8
“You will know a diabolist by their blood. It sits thick in their veins, like that of a man already long dead. Not human, but a creature of sin.”
I slam my apartment door shut and lean against it, my breath coming in short gasps.
The firm wood against the jut of my shoulder blades makes me think of the way the Warden pushed me up against the wall, surrounding me with the heat of his body and his heady scent.
I can’t believe I was so foolish. I can’t believe I stood there, staring death in the face, and thought about the way his lips felt on my throat.
I know it isn’t my fault. Diabolists are designed to entice, my mother always said. Had the Warden not planned to kill me afterward, perhaps I would have been better off confessing. I would’ve forgotten his face in the aftermath—forgotten everything I told him—and not presented a threat.
That ship had sailed, though, the second he saw my pendant. Gabriel’s pendant. In that moment, I’d ceased to be my own person in his eyes. I’d become the Prophet’s creature. His tethered pet. The necklace around my throat might as well have been a leash.
I feel its absence now as I press a hand to the space between my collarbones. I feel lighter, somehow. And yet the weight of what I’m about to do settles heavy on my bones.
I have to leave Valestadt. There’s no other option.
I know the Warden’s identity—not to mention what he is—which means my life in this city is over.
It’s not like I can appeal to Gabriel to get me out of this mess either.
He would be apoplectic if he knew what had happened.
More importantly, he can’t learn I discovered the truth about his origin story as the Prophet.
If he does, I become a threat to the lie he fights to uphold.
Either way, I’m fucked.
Once I shake off the sensation of general disbelief, I launch into action.
My body feels disconnected from my brain as I shove clothes into a large bag, my muscles moving of their own volition.
I’ve always been good at accepting terrible realities, and now that I’ve devised a plan—no matter how poorly developed—the storm of my mind calms slightly.
Get my things, leave the city, and then… what?
I’ve considered running countless times over the past three years, but there are reasons I haven’t followed through.
Approaching someone and asking them to take you on as a hired sinner is an easy way to wind up in prison, unless you’re relying on a trusted referral.
I don’t have that. I don’t have anyone. Working for Gabriel means money, security, and the assurance that everything I want to leave in the past will stay there.
When I’m gone, will that assurance be lost? Will I be doomed to run forever, always away from things and never toward them?
“Fuck!” I explode, the expletive tearing from my throat as I slam the bag down on my bed.
It’s barely half full; a sad representation of my life here.
I brace my hands against the firm mattress as frustration crashes over me.
The sleeves of my jacket have begun to ride up, and I stare blankly at the deep indigo blotches on my arms. Starting over I can handle, but it won’t be long until I’m in the grasp of the Bloodrot’s final stages.
When I’d first seen signs of the Bloodrot, I hadn’t been surprised.
I was thirteen. That’s the age around which, for some inconceivable reason, you’re no longer afforded leniency for your misdeeds.
From then on, your sins mean something. They become your own, and they destroy you slowly.
The first tiny, curling tendril of dark beneath my skin had intrigued me.
Earlier that day, I had punched Vicar Johannes’s son in the face so hard that one of his teeth came loose.
The mark was scarcely visible. I hadn’t understood why my mother screamed and bolted from the room when she saw it, nor why my father’s gaze turned so cold.
And yet neither of their reactions bothered me as much as the way Ilse stared at me from her perch on the couch, eyes enormous in her wan face.
My sister was the one good thing in my life, and she looked at me like I was a monster. It’s the way people have looked at me ever since.
You’re young, Gabriel tells me whenever he sees my fear. You have time.
I know it isn’t true. So does he. The Bloodrot starts slowly and painlessly—only in the final stages of the affliction does the body seem to acknowledge its gradual poisoning.
A fever spikes, your pulse alongside it.
The skin not already veined in rot turns gray.
Then confusion sets in, shifting to madness.
Sometimes people die quietly, either from shock or at their own hands. Sometimes they lose their minds with such violence that the Regiment intervenes to put them down.
Either way, one thing is certain: The Bloodrot always, always ends in death.
I stay frozen for too long a moment, lingering in the frail spill of moonlight that filters through a crack in the blinds.
