CHAPTER TWELVE
T he silence stretching between them was heavy.
Jules wanted to thrash against the elegant handcuffs binding his wrists. Wanted to slam his shoulder against the door like a wild animal to escape. While Selene stood there calmly. So terribly in control.
He wondered if she ever second-guessed herself—or the path she stalked. Had she ever glanced back, wondering where she’d taken a wrong turn? Somehow he doubted it.
‘Corporal Lacroix.’ There was a taut moment before she said his name again, softer this time. ‘ Lacroix . I don’t intend to kill you, and I promise I won’t let anything happen to you in Rome. I need your help.’
He scoffed. I don’t intend to kill you , she’d said. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t .
Her lips twisted. ‘You think I’m lying?’
‘I think you’re full of shit. I saw you fight.’
‘And?’ she demanded.
‘You really need me to say it? I can’t help you if you can’t help yourself, exorcist.’
Selene’s guarded expression softened when she parsed his meaning. She was so far above him. Mythology made flesh. Impossible for him to reach from where he stood with two feet firmly planted in the mud.
He was nothing. An orphan. A soldier.
Stigmajka .
He leaned back against the door, attempting to cross his arms, but his shackles clinked softly in reminder.
As Selene took another step toward him, he resisted the temptation to lean away from her touch. Gliding a finger against his bindings, she released him, and the handcuffs dropped to the floor. Even though he knew she was manipulating him, the tension in his shoulders eased.
She shifted back, but didn’t sit. Instead, she leaned against the window so they were facing off. France sped by behind her, there in the fathomless black, pricked by only the rarest lantern light. Selene raised her chin so she could hold his gaze. Those eyes of hers were magnetic, and despite himself he couldn’t look away.
‘There are many ways you can help me, Lacroix. For starters, I need you to stay close so that you might survive the week. And so that Nice or Rome—or both—will not be razed by the fucking Duke of Briars.’ He raised a brow. She added, ‘I would like to avoid that.’
Again, this Duke of Briars. He wanted to ask about the demon, but the negotiations weren’t over and Jules refused to give her the upper hand again. Instead, he let his words become a lazy drawl. ‘How is staying close to you meant to do anything other than drive me to drink, exorcist?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly? I don’t care what you do— staying close is the only prerequisite.’ She wasn’t telling him something—a whole host of somethings—but he didn’t really have a choice. The shackles had been pure showmanship. He was at her mercy. And she knew it.
As if reading his mind, she added, ‘Besides, you’re still a suspicious person regarding the events in Saint-Jeannet. I can hold you indefinitely for that. So be glad that I don’t enjoy spending time in dungeons.’
His thoughts snagged on the implication. ‘How could I have anything to do with that? You saw me in Nice.’
‘Only after it happened.’ She waved an airy hand, dismissing his next words. ‘I will admit, multiple sources place you with your regiment during a series of decisive battles against the Caspian Federation at the time in question, but for the purposes of this inquiry your involvement remains pertinent so long as I want it to be.’
The beat of his own heart sounded terribly loud in the quiet of the cabin. There was only the exorcist, her low voice, and the muffled clickety-clack of the wheels.
‘So my desertion is your plausible deniability for arresting me and my presence in Saint-Jeannet is your plausible deniability for taking me to Rome. Why?’
‘Because I don’t trust you.’ Her expression flickered, brows tugging together in consternation. ‘No. I refuse to trust you.’ Her eyes held his, lit deep amber by the gas lanterns.
He believed her. Selene’s trust was not something he could earn with charm. The fountain pen rolled off the portfolio as the carriage rocked gently, its nib soaking blue into the tufted leather seat.
Retrieving her pen, Selene tugged the portfolio into her lap and straightened the strewn pages.
War reports written in the same economical hand boasted innumerable intriguing phrases— prodigious , sole survivor , kill count —and yet it wasn’t enough. None of it explained him to her satisfaction.
