| |
“Our Lady of Love and Service,” Glory says with an expansive wave, after their mildly harrowing ride through the streets and bridges of Granite Falls. (Lucían had thought he was over his fear of horses, but adding elevation to the mix? No thank you, it’s terrifying.) The wave has to be expansive, he reflects, because the hospital is huge, several stories high and at least as wide as the Knightsrest Guildhouse, the white stone walls set back from the road behind a carefully tended garden. He follows Glory to a side entrance into the stables, and they leave the horses in the care of a short nun whose broad, round face seems built for smiling. There’s a covered pathway from the stables to the hospital, and as they pass through the gardens Lucían notes that they’re ornamental and practical, some beds containing medicinal herbs carefully pruned to look beautiful while providing necessary ingredients, others containing flowers that he knows to be both aesthetically pleasing and extremely useful in a tincture. It’s impressive, and he’d love a chance to talk to whoever designed it.
The hospital interior proves to be just as well-designed as the exterior, with bright, airy architecture and windows high-up on the walls that allow light to pass from the outside rooms to the inside hallways. It smells clean and herbal, and women of every age and skin tone walk smoothly and quietly from room to room, all wearing matching habits in a simple, practical design. Lucían finds the place more impressive the further inside they get, can’t help comparing it to the cold, cramped stone of the monastery and finding his former home extremely lacking. He can even hear a choir in the distance, their harmonies echoing through what he thinks is a courtyard outside, adding an additional calming and ethereal air to the place. Why couldn’t the monastery run a place like this? he wonders suddenly, anger blossoming in his chest. Why couldn’t we help people directly, like the Lord called us to? Why did we have to be under his thumb?
“We should announce ourselves to the Senior Mother,” Glory says, leading him down a hall to the left, deeper into the facility. “She’ll be able to tell us where we need to go. Also, it’s polite.” Lucían lives to be polite and also wants to see more of the hospital, so he nods and goes where he’s led. It’s hard to resist the urge to peek into every room that they pass, but his curiosity is no reason to invade someone’s privacy, so he settles for learning what he can from the public spaces. At one point he spots a nun carrying a basket of bottles, gets the barest glimpse of the characteristic luminescence of a potion infused with magic, and wonders how much this hospital had to pay the monastery for the contents of that basket. What else could they have spent that money on if the Abbot didn’t hoard knowledge and money like a damned miser? How many more people could this hospital serve if they didn’t have to beg potions out of a hidebound old man?
The anger still simmers deep in his guts when they reach the Senior Mother’s office, or rather, the waiting area outside. A tall nun with midnight dark skin directs them to sit while she informs the Mother of their arrival, so Lucían settles on a padded bench and tries to calm down. There’s nothing he can do about the Abbot right now, he reminds himself. Better to focus on the issue at hand, to concentrate on the people he can help here by figuring out whatever is behind these attacks. After, though... Lucían’s hands clench into fists, unbidden, and he takes a deep breath, forces himself to relax and sets his hands deliberately on his thighs.
Glory bumps her shoulder into his, raising her eyebrows in question when he glances up at her. Lucían shakes his head, leans further into her and exhales, slowly, through his nose. “We should have been like this,” he says, quietly, gesturing at the hospital around them. “We should have been using the Blessing to help people, not locked away and lied to by a cruel old man.”
“You can make it like this,” she tells him, setting her hand on his thigh and squeezing, and he takes another deep breath and feels the tension and anger slide away. His timing proves excellent, as the tall nun re-enters the room and says, “Senior Mother Geraldine will see you now.”
Mother Geraldine turns out to be a stout middle-aged woman, shorter even than Lucían, but with the kind of personality that fills up a room and makes him want to improve his posture, neaten his clothes, and generally be as formal as possible. She looks up from behind her dark oak desk with assessing hazel eyes in a pale face, her brown hair neatly tucked under a gray scarf, the only evidence of her station a slightly more elaborate pin with the blooming flower of Our Lady picked out in enamel and silver. “Welcome to Our Lady of Love and Service,” she says in an even, authoritative voice that Lucían instantly respects. “It’s nice to see you again, She-Wolf, but what did you do to your face this time?”
“Can’t remember. Probably won a fight,” Glory says with a grin and a shrug, leaning over the desk to clasp hands with the Mother. Geraldine gives her a skeptical look but seems to accept that answer, turning her inquisitive gaze to Lucían as Glory steps back.
“Who’s your young friend?” she asks, and the tone of her voice says the answer had better be good.
Lucían steps forward and bows automatically. “Most holy Senior Mother Geraldine,” he says to the region of her feet, “My name is Lucían. I’m a humble servant of our Lord, may He watch over you and bless the work that you do here.”
“Stop bowing,” she says, a little sharply, and when he straightens she narrows her eyes at him speculatively. “Which monastery are you from?” Mother Geraldine asks, pointing at a chair (Glory’s already seated, looking bemused).
“I—” Lucían starts, confused, and Mother Geraldine waves her hand and cuts him off.