I don’t understand my own hesitation to leave.
This bed is the site of too many tortured, sleepless nights.
These peeling walls with their motley-blue paper have met my fists more than once.
This is not my home. This is a hollow, slipshod assortment of other people’s lives.
Footsteps sound from the hallway, wrenching me back to sense with all the efficacy of being doused in ice water. Air tangles in my lungs, and I slip the gun from my waistband, pivoting to face the door. Sweat beads on the back of my neck. The shadow-limned walls blur.
The footsteps stop.
The Warden has no way of knowing where I live, unless of course he trailed me—or sent someone else to. He strikes me as the type to work alone, given his preference for anonymity, but I still don’t relax. My own steps are silent as I approach the door, gun raised.
“Talin?” A familiar voice, edged with impatience, emanates from the hall. It precedes a brisk knock. “Talin, are you there?”
Gabriel. Relief spreads through me, only to be replaced by a whole new kind of tension. Gabriel rarely deigns to come here, especially at this time of night. I’d thought I had more time. I should have had more time.
The additional footsteps, I realize belatedly, must belong to his ever-present entourage of Regiment agents. They’re going to catch me trying to escape, and there’s no way around it. If I don’t open that door, the agents will kick it in. My head spins with indecision.
“Damn it all,” I mutter, squeezing my eyelids shut. A kaleidoscope of broken stained-glass flickers behind them. Another round of knocks comes, the entire doorframe seeming to vibrate when I open my eyes again.
“Keller.” Rather than growing snappish, Gabriel’s tone is pitched dangerously low. “I know you’re in there.”
I toss my travel bag under the bed, holster my gun, and yank the door open.
Gabriel looms over me, flanked by no fewer than four Regiment agents.
They look too large, too sharp, for the discolored wainscotting and low ceilings of the apartment hallway.
I expected Gabriel to be mutinous, but he appears merely irked, and it takes me an instant to remember he has no way of knowing what’s happened.
His brows are lowered, a barely visible dusting of scruff carving shadows along his jaw.
The latter gives me pause—Gabriel is always clean-shaven.
He adjusts the collar of his suit jacket, a signet ring flashing on the smallest finger of his left hand. Though I can’t see it, I know an M is inscribed into the gold, twin to the one I’d worn around my neck until tonight.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
I don’t have much of a choice but to stand aside, holding out an arm to indicate that he can enter.
A single agent follows Gabriel into my apartment; the others remain in the hallway as he all but slams the door in their faces.
I scarcely spare a glance at the uniformed man now standing in the corner of my room.
After three years of interacting with Gabriel, I’m accustomed to the fact that he’s never alone.
The Prophet interlaces his fingers behind his back and begins to pace the length of the sitting area. “You carry a heavy weight.”
I bite back a curse. As always, he’s too intuitive. “I think that’s part of the job description.”
“Undoubtedly. And yet, I confess myself surprised you’ve decided to leave me.”
I freeze where I still hover beside the door, unable to conjure an excuse that might fool him. Of course he knows. As always, timing is not on my side.
Gabriel inclines his head at the wardrobe. Two of the drawers are partially open, the third one completely so. “Don’t bother denying it. I received a report of you sprinting back here, behaving suspiciously. And you’ve done a rather poor job of concealing your travel bag.”
My gaze slides to my bag, which indeed hasn’t made it all the way under the bed. The futility of the situation crashes down on me like a ton of stone. I can’t leave Valestadt, and yet I can’t stay. Not unless I tell Gabriel the truth.
“I’m not trying to escape you. It’s just…” I set my jaw. In three years, I’ve never fucked up this badly. “Tonight didn’t quite go as planned. I was in the Trench and—”
“That was my mistake.” Gabriel cuts me off, settling stiff-backed into the worn armchair by the window.
He steeples his fingers beneath his chin and surveys me over them.
In the dingy, cramped mess of my apartment, nothing about the Prophet makes sense.
He’s all immaculate elegance, from the fine cut of his suit to the manicured crescents of his nails.
Something about the contrast is unnerving.
My brain can’t quite process him in the present context.