Sophia left her seat, reaching for the ceremony pamphlet. “The lock was for peace of mind. Not to act as any kind of barrier.” Her eyes were cold and opaque in the gloom of the room. “It would have held, but only for so long.”
“What—is this a super cat we’re talking about?”
“I never said it was a cat.”
An awkward silence drifted between them. Angela finished lacing her boots and stood, ready to leave the room, but not quite so ready to open the door. Now it seemed like nothing more than a sliver of wood positioned in front of a crushing and invisible menace. There was no cat? What, then? Angela would have heard a dog days earlier, and foxes and weasels were extinct on the island. Maybe a raccoon? “If the lock couldn’t keep it out—”
That’s right. Not a cat now. An ‘it.
’
“—what did?”
“The light,” Sophia whispered. She pointed to the chandelier swinging above them, its brass half gray with tarnish. “The candles that I lit, when you finally fell asleep.”
T
he introductory ceremony had been scheduled for an hour after breakfast, during a time when downpours were common. That way, so the thinking went, the students would stay indoors and attend, rather than meandering back to their dormitories in the fairer weather. But in a stroke of irony the sky broke open, and instead of water, dreary sunshine descended on the city with rays of sickly yellow. The light looked like it had aged somehow, pent up behind a screen of clouds for days, and Luz aged beneath it, all of its flaws newly glaring and raw.
Angela had decided to sit in an apse of the church, hoping to be screened by darkness.
Yet the sunlight glowed through the stained-glass window, haloing her and Sophia with red and purple. Everyone else who’d bothered to come—and there weren’t many—sat in relative obscurity, half hidden by pillars, or shadowed over by a large statue meant to hold two flickering chandeliers. Now, it was too late to get up and change her seat, joining them. The novices were deep in the middle of a boring ritual, their Latin prayers and monologues utterly alien to her, and the moment she stood up to escape, she was sure a hundred heads would turn and take notice of the transgression. One of those heads would be Kim’s. He stood behind his older peers, reciting the prayers with a tormented expression, and he glanced at Angela every once in a while, his amber eyes dull like the sunlight.
She did little to acknowledge him, merely nodding and slumping deeper into the pew.
Brendan, oddly enough, was nowhere to be found. For a person who adhered to rules like a fly to honey, he was behaving more than out of character.
He probably did what you can’t and finally ended it all. Are these ceremonies supposed to be this boring?
She leaned over toward Sophia. “Please tell me this is almost over.”
“Five more minutes,” Sophia said. She was also watching Kim, maybe because he was watching Angela. She certainly didn’t have a lovesick glitter in her eye like some of the other students. “You should consider yourself lucky,” she said with a teasing smile. “The Masses tend to last two hours.”
“They have Masses here?”
“Oh no. Not here. Unless there is a special feast day to celebrate, this building isn’t used as an actual church anymore. It’s more like an auditorium or gathering hall. When it isn’t a holiday, daily Mass takes place in one of the chapels spread across the campus. There are about twenty of them. Those nearest to the Bell Tower are the most popular.”
“You’re talking about normal Masses, right?”
Sophia stared straight ahead as she spoke, her hands clasped delicately on her lap. “What would give you an impression otherwise?”
“The rumors I’ve heard. The newspaper articles. The Bell Tower is in the Eastern District of the Academy, isn’t it? Where they’re finding the dead bodies? All this craziness about monsters, killers, and occult conspiracies—it really gives more weight to what people on the Continent say about this place. That it’s cursed. That all this ‘holier than thou’ stuff is an act.” Angela nodded at the altar, at the novices lined two by two in their orderly rows, like clones covered head to toe in black. At least Kim’s chunk of crimson hair added some color. “What are they saying right now, anyway?”
“It’s a prayer meant to call down the blessing of God on the new students. And also, a petition for protection from the Ruin. Some believe, though, that their prayers are only making everything worse.” Sophia’s whisper was barely audible. “. . . they’re asking that the Ruin perish in the eternal flames reserved for the wicked in Hell . . .”
“I always found it funny that they assume Hell is on fire.”
“Only parts,” Sophia said, even less audibly.
Then she remained silent for the duration of the ceremony, barely moving until the novices chanted in unison, giving the final blessing for everyone to leave. After the students stood, stretching and chatting, the novices filed away off the altar, entering a side room to the right, Kim lingering behind to glance back first at a window and then at Angela before following them into the shadows. Angela would either have to wait to speak with him, hoping that he might approach her in front of too many curious students, or she would have to confront him one-on-one in some dark little corner before he left the church. Neither option was ideal. But if she wanted to find Brendan—or pry into Stephanie’s secrets—she didn’t have much of a choice. The opportunity was slipping away fast.
“Angela,” Sophia said, tapping her on the shoulder, “I’m going to go back to the dormitory.”
“You don’t have any classes today?”
“I never have any classes.”
Angela stared back at her. “What—”
“The punishment,” Sophia said, as if that could explain everything. She glared at someone standing behind Angela, a little to her left.
Kim stepped out into the open, his hair streaked through with more color in the warm light of the window. His voice was smooth, the essence of a gentleman. “Have we met?” he was saying to Sophia. “I don’t remember saying anything to deserve that kind of look.”
Sophia glared at him a second longer. “Good day to you,” she said, bowing slightly.
The glance she shared with Angela was brief, almost admonishing, before she joined a mass of students leaving the church down the middle of the aisle.
“
Have
you met?” Angela took another seat, this time beneath a carving that depicted a sea serpent with thousands of scales, its massive coils wrapped around an island with trees and waterfalls. The church echoed away into a strange silence, punctured here and there by the rumbles of thunder slowly bearing down on the city. The sunlight was already fading. “Or do you just have a bad reputation?”