“It’s the bowing, monks stand out like a weed in a flowerbed. Which monastery?”
“Our Lord of Humility and Light outside Fiervlang, holy Mother,” Lucían says, barely perching on the edge of his chair as he sits. Is Mother Geraldine angry with him? They’ve only just met, he doesn’t understand what’s going on here.
“Fiervlang?” the Mother says, raising her eyebrows at Glory, who shrugs. They seem to have an entire conversation without speaking, just a lot of intense eye contact and small head movements. Glory shakes her head, finally, and the Mother nods and turns back to Lucían.
“We have five survivors currently recuperating here. Someone from the Guild has already spoken to them, but I understand you to have different questions and particular expertise that might help this investigation. Don’t disturb my patients more than necessary and leave any of your Abbot’s horseshit out in the stables where it belongs.” Those hazel eyes fix him in place, a pin through a specimen, and Lucían snorts before he can stop himself.
“You’ve met him, then?” he asks, trying not to look amused at the thought. Mother Geraldine would absolutely shred the Abbot, he can tell that right away, and Lord, he’d like to see that.
“By reputation only,” the Mother says, raising an eyebrow in silent question.
Lucían leans forward, folds his hands in his lap politely, and says, “First of all, he’s no Abbot of mine. I have little in common with him, holy Mother, and have recently learned just how much horseshit he’s been feeding me and my former Brothers. I’ll bring none of his attitudes here, you have my word.” He feels like he needs an additional show of his changed views, and on a whim reaches a hand out, feels Glory wrap it in hers and interlace their fingers. “I left those ideas behind with my vows,” Lucían says boldly, his heart skipping in his chest as he lays a claim to Glory out loud where anyone can hear it. Mother Geraldine looks him over for another long moment and then her stern face softens.
“Good,” she says firmly. “I couldn’t imagine that the She-Wolf would bring me a reactionary fool, but somehow the Abbot persists, so I had to be sure.” The Mother pulls open a drawer in her desk, takes out a small, fabric-wrapped rectangle, and holds it out to Lucían, who stands and leans over to accept it. “I assume that’s yours,” she says as he unwraps it to find the illuminated copy of The Words of Our Lord that brought them to Granite Falls in the first place.
Lucían’s jaw drops. “How did you—” he asks, showing the book to Glory, who sits up and blinks, startled.
“We’ve been hired by the monastery to track this down and return it to the Knightsrest University,” Glory says, clearly as surprised as he feels.
“We suspected something like this would happen,” Senior Mother Geraldine says, settling back in her chair with a grin that, on a less holy person, would be called smug. “One of the nuns found this being sold by a less-than-reputable individual in the market square, recognized it as something special, and brought it back here. I checked it for the usual tracking runes in a quality work and decided to hold onto it until someone came to retrieve it.” She fixes Glory with a calculating look. “I assume you’re being paid well?”
“I overcharge the Abbot wildly,” Glory says with a proud toss of her head. “It’s nearly obscene, really.”
“Good,” the holy Mother says, satisfied. She rings a bell on her desk and says, “Sister Abigail will show you where to go. May the Lady be with you.”
“And the Lord with you,” Lucían replies automatically, inclining his head respectfully as he rises. The darkskinned nun from outside appears and nods at them before leading them away, down another hall. “What the hells,” he whispers to Glory as he re-wraps the book and tucks it carefully away into his satchel. She grins down at him, amusement glinting in her green eyes like light off emeralds, and shrugs.
“The Abbot isn’t very popular around these parts,” she says. “I mean, he’s not very popular anywhere, but he’s especially unpopular among the kind of religious folks who, hm, how do I put this—”
“Actually give a shit about helping people?” Lucían suggests, and he hears Sister Abigail snort in front of them. Glory grins even wider.
“Something like that,” she allows.
Further conversation stalls when Sister Abigail slows to a halt outside of a ward door. “I’ll go in and let the patient know you’re here,” she says with a quick nod of her head, and then she slips inside, leaving the two of them alone in the hallway.
“Do you want me to come in with you or no?” Glory asks, leaning against the wall, all casual comfort and easy lines. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, I’m neither a healer nor am I an expert in weird possibly magical creatures.”
“You are very good at making people comfortable,” Lucían says, digging in his satchel for parchment and a graphite stick. “I think that would be useful. These people are probably traumatized and in pain.” Glory nods, and Sister Abigail steps back into the hall to gesture them inside.
The first survivor they speak to is a tall woman in her mid-thirties who, more than anything, is annoyed by the whole situation. “I have things to do,” she tells Lucían as she paces in her room, arm bandaged and bound up in a sling. “I can’t do the things I need to do while my arm is all messed up, so yes, if I can help you kill those freaky bastards? Whatever you need.”
Glory, leaning against the door, huffs out an amused breath and says, “I like her,” to the room at large, which doesn’t quite make the injured woman smile, but it does quirk the corner of her mouth a bit.
“Right now I’d like to ask you some questions, and then examine your wounds if Sister Abigail can remove the bandages?” Lucían lets his voice tip up into a question as he turns to the Sister, and she nods. “What is your name, my lady?” he asks the injured woman, and she huffs a sigh as she plops down onto her bed.
