But He was wrong.
Bede was more loyal to Kos than to Seril. Nestor was a busybody. Aldis had her territorial insecurities. No person, no church, was perfect. But the Cardinals were faithful. Bede could have taken Ramp’s deal and left Seril to die.
Kos did not trust His Cardinals, so He inspired them to include Abelard in their work. And the Cardinals were smart. They knew the score.
You’re micromanaging, Abelard prayed, because you’re scared.
Only crackling fire answered.
These people love You. They joined the church to serve You, and they do so now, though service scares them. Let them serve.
The fire in Abelard popped and pitted, and sparks burned his skin.
We’re wasted in here, You and I. We could be out in the city, spreading miracles. The work your Cardinals do is important, which is why You called priests to do it for You. Trust them.
Presumption? Temerity? Pride?
Of course.
But what was a saint for, if not to talk with God?
Sun warmth spread through his limbs. That was Abelard’s answer.
When they broke for coffee and tobacco—sorcerers’ hunger for caffeine surpassed only by priests’ need for a smoke—he sought Cardinal Nestor and Cardinal Bede. “Your Excellencies. Thank you for including me in this meeting, but I’m no use here. I can best serve Our Lord by working with Prelate Evangelist Hildegard.”
“Thank you, my son,” Nestor said, and Abelard felt embarrassed by the relief he read in the old man at the news God trusted him. Even Bede’s shoulders rose.
“Do what you can,” the Cardinal said. “Go with God.”
“And you as well,” Abelard replied.
47
“Whatever happens,” Tara cautioned Shale as they flew west between skyspires and over the mansions of the Drakspine ridge, “do not try to kill the King in Red.”
“Okay.” Shale sounded unconvinced.
“This is important.” She fed their optera from her expense account—far from bottomless, but she could afford the ride. Travel by dragonfly felt strange at first. She’d been surprised when Shale accepted one rather than flying under his own power.
“He’s a monster.”
Tara shook her head. “He’s a respectable citizen. This city wouldn’t exist without him.”
“A man can be both citizen and monster. Especially here.”
“In which case he’s a monster and a respectable citizen, whom we’re about to ask for a big favor. Besides, if you try to kill him, you’ll probably just piss him off.”
“We almost broke him in the Wars.”
“Almost only counts with horseshoes and elder gods. He’s grown since you fought. And, honestly, I know you’ve had a rough few decades, but I wish things like don’t attack the immensely powerful necromancer we’ve come to ask for help could go unsaid.”
Streets crazed the irrigated ground like cracks on the scab of an infected wound. Elevated carriageways laced between pyramids—the largest, at 667 Sansilva, eighty stories tall and obsidian sheathed. Black glass grooves cast an illusion of writhing serpents on the pyramid’s steps.
As far as Tara could see, the city bore little damage from the eclipse fiasco a few years back; she’d been at Contracts with her friend Kayla when the news came through, and waited with her in the long line of weeping students at the nightmare telegraph to call her dads. The dreams around Dresediel Lex were so tangled Kayla couldn’t get through for two days, which Tara spent on the couch in Kayla’s dorm, sleeping poorly; she’d told Kayla to wake her if she needed anything, and the girl took her at her word. Kayla’s dads both lived—one broke his leg in the riots and the other spent three days stuck in a collapsed mall—but the waiting, not knowing, hurt.
Rebuilding, the city had turned a quarter mile of Sansilva Boulevard into a memorial walk. Tara decided she would visit if there was time.
For now, they had business at the Grisenbrandt Club.
North of Monicola Pier the beachside shops grew more expensive and elegant until they reached an expense and elegance singularity: the Grisenbrandt, a red-roofed, white-walled palace on the continent’s edge. A ward misted the air above its courtyards and rooftop baths, to keep even the most inquisitive journalist from observing the club’s clientele. The ward might have been opaque, but that wouldn’t have allowed spies and onlookers to envy the rainforest green inside.
Tara and Shale landed on a riverrock path between two lawns that beggared any adjective but “verdant.” The doorman (a Quechal fellow in sunglasses and a funereal suit, whose posture suggested experience as valet, bouncer, and special forces commando) frowned as their optera flew away. People who belonged in the club arrived under their own power. Rentals were for those not rich enough to own.