“You’re rather straightforward,” Kim said, sitting across from her.
He’s not stupid enough to sit right next to me. But he’s interested enough to talk.
“More like cautious. I’ve been told not to speak with you. You’re Stephanie Walsh’s property after all.”
“Only when I feel like it,” Kim said, running a hand through his bangs. His other hand rested on the back of the pew, tapping the wood. “I was surprised to see you here, especially if you don’t want me to take any notice of you. Are you trying to make Stephanie mad?”
“Are you?”
“I simply do what I like. At the time, I liked your paintings. If that’s made life any more difficult for you, I’m sorry.”
“Your love triangle is making life difficult for me. As I’m sure you know, Brendan Mathers is my brother. Apparently, he’s also Stephanie’s official boyfriend, vow of celibacy or not.” She paused, relishing the cool breeze floating through the open doors. The blush on her cheeks could have been from embarrassment or the mere idea that they were alone. But either way, it made her warm. She clicked the heels of her boots together, choosing to stare at them, at their ragged laces. Anywhere but at Kim. He was gazing back at her intently, as if he knew exactly what information she wanted out of him and why. “By association, I’m already involved, so if you wouldn’t mind, try to keep your eyes from wandering too much. Especially in my direction. I’m sure you can imagine what it would be like for me—caught between the two of them or needing to explain myself to the priests. I’m attracting enough attention already.”
Kim regarded her for a moment, his gaze even more intense. His eyes were such a strange color, peering back at her like yellow suns behind a web of hair. “Is that all you have to say to me? Usually I’m the one lecturing students, not the other way around.”
It’s now or never.
Angela looked up at him again, still startled by the paleness of his skin, how it had sapped to an even more chalky shade now that the light was leaving them. Was he really a novice? Or maybe the better question was: Why had he bothered to take vows at all? Brendan’s choice was somewhat understandable. His entire life had been regimented by the Mathers family, so the transition into Vatican life was a preordained affair. But Kim looked and acted completely at odds with the priesthood. Surely the Academy officials knew about his relationship with Stephanie. Did they fear him for some reason? Or like Angela suspected, was he a spy, dating Stephanie to determine how risky she was to Earth’s well-being?
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she finally said. “But I was hoping you could help me out.”
Kim had been glancing at the windows again. Now he stood, his long coat brushing the floor tiles. “Would you mind if we discussed this on the way to my next teaching session?”
There was a new tremor in his voice. Maybe he was nervous too. The two of them alone—it was like engaging in a secret tryst, something forbidden. Stephanie’s territory was being painfully invaded. But this was the price Angela would have to pay to understand who and what she was dealing with. Finding Brendan would be a bonus.
“That’s fine,” Angela said, also peering at the windows, “as long as nobody sees us.”
“We’ll take one of the back alleyways,” Kim said, and then his mouth settled into a hard line. As if they were about to walk into a war zone of some kind. “Follow me.”
She trailed behind him, and they both left the church only to emerge in the middle of a depressing drizzle. Water slimed the cobblestones along the street, dripping from the gray moss that crusted parts of the brick-hewn towers to their right. The church courtyard was ringed by taller but much less impressive buildings, and sometimes, through their golden portholes, Angela saw students milling back and forth in narrow hallways or caught the flutter of thick draperies, their velvet half exposed to the wind. The thunder had swerved away somewhere to the west, booming like faraway drums. They passed very few people, most of them other novices, one of those a woman with rain-soaked hair. She questioned Kim with her eyes until he stopped to bow and wave her away.
Then they slipped into the alleyway. Open sewage must have been flowing through a groove in the roadway. At least, that’s what it smelled like. The second Angela and Kim sidled away from it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her beneath a soggy canopy. They continued walking beneath it together, heading east.
A large crow screeched overhead, quickly dropping onto the street ahead of them.
Kim’s mouth set even harder, but he soon found his humor again. “I wouldn’t suggest taking this path on a dark night.”
Or with a stranger like you?
Not that Angela had the inhibitions of normal people anymore. If anything, she was begging to be murdered. But Kim was probably too much of a gentleman to either allow that or even do it himself. No sense asking. “Even before I found out that you and Stephanie were an item”—it was difficult to hide the eager curiosity in her tone—“I thought I’d ask you about my brother. Brendan. Do you know where he lives here, at the Academy?”
The crow screeched, strutting nearer.
Kim fiddled with something in his pocket, never taking his eyes off the bird. “Of all the things for you to say . . . Why don’t you go to the registrar and make your inquiries? Why would I care about where he lives?”
Maybe because you’re making him look like a fool, sleeping with his girlfriend.
Didn’t these priests in training have any kind of loyalty to one another?
“Because you’re a novice too. Don’t you guys all hang out together? Bond, drink, and share stories?” Maybe even more than that. Luz was full of rumors and most of them revolved around the Vatican, the overall creepiness of the city, or even worse, the backward morality you could find in the most unlikely places. So far, Angela had avoided the parties for incoming students, trying to keep what was left of her innocence intact. “I was hoping to at least give him a message. The registrar turned me away. Since I left the institution—”
Kim glanced at her, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s a long story.” She turned away from him to watch the crow. In the short second he’d looked away, it had flown nearer to them, landing on a rickety gutter. “But anyway, I can’t just find out where he lives. My parents made sure to sign restraining papers to prevent that.”
“So you’re insane,” Kim said, whistling between his teeth. He found the crow again, seeming to lock it in place with his words.
“You sound impressed.”