Selene glanced up at him. ‘Tell me. Why were you in Saint-Jeannet? You had only just arrived back in Nice that morning. Just in time to witness the conflagration of your childhood home, granted. But it seems like a strange choice to me, Lacroix.’ She tipped her head. ‘What kind of ghoulish curiosity compelled you to visit the site of such a terrible massacre?’
His wounded expression should have been a victory bell … but she didn’t feel good about it. Stiffening her spine, she pushed away the softer emotion.
‘Massacre?’ he asked faintly.
‘You saw the town. It was razed.’
‘I saw the buildings , but …’ He visibly struggled with his words. ‘But that was the stones. The walls. What about the people?’
Selene tilted her head, confused. After years at war, he couldn’t possibly be this na?ve about death. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What happened to the people?’
‘They’re dead.’
The colour drained from his face. ‘All of them?’
‘I don’t see—’ Selene cut herself off.
The entire village had been burned with holy fire. All that was left were the shadows on the walls. The fallen bicycles, the gutted post office, the empty classroom with no children now or ever again. She continued quietly, selecting her words with care. ‘I don’t see how there could be any survivors. My report to the Vatican listed all five hundred and thirty-five residents of Saint-Jeannet as casualties.’
Jules stared at his linked fingers. His hands trembled.
‘I’m … sorry.’ It sounded too much like a question.
A hoarse sound escaped his throat. Concerned, she shifted closer. He raised both hands, wiping one eye and then the other with his sleeve. ‘You appear to be struggling to process sadness, exorcist.’ There was a twist of bitter amusement to his lips.
Annoyed, Selene replied, ‘Is this life-threatening or can we continue?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said rather unconvincingly.
Her nose crinkled at the tears on his lashes. ‘Did you injure yourself? Are you in pain?’
He levelled her with a cold look. ‘What do you want anyway?’
‘I want to interrogate you,’ she snapped.
He barked a laugh. ‘You want to know about Saint-Jeannet?’ He tipped his head against the seat. ‘I was abandoned in Saint-Jeannet as a baby.’
His voice was so quiet she almost missed the words. The answer was not one she’d anticipated. She scrawled this new information into the portfolio.
‘You were born there?’
He rubbed long fingers between crumpled brows, battling some painful emotion. Selene had no patience for that. For sadness . She didn’t intend to give him a chance to feel anything until she finished twisting him around her little finger—even if it meant breaking him first. Saint-Jeannet was a weakness she could exploit. Impatient at his silence, she glanced at him from beneath her lashes. Her heart gave an uncomfortable throb at his look of pain for people he didn’t know.
Grief, where she felt nothing at all.
The exorcist was no longer listening to him.
She leafed through her portfolio, eyes a thousand miles away. Finally she eased the cover closed. A twist of dissatisfaction at the corner of her lips. ‘You were born there?’
He nodded. ‘I was left on the steps of the church as a newborn babe.’
‘église Saint-Pierre?’ she confirmed. Something played across her face. When their gazes met, her eyes burned like flame.
Oh . He’d been wrong about her attention being elsewhere. Her focus was all on him now and it felt like gravity.
‘What?’ His thundering heartbeat blended into the chuff of the steam engine and the clicking of rail joints.
She schooled her expression. ‘Nothing.’
‘Liar.’
Selene didn’t like the accusation one bit. Her eyes pinned Jules in his seat like a mounted moth. And yet she didn’t deny it. ‘Who are you really, Jules Lacroix?’
The question caught him with the force of a bullet. ‘Me? Nobody. An orphan. A soldier.’
‘Liar,’ she shot back, using his own accusation against him.
‘I’m not lying,’ he snarled. Stigmajka .
His body moved before he knew what he was doing, long strides eating up the cabin between them. He gripped her chin in his hand, his fingers feeling impossibly rough against her skin.
Her eyes flared with something very close to triumph. Grief and anger swept through him, making him ache to grasp a sword.
Dieu, I really am a monster, aren’t I?
‘I, too, want to know who I am.’