Page 130 of The Starving Saints

“You had already done it yourselves,” the Absolving Saint counters. “Unknowing in both cases, I am sure.”

She regards him cooly.

He quails, eventually. “It is not the same,” he admits.

“No. You made us delight in it. Gave us false hope, and devoured us to your benefit.”

“Yes.”

“And why should I not keep you here to starve?”

The Absolving Saint hums, and gives every appearance of consideration. But it is not he who speaks, in the end, to argue for clemency.

It is Phosyne, pillowing her cheek once more against Voyne’s thigh.

“The blade,” Phosyne murmurs. “It lets his kind ignore the bonds of iron that have kept him at bay. That keep his kind out of towns and palaces, from doing there what they have done here.”

Voyne shudders at the thought.

And to his credit, the Absolving Saint inclines his head. “Yes. And if you will take it in exchange for our freedom, we will once again be hurt by it.”

“We go back to the way things were,” Treila translates.

“A fair trade,” the Absolving Saint suggests. “More than fair.”

“And are there more of you?” Voyne asks. “More than yourself and what creatures Treila did not set upon one another? Or is this your entire world?”

Phosyne, at her hip, is alert. Judging. Treila, too, at her shoulder.

“There are,” he says. “And when I leave here, the bonds we have made will transfer to all of them.”

“Lying?” Voyne asks.

“No,” Phosyne says. Treila does not reply.

Voyne looks up to her.

“Does it matter?” Treila asks. “There are dark things in the forest always. Something will eat regardless. Better not to risk making their teeth any sharper.”

Voyne considers, then nods. She gestures. “Lay down your knife, then, hungry thing. But before you go—”

He hesitates, half-bowed.

“Phosyne,” Voyne continues, “please word this for me. I want everybody in this castle who has unknowingly suffered to remain unknowing. They are stirring, even now. I would not visit this horror upon them, if it is within my power.”

“Horror,” Treila offers, “shapes character. And it did happen.” She would know; those dark things in the forest found her years ago. But whatever she found there is not the same as what happened within these walls.

“They had no control over themselves during it,” Voyne counters. “It’s not the same, dear heart.”

Treila blushes. Says nothing more.

Voyne looks at Phosyne.

“In exchange for the return of the knife and all the meaning therein,” Phosyne murmurs, “and in exchange for gifting those inthis castle that are not us, and that are not you, a gentle evening’s slumber from which they shall wake fed and unknowing of anything beyond your arrival at the gates of Aymar, you are free to go and take your creatures with you, never to return to this plateau, may we never look upon you again.”

The words hang in the air, heavy with meaning and intent.

The Absolving Saint nods and lays down his knife.

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