Page 79 of The Malevolent Seven

‘She tried so hard to keep me safe back in the camps,’ Fidick said, wandering barefoot around the filthy floor of the cottage, gazing up at the spiderwebs festooning the rotten beams as if they were great works of art. ‘Did she ask that you protect me during the battle? I expect she told you to trade her life for mine if it came to it, and reminded you that I am the only innocent one of all of us?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And will you heed her request?’

I considered that a moment, as I had when she’d been pleading with me with the kind of agonised intensity of which only teenagers are truly capable. I wandered over to join Fidick as he stared up at the mouldy ceiling. ‘If I have any say over what happens tonight, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she lives a long and happy life, and that you die as horrifically as possible.’

That won me an enigmatic smile. This kid really had been in the presence of the Celestines. ‘You’d sacrifice an eleven-year-old child for a blood mage? You must know what she’ll become as the years wear away her humanity. Don’t tell me you bought that nonsense about the Seven Brothers turning over the Apparatus to you?’

‘I’d sacrifice you if I thought it would bring the jackal back, never mind cure Galass. You stopped being a child the moment you forced Tenebris to make your deal with the Lords Devilish. Actually, no, even before that– when you tricked Galass into protecting you, pretending you were her brother.’ I ruffled his hair as if he were the boy he still appeared to be. ‘And speak of her “humanity” as if it were a soiled nappy one more time and you’ll be fulfilling your destiny tonight with two black eyes and a split lip.’

He pulled away from me, and when he looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes. ‘Cade, I—’

‘If you were planning a career as an actor, you’ll need more practice.’

He laughed at that, the bright melody of a church bell at morning service. ‘You are exactly as they described you.’

I didn’t take the bait. ‘Be ready at midnight,’ I said, and headed for the door.

‘I was scared, you know,’ he said, evidently not done with me. ‘After you’d left our tent, I was terrified. That part was real. I wanted to protect Galass and that part was real, too. I didn’t know it would mean—’

‘Most people don’t know this about the Infernals,’ I said, cutting him off, ‘but when they make a deal for another’s soul, they never lie. They don’t hide the terms of the deal, or the consequences.’

Fidick gave me a tut-tut. ‘You make them sound almost honourable, Cade. Is it possible that after all this time away from the Glorians, your moral compass has broken?’

‘It’s got nothing to do with morality or decency or any other human concern. A soul that realises it’s been deceived fights to hold itself together, even in the Infernal plane. Those who gave up their souls in the full knowledge of what it would mean deliver purer ecclesiasm. You knew exactly what the spell you bought would do to Ascendant Lucien, just like you knew exactly what price Galass would pay to become a blood mage.’

‘She needed power to survive in this world.’

‘She needed power to do the job your bosses expect her to do.’

‘They’re your bosses too. You just forgot for a while. There’s no leaving the Glorians. They just let you. . . take a little vacation, that’s all.’ He rose and followed me to the door, not a trace of fear in those young eyes of his. Maybe part of him still was an eleven-year-old kid, with an eleven-year-old’s trust that the world was a good place, filled mostly with good people. ‘You’re going to do what the Celestines need you to do and so is Galass. That’s how these things work. But I wasn’t lying about wanting to protect her like she’d protected me. I hope she survives. I really do.’

He was too sure of himself, too filled with that self-righteousness that comes from hearing the Auroral Voice in your head, knowing that song is sung just for you. Mostly, though, he was standing too close.

So I decked him.

It was no kiddy love-tap, either– I drove my fist into that saintly little fucker’s face with all I had. He must’ve stumbled six feet back before he finally fell on his arse and looked up at me, broken nose bloody and eyes wide.

‘Smile, kid,’ I told him. ‘You say you want Galass to live? I’m going to see that you get your wish.’

Chapter 41

The Angel and the Rat

My time with Shame was mostly spent in silence. Angelics have an inborn sense of when a person’s lying to them. Justiciars learn that talent the hard way. Two people being straight with each other when our prospects were as miserable as ours were would have depressed us both.

Shame did ask one question before I left.

‘What did it feel like after you betrayed the justiciars?’

She’d found a cracked mirror inside her dilapidated little cottage and was staring into it, her fingers probing at the jowls of her cheeks, the wrinkly folds of flesh under her neck. She looked pleased with what she was seeing.

‘Disgraced,’ I replied. ‘I’d never felt so much guilt before. My actions let down every one of my brothers and sisters in the order.’ Of its own accord, my hand reached up to rest on my right shoulder where the golden glove of my office used to be pinned. ‘The Celestines. . . you never realise how reassuring their touch can be until it’s taken away from you.’

‘But. . . ?’

The word hung in the air.

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