Vespertine (Vespertine #1)(76)

When I looked up, one last person fled past, leaving behind an expanse of empty cobbles, littered with debris—scraps of food, crushed blossoms. I looked up farther, bringing a circle of boots into view. Drawn swords. Soldiers.

I hadn’t been fast enough. They had finished combing through the crowd. Converging at the square’s center, they had all stopped dead around me. Ravens still swarmed overhead, panic still churned behind them, but it was as though the space surrounding Saint Agnes’s statue had turned into the eye of a storm, briefly quiet and still.

A loud, metallic clatter shattered the illusion. One of the soldiers had dropped his sword. He didn’t seem to notice he’d done it; he was too busy staring at me.

“Oh, fantastic,” spat the revenant.

These soldiers had the Sight. They had seen everything. Not just two people fighting on the ground, but the spirit I had driven from a thrall’s body—even if they had seen nothing else, they couldn’t have missed its silver light twisting overhead.

I was still holding the beggar’s arms. Slowly, I lowered him to rest against Saint Agnes’s feet.

They didn’t know my face. Perhaps they wouldn’t recognize me. Who would look at me and think I could possibly be Artemisia of Naimes? The real Artemisia could have slipped away, and I was just some bystander she’d left behind. That was how I felt, like an imposter at risk of being mistaken for myself.

“I told you she couldn’t have drowned,” said one of the men. They were gazing at me in wonder.

“Anne!” came a ragged shout.

I flinched. I was still imagining that I smelled smoke, and the sound of my old name belonged to that same pain-filled darkness, an echo of reproval, of fear. I wasn’t ready for Charles to break into the circle of soldiers, elbowing them aside. He looked frantic. He must have jumped down from the awning to look for me. I remembered, dazed, that he had five sisters.

First he looked at me; then his eyes slid to the unconscious beggar at my side. He glanced around at the soldiers, confused. “Anne?” he repeated, lost.

“That isn’t my name,” I said.

He looked at the other soldiers again and then back at me, his gaze dropping to my gloves. Understanding began to dawn. He was realizing that he had never seen my hands.

I didn’t know what I had expected him to do once he figured out who I was—laugh, maybe. Look disappointed or betrayed. He did none of those things. Instead, he dropped to his knees on the dirty cobbles.

“Lady vespertine,” he said, gazing up at me. His eyes were dark and sincere beneath the lock of sweaty hair plastered to his forehead.

The smell of smoke was growing stronger. The air was too hot. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted Charles to stop kneeling—to get up. I tried to stand, but my legs folded. Charles lunged forward and caught me before I fell from the statue’s plinth.

“Nun, what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t think. The revenant’s alarm swirling around in my head was only making me dizzier. “Is something burning?” I asked.

A new soldier answered, using the gentle tone that meant I had asked a strange question, one with an answer so obvious that a normal person shouldn’t have needed to ask. “Lady, the effigy caught on fire.”

Of course. The sparks from the dropped censer would have easily ignited the dry straw. That seemed clear enough. But my thoughts were dizzy, muddled. For a confusing moment I felt the grit of my family’s hearth beneath my knees, saw the red, living pulse of the coals before I thrust my hands inside. But that had happened years ago. Hadn’t it?

My skin was clammy with sweat. I had the sickening awareness that something was wrong with me, but I didn’t know what it was.

“You told me fire doesn’t bother you,” the revenant said suddenly, as though solving a mystery that had troubled it for days.

“It doesn’t.” I sounded uncertain.

“Lady?” asked one of the soldiers. I felt Charles touching my scalp.

“You idiot,” the revenant said with feeling. Yet for once the insult wasn’t aimed at me. I thought it might be calling itself an idiot, even though that didn’t make any sense. “This isn’t an ordinary cookfire—of course it’s affecting you.”

“I don’t think she took a blow to the head,” Charles was saying. And then, in a different voice, “Captain!”

Over his shoulder, I had a woozy impression of armor, its polished surface reflecting the dancing glow of flames. Enguerrand.

“Get her out of here,” he ordered. His voice was rough, as though he had been shouting. “She needs to be brought to safety. The spirit is Fourth Order—we don’t know what kind yet. Talbot, Martin—”

He was giving orders, but I didn’t hear the rest. A terrible scream split the noise of the crowd. Silver light flashed across Captain Enguerrand’s armor.

“What’s happening?” I rasped. This was wrong—the Divine and her clerics should have destroyed the spirit by now. A red glow lapped against the buildings, alive with the shadows of people running. Heat rolled mercilessly across the square. I fought against the arms restraining me, then recognized who they belonged to and tried to stop. It was Charles. I didn’t want to hurt Charles.

“They’re taking you away. It’s over now. You don’t need to see.”