“Harriet,” she says, scrubbing her free hand back through her dark blond hair roughly, shoving some stray locks out her face. “What do you need to know that the Guild folks didn’t already ask?”
“I was actually hoping to get a clearer description of the creatures,” Lucían says, settling down with his parchment and graphite. “About how large were they?”
“Varied. One was large enough to kill my horse without much of a sweat, but some of them were closer to the size of a wolf.” Harriet grimaces. “That was a good godsdamned horse, too, I’ll have you know.”
“Let’s start with the largest one, then,” Lucían says, taking notes. “Should I draw something with long limbs or short limbs? Bipedal or on all fours?”
He spends about twenty minutes like that, sketching while Harriet frowns her way through the memories and answers his questions, and when he turns his parchment around she recoils. “You nailed the ugly, smelly bastard,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I didn’t get as good a look at the others, being focused on how my horse was being killed and all.”
“Thank you, this has been extremely helpful,” Lucían says, glancing down at his drawing and then back up as her words register. “Wait, smelly?”
Harriet nods. “It was... sour, almost, like a dough starter gone off. Didn’t smell like a regular beast, not like a bear or a boar or even a wet dog. It was a bit like...” She pauses, thinking hard, and finally says, “You ever smelt it when a wound goes bad?”
Lucían nods, straightening as a horrible theory starts to unwind itself in the back of his head. He senses Glory’s eyes on him and waves a hand at his side. “Later,” he sends her silently. After all, he might still be wrong. He hopes he’s still wrong.
“It smelled like that.” Harriet shrugs, one-armed, trying not to jostle the sling. “Don’t know if that does you any good but that’s all I got.”
“Thank you, Harriet,” Lucían says, tucking away his sketch and standing up. “May I see your injury?”
She doesn’t answer, just holds her elbow out away from her side, offering it to him, and Sister Abigail wheels over a small metal table. Harriet sets her arm on the table for support as the Sister removes the sling and starts unwrapping the bandages. She nods him to a ewer and basin in the corner, so Lucían rolls up his sleeves and scrubs his hands. By the time he’s returned the bandages are gone and he gets his first look at the wound.
Lucían has to resist the urge to whistle through his teeth as he steps close and leans in to examine the injury. It’s... not good. Livid red gashes criss-cross Harriet’s arm, and the flesh at her shoulder has been mangled. He can make out the punctures of sharp teeth and the longer slashes of claws. All the wounds have been carefully and expertly washed and stitched, and he would have expected no less from the Sisters, but even with the tell-tale shimmer of a magical wound cream the injuries all look much fresher than expected.
“This was treated a week ago?” he asks Sister Abigail. She nods, her mouth set in a hard line. “Can you describe the full treatment to me?”
“It was cleaned, thoroughly, with water and strong spirits,” Sister Abigail says, taking a small pot of wound salve out of her pocket and offering it to Lucían. He takes it automatically, opens it, and, after waiting for Harriet’s nod of approval, carefully starts applying it over the mess of her arm. “Then, obviously, we stitched it, applied the salve, and when she woke up we gave her a healing potion.”
“Magic infused, or herbal only?”
“Magic.”
Lucían frowns at Sister Abigail and she nods back. “I know,” she says, “Normally with the salve and the healing potion they’d be further along by now, but they’re just... not. It is healing—” this she directs to Harriet, who is glaring daggers at both of them “—but definitely not at the speed we would normally expect.”
Lucían nods, frowning down at the wound. “Harriet,” he says, finishing up his application of wound salve and wiping his hands on a cloth, “I’m going to try something, and I’ll need to touch your skin for it to work. Is that acceptable?”
“I believe I already said that whatever will help you kill these freaky bastards is fine by me,” Harriet says dryly. “Pretty sure those were my exact words, even.”
“Point taken,” Lucían says, and after looking over Harriet’s arm again, carefully takes one of her hands in his and sets the other on her upper shoulder, close to her neck, where the skin is still intact. “This could sting, assuming it works,” he tells her. Harriet nods her consent, and Lucían feels Glory step up closer behind him, either to watch or just offer support. Lucían closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and reaches down down down, deep inside, to the core of light and magic that lives somewhere below his ribcage. With a pull he draws out threads of that power, brings it up through his arms and presses it out through his hands, and into Harriet, and then—
Lucían’s eyes snap open as his head starts pounding. Something is deeply, profoundly wrong, and he startles back away from Harriet, feels the threads of magic snap, painfully. He stumbles, and strong arms catch him before he can fall, Glory ready and waiting for him. She lowers him back into his chair, carefully, as Sister Abigail and Harriet look at him with twin expressions of bewilderment. His hand shakes when he brings it to his face, pinches the bridge of his nose and rubs his sweaty forehead. Glory slides one large warm hand into his hair and massages his scalp while he tries to catch his breath.
“What was that?” the Sister asks. “I felt something when you did that, it was like the air was sucked out of the room.”
