Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(66)

I continued to stare at her, nonplussed.

“Believe it or not, I do actually have a brain,” she said, turning a little redder. “And you need help. Whatever you’re up to, you can’t do it alone.”

“I have the revenant.”

I felt it stifle its surprise—for some reason, it hadn’t expected me to say that—as Marguerite retorted, “That’s not enough.”

“It’s gotten me this far,” I said.

“Can a spirit cover for you if you go missing from the infirmary?” she challenged. “Or if you pass out and someone sees your hands? Does it know all the latest news in the city? It isn’t just gossip, you know,” she said with unexpected heat. “Sometimes it’s useful information. There’s nothing wrong with paying attention to what’s going on around you.”

I leaned back, wishing the ground would swallow me whole. I recognized the signs that Marguerite was getting emotional about something, but as usual, I couldn’t tell what.

When I didn’t answer, she made a frustrated sound. Clearly releasing a long-pent-up grievance, she declared, “Just because you can survive by being scary and intense all the time doesn’t mean you should judge everyone who can’t.”

So that was what she was angry about. I looked from her face to her extended hand and back again. The truth was, she had come to my rescue twice now. She had helped hide me, and tonight she had probably saved my life. All that time in Naimes, I had underestimated her.

Reluctantly, I took her hand.





SEVENTEEN


Marguerite and I sat opposite each other on the stable’s floor with a lantern flickering between us. I had just finished relaying everything I knew to her, ending with the revenant’s explanation of the dreadnought. She had watched me in horrified fascination the entire time, her expression exaggerated by the flame lighting her face from beneath.

“It really said all that?” she squeaked.

If only she knew. “It said a lot more. I’m only sharing the important parts.”

She looked away, chewing her lip. She still had a death grip on her pocket. I considered telling her that her amulet wouldn’t protect her from the revenant, but I didn’t want her to take it as a threat, so I didn’t say anything. I waited.

“It’s—you know, it’s smart?” she asked finally. “Like a person?”

It is a person, were the first words that jumped to mind. Instead, I said, with the revenant’s indignation needling me to speak, “It thinks humans are all idiots.”

“That’s an understatement,” it hissed.

I wasn’t fooled by its nasty tone. Now that Marguerite knew about it, I could tell it was secretly enjoying having a conversation with someone new, even with me acting as the intermediary. For a being who liked to talk so much, going for hundreds of years without anyone listening to it must have been torture.

“I thought it would be more like…” Marguerite shook her head. She took a deep breath, collecting herself. “Never mind. So you think you can use Jean to help find out where Confessor Leander has been practicing Old Magic. And it really won’t hurt him?”

I followed her gaze to Jean. He was sitting outside the candlelight, gazing forlornly at the horse in the nearest stall with his hands knotted in his lap. Despite his size, he looked like a little boy who wanted to pet the horse but had been denied permission. “The revenant says it won’t.”

“And you believe it?”

That was a good question. I still didn’t know why the revenant was so interested in Old Magic. However, I could say with complete certainty, “If the revenant wanted to possess me and kill everyone, it would have already tried. That isn’t what it wants.”

I felt a startled hitch from the revenant, and then it went very still. Apparently it hadn’t realized that I was onto it. That was what it got for assuming all humans were idiots.

Fortunately, Marguerite seemed reassured. She rose and went to Jean, moving carefully, as though approaching an injured animal. “Jean,” she said softly, reaching for his shoulder. She flinched when he turned to face her. Then she set her jaw in determination and completed the gesture, her hand tiny against his bandaged shoulder. “Will you come sit down with us?”

He rose, startlingly big in the stable’s gloom, shedding pieces of straw. He stared down at her hand as though he barely recognized what it was, but he still allowed it to guide him. Marguerite settled him onto the floor opposite me and then looked up with a question in her eyes. Her mouth was pressed small, her brows furrowed.

“How does it work?” she asked.

The revenant said, “All you need to do is touch him, and I’ll get an impression of the place where the ritual was cast. I doubt either of us will recognize it—some hideous dungeon filled with whips and chains, I expect; you would never believe what priests get up to in their spare time—but I’ll be able to trace its direction, and we can follow it to the source.”

I wasn’t sure how much of our earlier conversation Jean had overheard, if any. I shook my head at Marguerite, requesting her silence.

“Just touch him,” the revenant prompted. “I’ll do the rest.”

I tried to move, and found that I couldn’t. Jean was sitting there looking at the ground, showing no indication of being aware of what was happening. He might not feel anything I was about to do to him, but it felt wrong to use him without his knowledge.