Chapter 12
TWELVE
KINGSTON
The host tastes like chalk in my mouth.
I swallow anyway.
“Corpus Christi,” intones the warm voice of Father Denis. “The body of Christ.”
The words ring through the emptiness of the chapel, swirling through the incense and weak morning sunlight. No one comes to 7:30 Communion—barely anyone, that is: sometimes a few students after an all-nighter and before an exam, looking for one last blessing, but that’s about it.
It is no surprise that I’m alone.
“Amen.” I cross myself and rise.
Except that I’m not. Because as I turn, I nearly walk into someone.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “Pardon m—”
I stop myself. A single tawny eye fixes on me, its twin hidden behind black silk.
Father?
Luther Pendragon smiles, nods to acknowledge me, and all I can do is step to the side as he kneels for the sacrament.
It isn’t so early—nearly eight a.m. now—but I’ve been awake for hours, and now, seeing my father, my thoughts want to reel.
Not an option. Instead, I retake my pew and close my eyes, attempting to refocus my mind to prayer.
“Sanguis Christi.”
“Amen.”
“Corpus Christi.”
“Amen.”
I open my eyes. Nothing prayed.
As though I forgot how.
I speak rotely through the final blessing and dismissal, watching my father from across the aisle.
“Gloria Dei,” he murmurs, crossing himself. As Father Denis nods and gathers the chalice and ciborium, my own father turns to me.
“Kingston,” he says. “I thought I might find you here.”
Ironic, I think. I’ve barely been to church outside of Sundays.
But things have changed.
Desperately.
“Good morning,” I say, unsure what else to say.
He knows. He knows what we’ve—what I’ve done.
No—he knows most of what we’ve done.
That we found out who burned the library.
That we brought Gwenna back.
That we need her to complete our quest.
And that we don’t yet know what that means.
None of that is a lie. None of that is anything wrong.
But what he doesn’t know…
The grail isn’t a what, Mr. Pendragon. It’s a who.
I swallow.
What he doesn’t know isn’t something I want him to know. Not just yet.
So to see him here, now, sets a feeling of iron dread over me.
“Come,” my father says, clasping me on the shoulder. “You too, Father,” he calls up to the chancel. “If we may—”
“Of course.” Father Denis lowers his head and gestures toward the back corner of the nave. “Mi officina, su officina.”
The chapel office is humble. Tall windows, tight with bookshelves, spanned almost fully by a wooden desk.
I can’t remember the last time I was in here and yet I’m positive nothing has changed.
I fold my coat over a chair and sit, silent, as Father Denis lifts his vestments from his neck and hangs them on a hook, the red and gold the only bright color in the room.
My father settles himself in the second chair, slower than I do, and smiles as Father Denis takes his own seat, hands folded on his blotter.
“To what do I owe the honor?” he jokes lightly, and my father chuckles.
“I’ve just received notice,” my father goes on, “that we’ll be hosting guests for Candlemas in two weeks’ time.”
Candlemas. A holiday that’s minor to the point of vanishing for most Christians, even Catholics, but one that Caliburn has seized on as the centerpiece of winter semester. Light in the darkness. A rekindling of the spirit.
A shiver prickles down my neck. The fire imagery, always. Had I never noticed it before?
You let someone think that I did this.
You said nothing.
I force my attention back to the present.
“Guests?” Father Denis says mildly. His thin brows draw. “You mean Mountstuart and Villa Loyola—”
My father shakes his head. “The tournament opponents, yes. These are other guests. Special guests.” His face moves in a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “The White Brothers of St. Vincent.”
My blood goes cold.
The Consistory. Here. Here, in America, at Caliburn.
I’ve only ever seen them once, when I was eighteen and taking my vows. A week in France. Cold vegetarian food and hard beds. Prayer every three hours, day or night. The Prior at Arms…
The chill in my blood gives way to panic.
“They don’t travel,” I blurt out. Then bite my tongue. Get a hold of yourself. “I mean…they’re cloistered.”
“For the most part,” my father says delicately, “yes. But it seems they’ve decided to send an envoy to…celebrate the holiday with us.”
I flex my hands with the effort to stay still. I don’t like this, don’t like any part of this.
“You just found out now?” I ask.
Father Denis gives a tiny wince. “A bit more advance notice would have been helpful,” he agrees.
“They travel only by boat,” my father says, his lip curling with an unamused smile. “Send letters that way, too. The virtue of simplicity, so they say. A core tenet of their monastic rule. I have only about twelve hours’ more notice than you.”
I grip the armrest of the chair.
“Why now?” I manage.
My father doesn’t meet my eyes. “They didn’t say.” His speech is slow, measured. “Not in so many words.”
A beat of silence passes. “Well,” Father Denis says at last, bright and oblivious. “We will do everything we can to make them welcome. I assume the accommodations are—”
“Taken care of,” my father confirms. “I wished to ask only if their friar might co-celebrate Candlemas with you, here in the chapel.”
“Of course.” Father Denis nods. “The house of God is open to all.”
I’ve never had any reason to dislike Father Denis. He is a good and stalwart priest, well-liked as dean of the Divinity School. If anything, he’s…dull, but that’s hardly a shortcoming.
But he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know the full extent of our so-called fraternal relationship with the White Brothers. Doesn’t know they are the Consistory. Doesn’t know that they are anything more than a reclusive, old-fashioned, devout and discrete monastic order that holds ties with us from afar.
“Excellent.” My father claps his hands on his knees. “I assumed as much. But—well, never assume. I appreciate your time, Father.” He turns to me. “Kingston—shall we?”
We walk in silence through the nave.
“The Brothers,” I start, keeping my voice low against the echoing stones. “Are they—”
“This is your fault,” my father hisses.
The suddenness—the vitriol—it stops me in my tracks.
“Mine?” My voice sounds frustratingly thin. “How?”
My father does not stop. He is at the vestibule, throwing open the door to the silvered quads and gray sky.
“How?” he repeats as I catch up, breath fogging in front of me. “How?”
“You know how.” My father sweeps a hand at the snow-covered campus as he descends the chapel steps.
“This…all of this. You fence poorly and injure yourself. You can’t study without some…
some mage to tutor you. And our most precious resource, a lifetime’s collection—no, a lineage’s collection of irreplaceable archives go up in—”
“That was Moroslav,” I counter, lengthening my strides to keep up. “The Russians—”
“Whom you are meant to stop, Kingston,” he all but roars. He stops walking. “Your watch, your leadership, barely six months in and disaster is striking again and again. If you are surprised to be blamed then you are as stupid as you are incapable.”
The ground before me is pulsing as I stare at it. The back of my throat aches. Somewhere, distantly, I am grateful that it’s early yet and no one seems to be out on this quad.
“This is not some social call,” my father goes on. “This is not some gesture of goodwill and brotherhood for Candlemas Day. This is an inspection, Kingston.”
“I won’t disappoint you.” The words are mechanical from my lips. And yet I don’t know how to mean them any more than I do. I could not mean anything more.
“All you do is disappoint me!” His voice is tight with something between fury and disgust. “The son so wished for, so hoped for, so prayed for, and this is how you turn out? Truly, I wonder that you could ever be worth what you’ve cost the world, Kingston.”
Something goes very still inside me.
I have no answer for that.
“Besides,” he says darkly, “it isn’t me you should worry about. And here I thought you knew that.”
With that, he walks away from me.
I stand there in the snow, and I cannot make myself move.