“I’m still not sure. I’ve never felt anything like it before,” he says, dropping his hands and leaning his head into Glory’s fingers. The headache is receding, making it easier to think, and that’s a blessing. “I have a theory. Could I have some water, please?”
“For drinking or cleaning?” Sister Abigail asks, crossing to the table in the corner.
“One for each, if it’s not too much trouble,” Lucían says, rolling his shoulders back and nodding his thanks to Glory, who takes her hand out of his hair and steps back, but not very far. He accepts a glass from the Sister and drinks gratefully, and then exchanges it for a small ceramic pitcher of purified water. With a deep breath, Lucían pulls the magic inside of him and then pushes it into the water, infusing it with the Lord’s power almost, but not quite, like he would a potion. It’s been a while since he’s actually made holy water, but he remembers the technique, and when he opens his eyes again the liquid in the pitcher carries just a slight amount of pearly radiance. Perfect. He hands the pitcher back to Sister Abigail and stands, takes a moment to make sure his legs are going to support him, and crosses back to Harriet.
“If my theory is correct,” he tells her, settling some spare cloth under her arm to catch the extra liquid, “then after this your healing will go much more quickly. Unfortunately, it will probably also hurt a lot in the moment. Would you like the She-Wolf to hold your hand?”
Harriet sets her jaw and reaches her uninjured hand out to Glory, who sits next to the smaller woman on the bed and clasps it in both of hers. Lucían nods. “Sister Abigail, can you please try to immobilize her arm?” The Sister hands him back the pitcher of water and does so, one dark hand wrapped around Harriet’s wrist, pressing it into the table, the other settled up on her neck, the same place Lucían had touched her as part of his failed healing spell.
“Okay,” he says, sending a quick prayer to the Lord to ask that this will actually work. “Keep breathing, it’ll be over soon.”
When the first stream of the holy water hits Harriet’s shoulder, the wound actually fucking hisses, steam rising from it like from an overheated kitchen pot. She doesn’t scream, exactly, but she does strangle a rough sound deep in her throat and exhales through her nose sharply. Sister Abigail’s hands tighten on her arm, stilling the reflexive jerk away that Harriet clearly struggles to suppress. Lucían keeps pouring, hands steady, the blessed water running over the ugly ruin of her skin and dripping down to the cloth on the table below, and everywhere it touches steam erupts, obscuring his vision. The steam smells sour, unpleasant, like it’s carrying an infection with it, even though the wounds themselves were clean. Harriet keeps breathing, smothering pained grunts between her teeth, keeps her arm steady in the Sister’s grip even as it shakes violently. Lucían works the water down over the injuries, making sure to get full coverage as it runs lower in the pitcher, and when it runs dry he sets it down, steps back, and exhales a deep breath. “You’re done,” he tells Harriet, “You did so well, my lady Harriet. Please, rest for a moment.” Sister Abigail releases her grip and immediately crosses to the window, throwing it open to vent the noxious steam. The warm breeze is an incredibly welcome change to the heavy, cloying air in the hospital room, and when the Sister turns back she’s looking at Lucían with a sharp, questioning gaze. He cuts one hand through the air, trying to say later, and turns back to Harriet.
“I’m going to try what I did earlier, Harriet,” he says. “If it goes well I think you’ll feel much better.” Harriet nods, her breath slowing, but leaves her hand in Glory’s grip. Her face is sweaty and flushed, and he feels bad throwing so much at her at once but he has to know, and if this works... Lucían retakes his earlier position, one hand on her hand, one hand near her neck, and he closes his eyes, looks deep to find the Lord’s power, and once again, he pulls, draws up those sparkling threads of light, and pushes them down, though his hands, into Harriet, tensing slightly, just in case—
The light pours through him, fills up Harriet, and he lets out a slow breath, because it’s working, he knows this feeling. He points it at the angry, pulsing red pain of the cuts and gashes, and the light skitters there, twines itself in and through every point of agony and knits it back together, the power of it coursing through him and washing over Harriet like warm rain, like a blanket on a cold night, and after a silent, internal eternity there’s no red left, only the pure white glittering warmth of the magic, circling back to him like an obedient dog. You did well, he tells it, pulling the power back into himself and letting it curl back up, happy and comfortable where it lives below his heart. Finally he inhales, deep and long, blows the air out through his nose slowly, and opens his eyes again.
Glory immediately releases Harriet’s hand, is at his side to help him sit back down, and Lucían leans forward and breathes for a minute or two, blinking away the lightheaded feeling. “By the Lady,” he hears Sister Abigail breathe, and when he looks back up Harriet is flexing her fingers, testing the range of motion in her elbow, and yes, instead of angry red cuts her arm is covered in thin pink scars.
“Fucking finally,” she says, rolling her shoulder and groaning as muscles start working again. Lucían can’t help grinning.
“You’ll be extremely hungry for the rest of today, and part of tomorrow,” he says, once his voice steadies. “Make sure to get protein, the accelerated healing is hard on the body and you need to fuel it. Lots of water, sleep well tonight, and you may experience some pain along the scar tissue for the next week or so. That’s normal.” To Sister Abigail he adds, “Someone will need to take out her stitches, but otherwise she should be fine.”
