Chapter 18 Maeve
Maeve
Maeve weighed up the set of his jaw and the steady determination in his gaze, undercut by something raw, almost vulnerable.
Unable to bear it, she moved towards the chairs near the unlit fireplace and sat, crumpling the letter in her fist. Jude knowing she’d been sent here to spy should have unmoored her, but instead, she felt oddly relieved.
Like unlacing a tight corset or taking off a pair of ill-fitting shoes.
Jude wore a restlessness to his movements as he sat in the chair opposite. The lazy cross of his legs, the careful way he’d thrown an arm over the side of his chair. All of it orchestrated to seem unbothered. All of it betrayed by the unwavering intensity in his eyes.
The air pulled somehow tighter around them. He waited patiently for her to break the silence, but he wouldn’t for much longer.
‘I want to say no. I want to trust you,’ Maeve said slowly. ‘Everything I know is the Abbey. I can’t just… throw away everything they told me, including why I was sent here.’
He didn’t move, his gaze remained locked on her. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
‘However—’ her throat clicked. ‘I don’t think I can. Report on you, that is. At least not right now.’
His shoulders curled in with an exhale. ‘You do realize that’s a complete contradiction.’
‘I know. But for now, it’s all I can offer.’
He studied her for a long moment. ‘How about I start at the beginning, then?’
At her nod, Jude drew a book from his pocket and flipped it open. His eyes moved rapidly across the page, a strange blankness lurking behind them like a mist. Maeve leaned forward to look. Runes, just like the book in his library.
Suddenly, he snapped the book shut. ‘The memory is fully in here. My head only has a shadow of it. If I read it, I can recall what I saw for a few hours after. What’s left of the memory, anyway.’
She furrowed her brow. ‘In the book? How does that—’
Jude held up a hand. ‘I’ll get to that. May I continue?’
She quirked a brow. ‘By all means.’
A ghost of a smile pulled at his lips, disappearing just as quickly. ‘When I was fifteen, I altered someone’s memory for the first time.’
‘What?’ she breathed. ‘How?’
He shot her a look. Maeve pressed her lips tightly together in response.
‘It happened right before the memory you saw in the book – a few weeks, maybe,’ Jude said.
‘I’m not certain. But I remember a fellow acolyte and I going to Whitebury.
We were picking up a pile of freshly altered habits for the elders.
I remember going to the tailors clearly, but only flashes of what came next. ’
He paused to skate his palm restlessly over his head.
‘We went to a pub. The barman took us to a cellar beneath it. The other acolyte I was with… he was my friend, I think.’ The furrow between his brow deepened.
‘He handed over the coin. Lots of it, too. Far more than alterations cost. For what, I don’t know.
Not habits, at least. Whatever happened for the rest of the afternoon is gone, but I remember waking up the next day, back in my bedroom, and my hands…
my clothes—’ he spread his hands wide. ‘They were soaking wet. And I had this black powder smudged all over my fingers.’
‘What was it?’ Maeve asked.
‘It smelled like the oil used in lamps. Kerosene.’
She hissed in a breath. ‘Why would you be covered in oil? Isn’t it extremely flammable?’
‘It is.’ Jude flipped his hands over to study his palms. ‘I returned to the pub the next day. The barman had no recollection of us being there. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye, just kicked me out before I’d barely come through the door.
So, I went around the back to the cellar, thinking maybe I could find evidence of the kerosene.
Evidence of anything. But all around the alley, covering the cellar’s trapdoor leading, was gold dust. Like in my library and your memory. ’
‘How did you know you did it, though?’ Maeve prodded. ‘The memory tampering.’
‘An elder found me as soon as I returned to the Abbey. He was furious.’ Jude paused.
His voice roughened. ‘He told me it was my fault, that I was lucky he’d taken care of the barman.
He said I’d done my part to erase the memory, and he would fix the rest.’ His throat bobbed.
