Chapter Forty-Nine
THE NEXT DAY, THE ABBESS forces me to wait for a full hour before she will see me. It is a rank display of power, and all the more pitiful for it. Luckily, it serves me well, for it allows me to run through a number of different ways the conversation can go. By the time I am finally admitted to her office, I am calm and sure of what I wish to say to her.
“Annith.”
She gives no greeting, but merely says my name, so I do the same. “Reverend Mother.”
I add a shallow curtsy to maintain the pretense of respect, but it is shallow enough that she knows that’s all it is—a mere formality and devoid of the former esteem and admiration I once felt for her.
“I am hoping you are here to tell me that you have come to your senses and will be returning to the convent immediately.”
“On the contrary, I am here to tell you that this cannot go on. You cannot keep serving as reverend mother. It corrupts the very nature of what we do and whom we serve.”
Her nostrils flare with irritation. “We have no choice, don’t you understand? Besides, no one except you knows or even suspects.”
I think back to the probing glances Sister Serafina often gave me and to the openly hostile manner of Sister Eonette. “I am not sure that is true.”
“How do you propose that we go about this?” She spreads her arms wide as if it is too big a thought to put her arms around. “How do we tell them?”
“I do not know; it is not my sin to confess.” I meet her gaze steadily.
She leans back in her chair, a smile playing about her lips, a smile that sends a whisper of unease down my spine. “You are every bit as culpable as I am, make no mistake.”
I frown in confusion. “What do you mean? I was a mere infant; I did not ask to be brought there.”
She picks up a quill from her desk and examines the tip. “Do you remember the great tragedy?”
The sinking feeling in my gut reminds me of why I have been so reluctant to confront her again. “Yes,” I say quietly. “Of course I do. We lost four beloved nuns.”
She picks up a knife and begins sharpening the point of the quill. I want to shake her and scream at her to stop. Instead, I clasp my hands tightly together and wait for whatever is coming. “Do you also remember how, a few days before that, you and I went out for a walk and carried a small luncheon with us?”
The sinking feeling now turns into a sick churning. “Of course I remember.” It was one of the rare special outings Sister Etienne and I were allowed.
She finally looks up from the quill, piercing me with her cold blue eyes. “Do you remember what else we did that day, besides walk the island and picnic?”
“We picked mushrooms,” I whisper.
She sets the knife and quill down and folds her hands in front of her. “Exactly.”
Dread begins to seep into my bones. “But you said they were the safe ones!”
She tilts her head to the side. “Did I?”
“Of course you did, or else I would never have touched them!”
“Odd. I don’t remember that conversation.” She leans forward, face triumphant with victory. “It was you, Annith, you who picked the mushrooms that killed the nuns that day.”
Awareness slams into me like a battering ram. “But, but if you knew, why didn’t you throw them away?”
“I had to do something to save you from that woman. She was going to kill you. And you—obedient, besotted sheep that you were—you were just going to let her.”
My mind reels. I had thought that learning I was not sired by Mortain was surely the worst shock of my life, but even it pales when compared to this. “And you let Sister Magdelena take the blame for it?”
“Sister Magdelena was old, well past her time, and she had begun to suspect, I think.”
A fresh wave of insight crashes over me. “It was you who made Sister Vereda ill as well, wasn’t it!”
For a moment, she simply stares at me, then inclines her head. “Yes.” Her voice softens. “But I had learned much and was more subtle. I made certain only to sicken her, not kill her. But she too had begun to question things that she Saw. Things that she did not understand. And I had orders, orders that could not come from her.”
“Crunard was blackmailing you.”
“Yes.” Her voice is as flat and hard as her eyes. “If I did not help him, he was going to expose me to the world. He did not know about you. I made certain to keep that from him.” She drops her head into her hands for a long moment. When she looks up again, her face is soft, pleading. “Don’t you see, sweeting? That is why I was going to have you be seeress. Together we could decide what would be best for the convent and the country and we could steer the others to fulfill those plans.”
“Were you ever going to tell me all this?” The force of this second betrayal nearly brings me to my knees, for I had come to understand why a desperate young mother might need to take shelter. But this . . . this committing murder—and now, years later, laying it at my feet—has turned my entire world upside down. “How were you going to force me to See what you wanted?”
“You were always biddable and obedient. At least, before Sybella arrived. You seemed to sense what others wanted or needed from you and were only too happy to provide it. I was simply going to let you continue on that course. That and help you interpret your visions and read the signs of augury.”
“That is why you sent Sybella away so soon!”
“She was ruining you. Corrupting your innocence and your cooperativeness. She was ruining Ismae as well,” she adds as an afterthought.
“She was my friend. And your sacred charge, and you betrayed her for your own ends.”
The abbess lifts her shoulders in a cold, unfeeling gesture. “She was not you, and you were all that I cared about. All that I still care about.”
I feel sick, tainted with the stain of her sins.
The abbess stands up and comes around to my side of the desk. She reaches out to take my hand, but I jerk it away from her. Pain flares in her eyes. “You were to be my sacrifice to Mortain,” she says. “My penance. My atonement. By dedicating you to His service, I was certain He would grant us forgiveness.”
“But it was not your life to sacrifice to him.”
“If not for me, you would not have had life in the first place. If not for me, that wretched Dragonette would have killed or maimed you.”
I clench my fists in frustration. She is right. In some ways, I owe her much. But not my life. My gratitude, perhaps. And my loyalty?
It feels as if she lost her right to that when she murdered people and tried to blame it on me. Slowly, I look up and meet her gaze. “I owe you nothing.” My voice is quiet but sure. “Any loyalty or respect I might have felt for you was lost the day you killed others and risked young girls’ safety to try and shelter me.”
She reels back, as if my words have the force of a blow. After a moment, she puts her hands into her sleeves and returns to the other side of the desk. “Very well.” When she looks at me again, she is all business, any signs of the pleading mother gone. “Then I will give you what you have always wanted. If you say nothing of this to anyone, you can be an assassin. I will not make you seeress. I had hoped to protect you, not only your physical self, but your immortal soul as well. But if you do not care, so be it. You have only to hold your tongue.”
I nearly laugh at how little she offers me and how far too late it comes. “No. I will never serve under you, nor carry out your wishes. I will not even maintain this charade of yours much longer.”
Then I turn and leave the room, every belief I have ever held, about myself, the abbess, even the world, crushed beneath her crimes.
It is time to have Father Effram call a convocation of the Nine.