“I’ll call someone,” the Sister says, pinning him with an inquisitive look, “but first, let’s discuss treatment options for our other patients?” Lucían nods, picks up his satchel, and makes to follow Glory out of the room.
“Hey. Healer man.” When he turns, Harriet nods at him, perfunctory, but with genuine gratitude. “Thanks.”
Lucían inclines his head. “It was my duty and my pleasure,” he says, and then Sister Abigail closes the door behind them, snags him by the collar and drags him away from the ward room to an unoccupied alcove with a water pump in it.
“What,” she hisses, “in the name of Our Lady was that?”
“I would also like to know the answer to that question,” Glory chimes in, leaning against the wall and effectively blocking any escape from the alcove, and also any prying eyes that might be nearby.
Lucían sighs and lets himself slump back against the stone wall, running his hands over his face. “The wound was cursed,” he says, and he hears Sister Abigail’s harsh intake of breath. “That’s why it wasn’t healing, the unholy taint on it was rejecting the magic. I had to dispel it, and thank the Lord that holy water actually did the trick, because otherwise I don’t know what I would have done.”
“What kind of creature,” Glory says slowly, “carries an unholy curse when it attacks?”
Lucían grits his teeth. “I won’t be able to say for sure until I can see one in person, but my current prevailing theory?” He tilts his head so he can look her in the eyes, doesn’t bother trying to hide his concern. “Undead.”
Glory swears in Norka loudly enough to cover whatever unbecoming curse comes out of Sister Abigail’s mouth at the same time. “I have to tell the Mother,” the nun says at the same time that Glory says, “We have to tell the Guild.”
Lucían waves at both of them and cuts in with, “Yes, to both of those things, but right now I should speak with your head potionmaker about treating the rest of the survivors.”
Sister Abigail nods. “Yes, of course. She’s close by, actually. I’ll take you there, and then the She-Wolf and I can go speak to Mother Geraldine and send word to the Guild immediately.” Tthey follow the Sister back out the hallway they came down, but then left instead of right, and she stops at a set of double doors, the wall above labeled “Potions and Tonics.”
“You’ll find the potion mistress here,” she tells Lucían. “We’ll come back for you once we’ve spoken to the Mother.” The last she says over her shoulder as they speed off back down the hall, leaving him alone in a quiet hallway. It’s a chance to stand and breathe for a long moment, to center himself after the revelations of the last quarter-hour, and when he’s feeling steady again he pushes through the doors. They lead into an anteroom attached to a large workshop, as nicely appointed as the one back at the monastery, but all bright white stone and large glass windows letting in the light from outside.
“Just a moment,” says the nun behind the counter, her back to him as she measures something. There’s something about her voice that’s vaguely familiar, but Lucían is too busy admiring the clean, efficient layout of the workshop to pay terribly close attention to it. He senses the magical energy of a potion being infused, which surprises him since as far as he knows the monastery has held that knowledge tight behind its cloistered doors, and then the nun turns around and Lucían knows her, only he doesn’t, because the person he knows with that face is Brother Eric. He blinks, several times, feels like he’s just been kicked by a horse because dear, kind little Brother Eric disappeared from the monastery three years ago, four years after taking vows. Lucían still prays for his safety every night before he goes to sleep.
“What—” he starts to say, when the nun’s gray eyes go huge and she blurts, “Brother Lucían?” He sees the recognition flash across her face, followed, in order, by deep confusion, abject terror, and stony determination. She squares her shoulders and sets her jaw, those eyes going dark as she glares at him.
“I don’t know how you found me,” she says, and yes, she even sounds like Brother Eric, her voice tugging at his heart because he’d missed his potionmaking apprentice terribly for months, “but you’re not taking me back, I don’t care what the Abbot says!”
“I’m not here to take you anywhere,” Lucían says, feeling rather like he missed part of the conversation. “I’m here to help.”
The nun frowns, taken aback, and looks him over. He takes the opportunity to get a closer look at her as well, and she’s absolutely the spitting image of the Eric he remembers, but she’s softer around the face, her skin more luminous somehow, and there are definitely some curves under her habit that Eric never had, scraps of auburn hair escaping from her headscarf to curl around her chin. Did Brother Eric have a sister? But that can’t be right, because she called him by name, and he’s never met this woman before in his life—
Shannon from Knightsrest, neither man nor woman but both and neither, suddenly flashes through Lucían’s mind, and he realizes the nun said “take me back.” Lucían looks at her again and mentally adds three years of age and hair growth to the teenaged monk he’d known, thinks of some of the rarer herbs he saw outside in the garden, and something shifts and he suddenly understands. His grin is huge and apparently startling, since the nun takes half a step back from him and raises her eyebrows, but he’s just so happy to know his friend is safe that he can’t control his face.
“Sister,” he says, inclining his head. “Forgive me, I think we met in another cloister, but I’m afraid I don’t remember your name correctly.”