‘The barman was found dead the next day. And when I went to ask the elder about it, he—’
Jude’s voice cut out. He closed his eyes tightly, massaging the space between his brows. A fluttering began behind Maeve’s ribs as she watched him try to collect himself, a fragile beating of wings. Panic, maybe, or something closer to fear.
‘All I can remember is falling backwards. I think I collapsed, fainted, maybe. When I woke, the elder was standing over me, holding something in his hand. Gold dust filled the air. I couldn’t tell what he held, only that it was small enough to conceal in his palm.
It seemed significant at the time, but when I woke, I couldn’t seem to remember.
My clothes no longer smelled of kerosene, and my memories of the day before…
’ he waved a hand through the air. ‘Almost gone. All that was left were fractured bits and pieces, but enough to know that I had been the one to fuck up. The barman had died, and I was to blame. It was me who had taken the first step to tamper with his memory. And the Abbey had killed him in retribution.’
Maeve didn’t have a reply. Her mind cowered at his words.
The Abbey killed someone?
The prospect was too large, too overwhelming to consider. She’d drown under the weight of it.
Jude’s eyes met hers. Haunted and searching.
‘That was the first time I noticed the Abbey could influence memory. That I could, too. And somehow, they could use my magic against me, stealing my memories in the process. I don’t—’ he shook his head.
‘I don’t think they know that I’m aware they can influence memory.
If they were… I don’t think I would’ve just been sent away. I think I would’ve disappeared.’
‘Like – like the barman?’ Maeve’s voice was hoarse. ‘Disappeared? Or…’
Jude didn’t reply. He simply stared at her; the word left unsaid.
She dropped her gaze to her hands, twisted up in her lap.
‘From then on,’ Jude continued, softer this time.
‘I sensed it whenever the Abbey worked its memory magic. I felt it, like a weakness in my muscles. I’d see flashes of gold at the edge of my vision whenever the magic was being done.
The gold dust is a mark of the magic. Only those of us who have the memory magic can see it, or anyone tampering with memory themselves. ’
‘Like the elders,’ Maeve whispered. She remembered Ezra’s expression as he’d taken in her gold-dusted studio. Brigid’s quietly asked question if Ezra had seen the gold. Had she known what it meant, too?
More importantly – was Ezra actively using memory magic as Jude claimed?
Maeve filed away the question. Even considering it sent a surge of panic through her limbs. Was it not enough to shake her foundational trust in the Abbey without bringing Ezra into it, at least not yet? She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, his hands on her shoulders, keeping her steady.
Forbidding her from straying, or keeping her from falling?
‘And the memory I saw in your book?’ Maeve asked, returning her focus to Jude. ‘Was that the fallout of whatever happened with the barman? With the kerosene?’
‘Part of it, anyway,’ he replied. ‘It feels like there was something more, that something else happened. Something bigger, and that was why the Abbey no longer allowed me to stay. But by the time I learned to store the memories in books for safekeeping, there was so little left to save to know for sure.’
He leaned forward, gaze sharpening. ‘But, Maeve… whatever happened, my magic was to blame. It’s unwieldy. Dangerous. The Abbey didn’t want me there as long as it flowed in my veins. They wanted me somewhere far away, somewhere they could still—’
His mouth slammed shut.
And Maeve knew, knew, he was still hiding something.
She weighed his words, filed them away, and chose not to press. He was being open with her, sharing vulnerable pieces of himself. She needed to proceed carefully if she wanted answers.
‘That’s what the gold magic is?’ she asked. ‘The ability to tamper with memory? And the Abbey, the elders… they can use it too?’
Jude nodded.
‘How?’
‘I believe icons have something to do with it. They help to form a link between—’ he paused.
‘Between those of us with memory magic and the elders who seek to use our abilities. The icons function like a capstone. Our magic touches one side of the stone, the elders touch the other. The magic bridges both.’
‘Icons?’ Maeve choked. ‘My icons?’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘How?’ she repeated. ‘I just paint. It’s paint and canvas, nothing more.’
