The Morag waved her away. Cathrynne waited outside the door for a minute, but no one came to show her out, so she made her own way through the low-ceilinged corridors. She desperately did not want to travel with Gavriel Morningstar. What if another vision came? It was a choice she didn’t care to face again.
Lost in thought, Cathrynne paid little attention to where her feet led her. She looked up to realize that she had taken a wrong turn and was in an unfamiliar corridor. There was no one around to ask for directions. She tried to backtrack and only got more lost. When she found a meeting room with large windows facing the outside and an unlocked exit door, she pounced on it.
In the rainy darkness, it was hard to tell which way the front gates were. As in Arioch, the compound was sprawling. She hurried down random pathways, head bent against the downpour, which is why she didn’t see the kloster until she was right in front of it. The tower was hulking and dark, without a flicker of lamplight. She knew it was the kloster because of the stench. It reminded her of a zoo. Of animal misery. She was turning away when a soft voice called to her.
Called her name.
It came from one of the bottom cells. Fingers curled through the bars, beckoning. Cathrynne hesitated. She wanted to quickly walk away, to pretend she had not heard, but this was a sister, after all. Something in her could not refuse. She approached warily. The girl’s hair was matted into chunks, so filthy it was impossible to tell its natural color.
“Dark-bringer,” she whispered furtively. “God-killer. He comes.”
Cathrynne blinked away the icy rain. “Who is he?”
The girl’s eyes were lucid. Sane, if appearances could be trusted. “I don’t know his name. But when he falls from grace, you must not interfere. You must let him serve his penance, even if it lasts forever.”
“Penance for what?” She was bewildered. “And why would I interfere?”
“Because you love him.”
She shook her head, though dread curdled her stomach. “I love no man. So what you see will never come to pass.”
The seer regarded her for a long moment. “I hope it is so,” she said at last.
Cathrynne impulsively reached out and gripped the girl’s fingers with her own, ignoring the terrible odor that wafted through the bars. “What is your name?”
“Julia.” She swallowed. “Julia Camara.”
A full witch, then, not a cypher.
The pouch at Cathrynne’s belt was full of projective stones. She had an urge to pull the tower down, to reduce it to rubble. Her anger was big enough that she felt sure she could do it. “I’ll get you out. Run as far as you can. They’ll never know who did it?—”
Julia drew back, alarm on her face. “No, no. I am safe here.”
Cathrynne shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. Her bandaged fingers curled into a fist. “Please let me help you.”
A ghostly smile touched the seer’s lips. “We will meet again. Now go, Cathrynne Lenormand. Go, Witch of Winter. Go!”
She jerked her hand away and retreated into the dark cell. Cathrynne stood there for a minute, her blood racing. The girl knew her birth name. No one knew that except for Felicity Birch and the White Foxes who had dragged her from her childhood home.
She ought to call Julia Camara back. Demand answers.
Instead, she turned and walked away, feeling like a vile coward.
Cathrynne eased the front door shut. The lamps were switched off save for a line of light spilling from beneath the library door. She kicked off her wet boots and left them on the rack, then padded across the floor in damp stockings. She was almost at the stairs when the library door opened and Morningstar emerged, looking rumpled and annoyed. Of course, his unruly black hair and creased shirt only made him more attractive.
“Where did you go?” he demanded.
“For a walk. Am I under house arrest?”
He scoffed. “In this weather?”
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes. I happen to like walking in the rain. Where’s Mercy?”
“Making a pot of kopi.”
Cathrynne heard whistling coming from the kitchen, along with the faint clatter of mugs.
“I’m not a complete fool,” Morningstar said. “You must have gone somewhere.”