The nun tilts her head at him suspiciously, hands twitching at her sides in a nervous tic he recognizes from years before. “My name is Sister Evelyn,” she says, raising her chin in challenge, like she expects him to argue.
“Sister Evelyn,” Lucían says warmly. “It’s very nice to see you again. Are you well, these days?” His hands itch to clasp hers, to pull her into a hug like he would if she was the same monk he’d known, but that’s too forward for this situation and she still looks wary of him.
“I am,” Sister Evelyn says, some of the tension draining from her stance. She frowns at him, a facial expression so familiar from all the times it was directed at him above a potion lesson that he almost laughs at it. “You are Brother Lucían, aren’t you?”
“I don’t go by Brother these days,” he says cheerfully, “but I am still Lucían. I don’t know if it’s obvious—” he waves a hand at his everything “—but I’ve rather left the cloister.” Lucían leans a little closer. “Everyone seems to be able to still tell I was a monk, though. I think it’s because I keep bowing.”
A smile tugs at the corners of the nun’s mouth. “It took me almost a year to stop doing that,” she admits. “You’re really not here because of the Abbot?”
“Fuck the Abbot,” Lucían says immediately. “The next time I go back there it’s to depose that hidebound, abusive, controlling old goat. Did you know how many lies he told us?” His hands clench involuntarily into fists, and he has to consciously relax them.
Evelyn raises an eyebrow at him. “No offense, Lucían, but I think I’m a little more familiar with the extent of the Abbot’s lies than you are.” He laughs at that, because obviously, and she starts laughing too, and the horrible pressure in the room that started when they first set eyes on each other finally dissipates.
“Can I hug you?” Lucían asks, “is that appropriate?” Instead of answering, she jumps lightly over the counter and barrels into him, lets him wrap his arms around her shoulders and squeeze. “I was just—we worried so much, you were just gone and the Abbot never said why, I was afraid he’d Banished you, or that you’d died and I’m—it’s so good to see you.” His eyes prickle with tears, and he blinks them back, hard. “Did he? Were you Banished?”
“No,” Evelyn says fiercely into his shoulder. “He never got a chance. I ran away. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, I just knew something was wrong, I knew I didn’t belong there but there wasn’t anyone I could tell, I knew I had to leave and I’ve missed you so much, you were always so kind to me.” She pulls away, wiping her eyes, and gives him a watery smile. “I know you were my Brother, but honestly you always felt like an actual brother to me.”
“I guess that makes you my little sister now,” he says, aware his own eyes threaten to overflow. “You look well, little Evelyn.” It’s true, even if it’s an inadequate description for how much happier she looks. The person he remembers was quiet, shy, always curled away from others, doing as much as possible to avoid being seen. Sister Evelyn is open, confident, and her steady joy radiates out in almost a visible aura around her.
“You do, too,” she says, reaching a hand up to tug on one of his ringlet curls. “This warrior thing you have going on suits you.”
Lucían blushes, like he does literally any time he receives a compliment. “How did you come to be here?” he asks, both to deflect the attention from himself and because he’s genuinely curious.
Sister Evelyn opens her mouth to answer at the same time the door opens behind them, and she looks past his shoulder and squeals, “Glory!” She darts past him, and he turns to watch her go and gets to see her launch herself at the warrior, Glory’s strong arms outstretched and ready to catch her. Their collision is noisy and mid-air, and Evelyn squeals as Glory spins her in a circle, feet flailing wildly.
“What did you do to your face?” Evelyn demands, grabbing both of Glory’s cheeks so she can get a better look at her eyebrow. “Did you plan it to look this good, or was that just a happy accident?”
“Pretty sure I got it in a fight, maybe,” Glory says, slightly too casually. “All my scars make me look good, I don’t have to plan that.” Evelyn laughs and wraps her arms around Glory’s neck again for another, tighter hug this time.
“You know each other, then,” Lucían cuts in, bewildered, while Glory lowers the shorter woman to the ground and they both grin at him, a little sheepishly.
“Glory is the answer to how I got here,” Evelyn says. “The first time I saw her I finally knew why I’d always felt so wrong, so I snuck into the stables and begged her to take me with her.”
“The Sisters frequently take in women like Sister Evelyn,” Glory says, resting her hand on the nun’s shoulder. “I knew she’d be safe here, and they’d be able to help, but I didn’t know she’d be Head Potionmaker in barely three years.” The latter she directs at Evelyn with a little shake of her shoulder, and the nun blushes and ducks her head. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other so well, though,” Glory continues, tilting her head at Lucían.
“I taught Evelyn potionmaking,” Lucían says. “She was my apprentice for, oh, four years or so.” He waves at the workshop and cocks an eyebrow. “Didn’t expect her to outrank me so soon.”
“Well, I stole all the monastery’s recipes when I left,” Sister Evelyn says bluntly, “and I’m the only one here who can infuse them with magic. As soon as the Sisters figured out what I could do, they stuck me in here and told me to go wild. I never learned the healing spells, anyway, so this is the way I can be most useful.”
