Thisbe drew a pocketknife from inside her jacket and started picking at the dirt beneath her nails. “You were so upset two days ago at how Madame is pulling strings, when all this time you were helping Julia do exactly the same thing.”
“I know!” Carlyle cried. “I’m a hypocrite! Pimping for Julia just like that Chevalier for Madame. No, not like the Chevalier, like Helo?se, playing innocent, half believing it myself, while I let Julia twist my beliefs to make me into the puppet they wanted me to be. The puppet I wanted to be!” She hiccupped, too weak to speak and cry at once. “Julia, Dana? … I’ve been a pawn in their stupid power game because that’s what I wanted to be. To feel like a savior, and avoid having to think about my choices.”
Thisbe didn’t meet Carlyle’s eyes, didn’t try to, just watched Carlyle’s hands as they shook faster and faster. “All these years you’ve been pretending to help people find their religions, when really you’ve been helping to turn them into what Julia wanted.”
“It’s true!” Carlyle cried. “It’s all true! I shouldn’t be trusted with your bash’s religious guidance, or your secrets, or with Bridger. I shouldn’t be trusted with anything!”
“How many people?” Thisbe asked.
“What?”
“How many parishioners have you led to Julia? How many people have you tricked into becoming pawns? Dozens?” she prompted. “Hundreds?”
“Around … a hundred.” Carlyle was shaking too hard now to fumble with the grass.
Thisbe frowned sympathy. “And Julia’s been twisting your beliefs to fit their scheme for so long, are you sure you even had any beliefs of your own to begin with?”
“No.” Carlyle hugged herself. “No, I had nothing, and Julia made me into this! Oh, God! What am I? What have I been doing all these years, in Your Name?”
Reflections of the streetlights on the bridge above played across Thisbe’s knife blade. “You were going to bring Bridger to Julia, weren’t you?”
“Oh, God! You’re right! I would have! I hadn’t decided on it but it had already crossed my mind. It was instinct! I would have handed Bridger to Julia, handed God to Julia! And what have I done instead? Now I’ve agreed to hand Bridger to Dominic!”
Thisbe scowled. “To Dominic?”
“Julia’s given me to Dominic! I didn’t see it before. Julia’s done using me as a pawn so I got traded to Dominic. They know I have the perfect belief system to make me jump when anyone who knows how to push my buttons says jump. Julia must have briefed Dominic, told them what to say to make me do what they wanted. I was too blind to see it! Mycroft was right, I shouldn’t have access to Bridger. Bridger should be spirited as far as possible from me. I should never see them again!”
Thisbe fingered the knife’s black handle. “That’s not enough.”
The Cousin’s eyes grew wide. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter whether you separate yourself from Bridger or not. You’ll still be serving Julia’s plans elsewhere. You can’t just undo years of being trained to be a pawn. They’re going to keep using you, even if you try to break off on your own. So long as you continue being a sensayer you’re going be making people into what Julia’s taught you to make them, like you tried to do with us. And if you stop being a sensayer—”
“Stop being a sensayer!”
Thisbe’s nose wrinkled at the discourtesy of interruption. “Even if you stop, you won’t be able to keep yourself from talking to people about religion. You won’t be able to stop doing what Julia’s made you so good at doing.” She smirked. “Cato would say it’s like a retrovirus. The virus pumps its RNA into a cell and the cell keeps pumping out more virus every chance it has, until it dies. It doesn’t even know it’s doing it.”
Sobs came too fast for Carlyle to speak.
“There really is no escape for you, is there?” Thisbe pressed. “The network you helped Julia create is everywhere now, and Madame, and Dana?, and Dominic are everywhere. Anywhere you go they can find you, send an agent, and teach them what to say to get you back. You’re just going to keep luring in more and more victims. You can’t stop it.”
“I can stop it.”
“You can’t. It’s not like you can run when the poison is inside you.”
“I can stop it.”
“How?”
“Like this!” Carlyle snatched the knife from Thisbe’s hands, and leapt to her feet.
“Carlyle—”
“Don’t try to stop me! It’s the only way to protect you. To protect Bridger. To protect everyone!” Carlyle lifted the knife toward her own throat. “You’re right! As long as I live I’ll draw everyone around me toward Julia. It has to end! God won’t forgive me. God shouldn’t forgive me, but at least this way it’ll be over. At least this way God knows I’m doing what’s best for everyone.” Tears swelled to a river on her cheeks, but a smile broke through them. “I’m sorry, Thisbe. I liked getting to know you, and really did intend to help you, all of you. It’s best this way. Bridger will be safe, your bash’, your secret will be safe, everyone. Even me.”
Carlyle closed her eyes and thrust at her throat with the full force of both trembling hands. Smooth as a diving fish, the edgeless trick blade collapsed into the hollow handle with a pathetic squeak.
Slowly, softly, a laugh rose from the depths of Thisbe, swelling like a downpour as a vicious smile bloomed across her cheeks.
“Thisbe, what?” Carlyle stared uncomprehending, testing the knife again and watching the fake blade slide in and out of the trick hilt.
Thisbe raised her hands, applauding clumsily as the fervor of her laughter made her arms weak. “Beautiful performance! I should have let you squirm longer, shouldn’t I? Pleaded with you not to do it. I could have gotten at least two more farewell declarations out of you.”
Carlyle’s jaw quivered. “I don’t understand.”
“Drop it.”
Thisbe snapped her fingers, and the knife tumbled from Carlyle’s hands, her whole frame weakening as despair’s soft trembling turned to crippling terror.
“Thisbe, what … what’s happening?”
Thisbe rose to her feet, her laughter subsiding into a darker smile. “You’re starting to realize, aren’t you?”
Trembling took the sensayer’s legs. She staggered, collapsed into the grass. “What have you done to me?”
Thisbe chuckled. “I’m a witch.”
“What?”
What?
“Did you imagine Bridger was the only one with powers? The child plays with toys. I’m a grown-up, I play with grown-ups.”
“A witch?”
“You needed punishment. You can’t just waltz into my house, or meet with enemies like Dominic, without permission.” Thisbe prowled around Carlyle, the cat circling a sparrow too wounded to flee. “Let’s get things clear here, Carlyle: this house is my domain. I may bring in strays like you, and Esmerald Revere, and Mycroft Canner, but that doesn’t make you any more important than those plastic toy soldiers. You jump when I say jump, you dance when I want you to dance, and you’ll bite your own tongue out and choke to death any instant I choose.”
Carlyle tried to rise, but tremors pinned her, helpless. “A witch?”
Mycroft, is this really happening?
“I’ve been watching you.” Thisbe raised two fingers to her forehead as if to point out a third eye hidden beneath the skin. “Ever since you stumbled through my door I’ve been watching. You fool, you’re not Julia’s pawn or Dominic’s, you’re my pawn, and you’re going to stay my pawn, and stay alive, precisely as long as I want to keep you that way.”
Thisbe’s black eyes were too harsh for Carlyle to meet. The sensayer looked at the ground, at the toy knife lying in the grass before her. “You made me do that just now? You made me try to kill myself!”
The witch shrugged, basking in the web of hair around her shoulders, blacker than night’s black. “I was bored. You think I want to listen to your whiny theolo-gibberish? Besides, you needed to learn the lesson. Forget Julia and Dominic: you’re my puppet, mine alone. My hexes are worked into your flesh too deep for anyone to break.”