‘That’s what I need to discover,’ Jude replied. ‘There’s something that allows the elders to access the magic, something that captures it. And something that fuels it. And you, Maeve – an iconographer. I think you help to bridge that gap.’
‘But icons are of saints,’ Maeve argued. ‘Are you saying there are icons of normal people like me, who can’t answer prayers?’
‘Well, they would just be called portraits, in that case. Not icons.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘But, yes.’
She weighed up his story, his admittance of magic and how the Abbey had altered memories. The icons. Her icons. Something so precious to her, something holy, repurposed in a way that went against the very core of their creation.
‘Why? Why alter memories?’ she asked.
‘To protect themselves. If a situation threatens the Abbey’s authority, they bend it until it snaps.
It’s how they maintain their followers.’ Jude levelled her with a look that was both assessing and charged.
‘And us, Maeve? Those of us who can see what they’re doing and can do it ourselves?
They get rid of us as quickly and as quietly as they can.
They can’t have people running around who know the truth, now, can they?
Not when everything they believe is at stake.
And not when they can use us for their gain.
Not when they take our memories from us to fuel their stolen magic. ’
Maeve’s view of the Abbey, of herself, seemed to break apart and reform, messy and haphazard, with each damning word Jude spoke.
How could it make sense? Even if what he said was true, why did it have to be a malevolent thing? The Abbey, Ezra, and the other elders could still care for their acolytes and followers while protecting their interests.
Couldn’t they?
‘What if my interests and the Abbey’s are the same?’ Maeve asked. Jude’s eyes flared as he leaned forward to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him. ‘I am their own. Even if you were marked a saint, you still left—’
‘Sent away,’ Jude interrupted. ‘I didn’t leave. I was forced.’
‘I’ve always been loyal. Even if I can see the gold, why is that—’
‘Do not presume they care about anyone who isn’t an elder. They didn’t care about me, not when I was fifteen and scared, nor when they shoved me here to live the rest of my days alone. And they didn’t care about you. Not if they sent you here.’
Maeve shook her head. She couldn’t accept it, couldn’t even think of the Abbey as anything that wasn’t home. ‘I… How could they know I have the memory magic too?’
His look was part pity, part frustration. ‘Even without the incident with the icon, they knew long before you did, Maeve. I guarantee it. And if they know… they sent you away because of it.’
Saints, it hurt. Maeve parted her lips and took a deep breath.
‘The Abbey asks for piety and devotion, for trust from its followers. Why influence their memory? What do they gain?’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, agony in every word. ‘I wish I could just believe you. Believe everything.’
Jude studied her for a long moment before pushing to his feet. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘Tonight?’ She blinked, mind spinning at the abrupt topic change. ‘Meet who?’
‘No,’ he shook his head, loosening a raspy chuckle. ‘It’s been a long day. I need to sleep. And we both need to bathe.’ He looked pointedly down at her muddied hem. Their socked feet. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Who is it?’ Maeve couldn’t help but press as she rose from the chair. But Jude was already turning, walking towards the door, holding it open for her to pass through. Too soon, he was locking it behind them and leading her up the stairs.
This late at night, the only noise in the vast house was the creaking of the floorboards.
The air was cool and damp against her skin, prickling at the thin layer of nervous sweat collecting at the base of her throat.
She gazed at the slashes of moonlight playing in the exposed line of Jude’s neck, the hollow at his nape.
He stopped in front of the bathroom and turned towards her, only a few inches away. He didn’t move. Instead, he tilted his head to the side, meeting her eyes from behind lowered lashes.
A sudden urge to reach for him rose with a vengeance, clanging warning bells in her head. If she didn’t turn and put her closed door between them, she’d do something she’d regret. Like press her fingers to where his pulse beat in his throat as rapidly as hers.
His steady inhale broke the silence. ‘Goodnight, Maeve. Enjoy your bath.’
She stared at the space he’d vacated for long after he left.