Her brow furrowed. Slowly, Lore approached the Fount, as if It were a wild animal that might leap out at her. It had told her It could hold Spiritum, even broken as It was, gathering more every time Bastian fought free. Here was the proof.
The water in the Fount was still, always still. But as she watched, strands of gold twisted through the depths, just a slightshimmer. They were hard to see when she looked directly at them; Lore did better when she angled her eyes away.
Lore dropped herself into channeling-space.
The change from a colored world to grayscale wasn’t that pronounced here, where everything was moonlit and burnt. The only thing that really changed was the water in the Fount.
Golden threads ran through it, as thick as they had been in the ocean, when Lore followed them to the Mount. A mass of black, too: the Mortem she’d given back. And shot through it all, flickers of blue.
Spiritum, and Mortem, and Caeliar’s power, bits of it reclaimed from Apollius every time Bastian took control.
Lore settled herself against the side of the Fount—touching It didn’t hurt like touching the piece had, as if that pain were an impetus to put it back where it belonged. She stared up at the moon, idly twisting Dani’s dagger in her fingers, thinking about that solid wall of rock at the cliff face, and what she was almost sure was hidden behind it.
If she could only find a way in.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GABE
There is no dark that cannot be banished by a single candle.1
—A note in the Book of Prayer, Tract 3802
Gabe wasn’t one for passing out, blows to the head notwithstanding. He’d been in plenty of situations where such a reaction was warranted: Seeing unlikely survivors of horrible accidents arriving to the Presque Mort. Having his eye pulled out.
But Gabe had always retained his consciousness.
Until now, anyway.
He came to in an underground room. At first, he thought they were still under the Rotunda, still in the room with the false Fount. But no; he’d burned that room. Burned the Brotherhood.
Maybe that was why he’d passed out. Using so much power. Allowing his control to slip so dramatically.
You did what you had to.
He supposed that after such a show of power, he should be thankful that Hestraon was still only a voice in his head.
Slowly, his vision adjusted to the low light. A tiny room, four stone walls with a few empty shelves near the ceiling and nothing else. Malcolm lay next to one of the walls; a kick of panic in Gabe’s chest made him reach over, hover his finger beneath his friend’s nose. Still breathing.
Gods dead and dying, his head hurt. Gabe pulled himself to a sitting position against the wall and cradled it in his hands. He remembered Lore, the first time he’d ever met her, fierce and beautiful and cornered in that alley. He’d used chloroform to knock her out, bring her to the belly of the Church. Bring her to Anton. She’d complained of a headache then. He didn’t think he’d been chloroformed, but if it felt anything like this, he needed to beg her forgiveness.
He needed to do that, anyway. Should have when he saw her just now. But there’d been other things to do.
Despite his dire circumstances, Gabe smiled into the dark.
“You’re chipper.”
Malcolm was awake. He pushed himself up, wincing, as if he felt the same headache Gabe did. “I hope that you’re smiling because you already have an escape plan. I got up while you were sleeping; there’s no way out of here.”
He assumed Malcolm would not be amused by an account of what he’d done while he appeared to be asleep. “Unfortunately not.”
“Fantastic.” Malcolm slowly levered himself into a position that mimicked Gabe’s. The room was small enough that their knees knocked together. “Do you know where we are?”
“No idea,” Gabe said. “Though I can hazard a guess that wherever it is, Finn put us here.”
Finn, who knew their power, who’d trapped them into telling the Prime Minister about it. Who’d killed Eoin.
“And we don’t know what Finn wants.” Malcolm nodded,mouth a grim line. “This tracks, really. This is exactly the kind of luck we’ve had.”