“Do you want to learn?” Lucían offers immediately. “I know them, I can teach you while I’m here.” He frowns. It must have been another lie from the Abbot, but... “Sister Evelyn, are you... do you still consider yourself a follower of the Lord, or do you follow the Lady now?”
“The Lady took me in when the Lord didn’t,” Evelyn says, then taps her chin. “That said, I’m not sure what the difference between them is, on a deep level. It seems to me like faith is faith, regardless of where it comes from. But—” and her gray eyes sparkle with mischief “—if you’re asking if I can still do magic, the answer is yes. The Abbot lied about a lot of things. And I would like to learn the healing spells.” She frowns, gesturing in frustration. “I wish I could teach what I can do to others. The potionmaking is easy, but I can’t figure out how to pass along the Blessing. There was a ritual, I know that much, but I’ve tried to do what I remember from it and it doesn’t work.”
Lucían frowns at that, too. The Abbot always claimed that it was by his grace that the Lord’s Blessing was granted to each of the monks, but the actual ceremony was performed by elder Brothers. He’d been on track to become one of those elders had he stayed behind, and for the first time since leaving the cloister he wishes he’d stayed longer.
“Anyway,” Sister Evelyn says, interrupting his musings before they could go further, “if you’re not here to take me back, why are you here? You said something about helping?”
“Yes,” Lucían says, smacking his forehead with his palm lightly. “It’s about the attacks by those creatures, the ones that everyone says move wrong?”
“Oh, yes,” Evelyn says, disgruntled. “My healing potions don’t work on the wounds and I’m starting to take it personally.”
“I successfully healed Harriet,” Lucían tells her. “The wounds are cursed. I used—”
“Holy water!” Sister Evelyn says, smacking herself on the forehead. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” She darts back to the counter, launches herself over it easily, and lands lightly on her feet back in the workshop. “I have some purified water here, I’ll make more. I can’t believe I didn’t try holy water.”
“I wouldn’t have thought to, either,” Lucían says, leaning against the counter and watching her work with fond affection. “My healing spell bounced right off it, though, something about the curse broke it. Never felt anything like it before. Gave me a terrible headache.”
“What’s actually committing the attacks, then?” Sister Evelyn turns around and frowns at him, worrying at her lower lip. “If it leaves cursed wounds, then it can’t be anything good.”
“The current prevailing theory is that they’re undead,” Glory says, leaning on the counter next to Lucían, close enough that their shoulders touch. Evelyn’s eyes go wide and her hands clench on the flask of water she’s holding, hard enough that her knuckles go white.
“Indeed, that is... not good,” she says, faintly, staring into space for a long moment, and then she shakes her head. “But we know how to treat the victims, now, so we’re already doing better than we were yesterday. Come back here and give me a hand with the holy water, will you?” Sister Evelyn gestures at a section of the counter that he now notices has hinges, and he lifts it and slips back into the workshop with her. There are clean bottles in a rack to the left, so he transfers them to the table, lining them up in a neat row and then pushing heat each one to sanitize it. He pulls the heat back out, more slowly so they don’t shatter, and nods to Evelyn when they’re ready. Evelyn sets the flask of water down on the table, closes her eyes, and Lucían feels her press her magic into it, watches iridescence flash across the surface. She opens her eyes, looks at the water, and grins in satisfaction.
“How much per bottle?” she asks.
Lucían shrugs. “Just fill them up, I think. You might need more later.” Evelyn nods and starts pouring, filling each bottle precisely to half an inch before the rim. Lucían finds wooden stoppers organized neatly in a box near the shelf that held the empty bottles, and a pot of solid beeswax next to them, and busies himself with stoppering and sealing the bottles. It’s nice working with another person again, and he knows the way Evelyn is going to move before she does it so he can move to compensate. It’s like a dance, buried somewhere deep in his bones, and it’s the work of only perhaps fifteen minutes and they have four dozen bottles of holy water, glowing very slightly on the workshop table.
“Well,” Lucían says, “now that we’re prepared for an invasion of the undead, would you like to learn healing spells?”
“Absolutely!” Sister Evelyn says. “Should we take some of this with us?” She gestures at the bottles and Lucían shakes his head.
“Earlier I did it with what water was in the room, I don’t think we need to carry this with us. Might as well save it for the future.” Evelyn nods, and Glory pushes open the door to the hallway to let them through. They run into Sister Abigail on the way back to the ward with the rest of the survivors and she joins them.
“You can do things,” she tells Lucían. “I want to know how that works.”
Lucían grimaces and blushes at the same time. “I’ll try to explain,” he says, “but I don’t think I can teach you.”
“I’ll take the explanation, at least,” she says, narrowing her dark eyes at him, and Lucían wishes, not for the first time, that the monastery hadn’t hoarded all this knowledge behind its walls. Sister Abigail wants to help people, has the opportunity to help people, and she could do so much if she was just given the power... but she sensed something, didn’t she, back in the room when his first spell failed. Is it possible?
