had originally left their town to visit Bonsaint for the festival of Saint Agnes. They’d gotten caught up in the attacks during their journey, and by the time they had arrived at Bonsaint, the drawbridge—which they called the Ghostmarch—had already been lifted for everyone except those bringing supplies into the city.

At home we celebrated Saint Agnes with only a single holy day, but she was the patron saint of Bonsaint. She had died attempting to bind a revenant, and in the process had destroyed it instead, burning her entire body to ashes. That qualified her as a high saint, even though she hadn’t left a relic behind. Bonsaint devoted several days of festivities to her memory. People traveled far for the celebration, even from outside Roischal.

That might be useful to keep in mind, if the Old Magic practitioner in Bonsaint was using the festival to cover their actions. Materials could be smuggled into the city as supplies for the festival; strange actions might go unnoticed amid the preparations. I was busy mulling this over when I heard the man mention the Ghostmarch again and realized they were talking about the drawbridge finally being lowered to let the refugees inside.

“Why wait until tomorrow?” he was saying angrily. “They saw what happened—they know the danger we’re in.”

“It’s all right,” she said, reaching out to clasp his hand. “Artemisia of Naimes is watching over us tonight.”

Faith shone in her eyes. I thought that was a ridiculous thing to say, but in all fairness, I couldn’t argue. I was lying on her blanket.

Unfortunately, I was more or less useless without the revenant. It occurred to me how disastrous it would be if I had to try to save someone while it was absent throwing a tantrum. Whenever it came back, we were going to need to discuss that. It couldn’t vanish whenever it pleased, at least not without warning me first.

Unless—

The thought struck like a torrent of cold water. I rolled over and drew out the reliquary with unsteady hands, fumbling with the latches. My chest still felt tender from how hot the metal had grown at the end of the battle. I imagined the air inside simmering, the delicate bone splintering, the revenant destroyed just like the one fatally bound to Saint Agnes.

I had been a fool not to think of that earlier. The relic was old; there might be a limit to how much power it could channel at once. It took me an agonizingly long time to get the latches open, cursing myself every second of the way.

Even after I had opened the reliquary, I couldn’t see well enough to tell whether the relic looked damaged. I pried the bone from its velvet notch and turned it over onto my hand.

With shocking speed, the revenant came boiling up from the depths of my mind and slammed into full power with a force that left me reeling. “Stop that,” it hissed, spitting with fury. “Put it away!”

“Revenant,” I whispered hoarsely. “You’re still here.”

It paused, its emotions a confused, sharp-edged jumble. Relief clearly hadn’t been the reaction it had expected. “You aren’t going to destroy my relic?” it asked finally, in a tone of lingering disbelief.

“I was checking to see if it had been damaged. I thought that was why you disappeared. Where were you?”

It hesitated. Then it snapped, “I’m entitled to some privacy, aren’t I? It isn’t as though there’s much to go around. Being trapped inside your body isn’t the panoply of delights you might imagine. Oh, pardon me, you’re a nun. Silly of me to suggest that you’ve ever imagined a single delightful experience in the entire span of your dull, miserable, hateful nun existence.”

I had almost missed talking to the revenant. At least I wasn’t worried about making it cry. I glanced over my shoulder at the couple, but they didn’t seem to have noticed anything amiss. Even if they did overhear me muttering to myself, they would likely mark it down as a sign of my ordeal. The children appeared as though they had fallen asleep.

“The priest almost caught me,” I whispered. “I could have used your help.”

“Please. If you had truly needed me, I would have intervened.”

I nearly dropped the relic in shock. “You were watching that entire time?”