A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(24)

“Fuck, you’re nosy,” he says, still laughing. “Christ.”

I give a sheepish shrug. “I’m sorry. I like to know things. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

He takes a drink, but this time it doesn’t seem like he’s doing it because he doesn’t want to say more, but because he wants a minute to think.

“On every objective level, yes. My life is still on hold. I’m in a job that pays pennies, and without a degree, I’ll never get to the next job up on the ladder. I’m taking some online classes, but at this rate, I’ll be thirty before I get my B.A., and I’m not even sure what I want to major in, anyway. I took over my mom’s lease because it seemed easier than trying to find a new place and figure out what to do with her stuff . . .”

He catches his lip ring in his teeth for a moment, then continues. “But it’s so strange. Every time I think of leaving, I ache with wanting to stay. I can’t make myself go. It’s like I’ve put down roots without even wanting to, and I don’t mean family roots, because my aunt and uncle have always been here and I only barely remember my dad and his parents. I don’t mean friend roots, because I don’t really have any of those. I mean the kind of roots that happen privately between you and a certain place. Like you come to a place, and instead of planting a flag and saying mine, the place plants something in you. The place claims you, it knows your name and the crooked corners of your heart, and you’ve pledged yourself to it before you’ve even realized what’s happening. That’s why I’ve stayed, that’s why I can’t leave. Thornchapel knows my name and the crooked corners of my heart, and it wants me to make promises that I’m going to keep.”





Chapter 7





Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy





That night, St. Sebastian walks Poe back to Thornchapel. It’s cold as fuck and windy as shit, and her teeth chatter the entire way. He wants to fold her into his arms, he wants to unzip his coat and tuck her against his chest. He may not be good for much, but he could do that.

He could warm her up.

But all told, it’s a short walk, and there’s no need. They get to the front door and she’s fine, and it’s only him who’s not fine, only him who’s jumbled up inside with all the things he could do. He could shake her hand. He could hug her. He could kiss her cheek.

He could kiss her mouth.

He could tell her that he can’t stop thinking about the way her eyes look like summer. He could tell her that he wants to bite the point of her chin and the arch of her throat. That he’s shaking and sick with wanting to touch her. Wanting to watch her gasp and laugh and smile. Wanting to reach that ever-unfolding bloom of her spirit and cradle it in his palms.

He could tell her that they did get married once, after all, and why not play husband and wife for a couple hours and drive back the cold and the dark? Why not pretend Auden was there too, pretend each other’s hands were his hands, and each other’s mouths were his mouth?

In the end, he tells her none of these things. He sees her inside and mumbles something in noncommittal agreement when she talks about calling him. He listens to his better nature; he keeps his distance. Even when she wheels abruptly around and pulls him into a hug, he manages to keep himself from pressing close, from putting his lips against the wind-tangled silk of her hair.

After all, he knows things she doesn’t know.

He knows the things the village knows.

She can’t be his.

When he gets home twenty minutes later, he stands in his dead mother’s living room and takes in the carcass of his life. His mother’s burned out saints’ candles that he feels would be cowardly to throw away, even though they gouge a hole in his heart every time he looks at them. A mostly empty sketchbook. A secondhand guitar that’s never been played. An old laptop he bought for writing two years ago, the case covered with a film of indifferent dust.

All the relics of a boy who wanted to create, who wanted to be different and interesting and chosen. Who wanted to be the lord of the manor like the flop-haired boy with hazel eyes and too much money.

And instead, all St. Sebastian has to show for his life is an unfinished degree, the scattered remains of abandoned hobbies, no friends, no pets, no lovers—and a lip ring.

He’s alone, and he deserves it.





Becket is not a monk, but he abides by his own little monastic rules. He likes the structured focus of ordered days, the quiet asceticism of plain meals, the undeniable rewards of regular prayer. Auden teases him about his daily penances, and Becket can’t find the words to explain that these practices are to protect him, to keep him from going too far, to make sure that he does eat and he does sleep.

Zeal, his confessor had once told him, is a curse as much as it’s a blessing. Don’t let it consume you like a fire; keep the flames of it small.

And so the zeal must be dampened. Smothered. He prays at regular intervals to keep himself from lying face down on the floor in ecstatic devotion for hours. He eats plain meals so he won’t be tempted to forgo every nourishment except the Host itself. He punishes his body gently with running and exercise so that he won’t be tempted to punish it with whips and hair shirts and other unsanctioned mortifications.

His zeal is a secret, almost like a sin itself, and it’s only through his gritted teeth that he manages to keep it at bay.