Lucían comes to a stop, and everyone else stutters to a halt around him. “Sister Abigail,” he says, turning to face her directly. “I want to try something, with your permission.” If this works...
“The last time you tried something you dispelled a curse with some water you prayed over, so I’m willing to give whatever this is a shot,” Sister Abigail says, raising an eyebrow at him. Lucían nods, glances around, and nods at a nearby bench.
“Can you sit, please?” he asks her, and still with the same raised eyebrow, she does. Glory and Sister Evelyn stand back, watching curiously as Lucían sits as well, arranges himself so he’s facing Sister Abigail, and gestures at her to do the same.
“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” Lucían says, wanting to ensure her full understanding, “Because I have no idea if this is going to work.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to try and impart a Blessing to you, and if it takes, I’ll be able to teach you to do what I do.”
Sister Abigail takes a deep breath. Her dark eyes flare for a moment, and she bows her head in prayer. Lucían waits for her to finish and when she looks back up, her face speaks of conviction and faith. “Please, try.”
“I’m going to put my hands on you, if that’s all right?” Abigail nods her consent, so Lucían takes one of her hands in his, reaching up to press his fingertips against her sternum with the other hand. “Please, close your eyes and take deep breaths. Match my breathing.” Deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and they do that for a long moment, tuning in to the rhythm until they’re in sync, and Lucían can feel her heartbeat in time with his. “Good,” he says quietly, letting his eyes flutter shut. “Sister Abigail, why did you become a nun?”
“I wanted to help people,” she says, immediately.
“And do you swear that you will serve the will of the Lady, to help others and spread Her love?”
“Always.” Her voice is sincere and determined, and it vibrates against his fingers when she speaks. It’s probably just her voice, he’s not willing yet to believe that the tingle he can feel is anything else.
“And do you desire the ability to be able to help others the way She helped us?”
“I do.”
“Then may you receive Her Blessing,” Lucían says, and Lord, he hopes this works, he’s just going off what he can remember from when this happened to him and making the rest up as he goes along. With a deep breath, he casts his awareness inward, reaches down to the core of the Blessing he carries, and then he pulls it up and presses it into Sister Abigail. From far away he hears her intake of breath, feels it against his fingers, but that doesn’t matter right now, because he’s threading those white threads of light down into her, seeking not pain or injury or illness this time, but instead the warm core of her faith, the part of her that drives her to help, to heal. For a long, terrifying moment there’s nothing and Lucían thinks he’s failed, but then he finds the tiniest spark. Yes! Yes! There! Lucían throws the threads of light at that spark, feels them surround and embrace it, sees the moment when the spark kindles into a full-blown light of its own. It catches fire within Sister Abigail, burns through her with a holy warmth, filling her to the brim and then pulling back before it settles itself below her heart and pulses in time to the beating. Lucían draws his own magic back into himself and lets it coil under his ribs. One more deep breath, and then he opens his eyes.
Sister Abigail’s eyes slowly flutter open, and they’re wet with tears when she looks at him. “I felt it,” she whispers, lifting her hand to press just below his fingers on her sternum. “I felt Her Blessing. I can still feel it.”
“Reach for it,” Lucían says quietly. “Reach inside yourself for it, and ask it to show itself for you.” He demonstrates, slowly, taking his hand away from her chest, twitching his fingers and drawing a magelight into the world. She watches, and more than that she senses, he can feel her total attention, and Sister Abigail mimics his hand movement and with a pressure in the air her will catches, and a tiny, watery light sparks into being at her fingertips.
“By the Lady,” Abigail whispers, and Lucían has to resist the urge to jump off of the bench and punch the air. It worked, it worked! Fuck the Abbot! Lucían is going to teach every single nun at this convent all of the monastery’s carefully-kept secrets, and there’s nothing that can stop him.
“Holy shit.” Sister Evelyn draws closer, examines Abigail’s magelight, and her face splits into a huge grin. “Lucían, Lucían this changes everything!” She practically vibrates with excitement, bouncing on her toes because she can’t hold still. “You can teach all of us! You can teach me how to do whatever you just did and I can teach the others.”
“The other hospitals,” Sister Abigail whispers again, tracing the edges of her magelight, her midnight skin reflecting silver as she does. “They need to know this, too. We’ll be able to do so much.” She blinks, shakes herself a little, and the magelight winks out. When she looks back up at Lucían her eyes are determined. “First, though, there are patients who need this magic. Can you teach me?”
Lucían nods. “Of course. Both of you. The only condition I have is that what you learn from me of healing, you share with others freely. I can’t—” He takes a deep breath, relaxes his fingers, and tries to speak past the catch in his throat. “When I think about how many people my monastery could have helped, but didn’t—”
“We promise, Lucían,” Sister Evelyn says, taking his hand in hers. Sister Abigail nods, drops her free hand on top of where his still loosely clasps her wrist, and squeezes. “We will help others with this, in the name of the Lady and in the name of the Lord,” she says, and Lucían has to blink furiously to keep the tears out of his eyes.
“Well,” he says, “let’s get started.”