The grotto had fallen away from me entirely, and all I could see was Mara’s face as it had been in the dream—her black hair whipping in the snowy wind, her teeth white as winter flurries in her smeared face as she shrieked through my own mouth. And I adored her just like I had before, waves of toxic love pounding over me, glistening like rainbows in puddles of black oil. This pile of human kindling in its cradle had no right to hate her. Feeling anything toward her was a privilege, and even hatred was too good for him.
By the time I came to myself, I realized I was standing with my fists clenched and my teeth bared so widely I could feel the ache up to my temples—I had said all of that aloud, snarled it at the reliquary in a lock-jawed hiss. I was still making a growling noise in the back of my throat, and the fug that surrounded the remains was so dense it felt like a malarial pool, like this place would seep into my blood and sicken me if I let it. The roots of my hair itched furiously, and I could nearly feel every separate length of ribbon that twined through the strands, as if the ribbons had come alive.
The next thing I knew, the priest had seized me by the shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into my bone, and hauled me out of the cave. I stumbled and nearly fell as he flung me out onto the terrace, his blue eyes ringed with white, his face pale with fury.
“How dare you,” he spat. “How dare you use such words in the presence of our saint, you daughter of hell? What are you?”
Luka stepped between us, breaking the priest’s hold. “Father, please, calm down,” he urged. “Something’s wrong with her, can’t you see that? She’s—she’s having a spell of some kind.”
“A witch’s spell, maybe! Did you see her, son? Did you see her hissing at our holiness like a devil’s cat? That girl is evil, son. Or there’s something inside of her that is.”
Luka glanced over his shoulder at me, and I could see the shock and fear on his own face before he turned back to the priest to appease him. “It’s just the grief, Father. She’s lost her mother, she’s not in her right mind—”
I was crying by then, deep racking sobs that were more terror than grief. My arms wrapped around my chest, I stumbled against Luka’s side. “I’m so sorry,” I wept. “I don’t know what that was, but I swear, I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Keep away from me, demon!” The priest backed away from me, his face contorted, frantically crossing himself. “Keep away from me!”
I went blind with tears, the world blurring around me as Luka half dragged me away. But even through the haze, I could see the wrath warring with disgust on the priest’s face as he stormed back into the monastery.
Like I was some foul thing, unnatural, everything Luka had said to me before along with everything I’d always felt inside.
NINETEEN
EVEN WITH THE RAIN THAT LASHED AT THE WINDOWS, I knew it was hot inside the Stari Mlini, but not even the shawl wrapped around my shoulders could keep me warm. Usually I loved it here, the exposed wooden beams, rough-hewn furniture, and bronze candelabras on every table, the water wheel spinning in the stream outside as the night rain sheeted down on it. And it smelled of warm things, curling cigarette smoke, beeswax, and grilling fish. But I couldn’t stop trembling. My insides felt like slush, sliding around a skeleton of ice instead of bone.
Someone had set a bowl of bean stew in front of me at some point, recently enough that it still steamed. Plump sausages bobbed between the kidney beans, and I caught a savory waft of spices, enough to make my stomach growl. So I was hungry, then. That was good to know.
Malina sat across from me, her hands wrapped around her own bowl. I could see her fingers shaking, the torn edges of her cuticles. Niko was next to her, an arm slung around her shoulders. By my side, Luka gripped my own arm, massaging me briskly as if I actually needed a boost in circulation.
“It wasn’t you, Riss,” he said. I had the dim sense that he’d been saying this for a while. “That was not you. Those things you said . . . they didn’t come from your mind. Not the mind I know.”
“It was me. It was her, speaking through me, but it was me, too.” That also sounded like something I’d said before. From the moment I’d stepped up to that reliquary, time had taken on an elastic quality that reminded me of how I’d felt after finding Mama broken. Every moment felt as long as an opium dream, but at the same time I barely remembered the ride back to Cattaro after Luka wrapped me up in the shawl and tucked me into the backseat. He’d kept me on his lap for a long time, his long body folded awkwardly in the small space so he could hold me, rocking me and crooning in my ear as I shook with tears against him. He’d asked Malina and Niko to meet us here on our way home, so neither his father nor ?i?a Jovan would see me like this.
“How can this be happening?” I said through numb lips. “Who is she to us? Is she—is she even real? Because this is more than just dreams. This is some kind of open connection, a conduit. She was in me, I could feel her, and I wanted . . .” Aftershocks rippled through me, and I took a shuddering breath. “I wanted to rip apart that reliquary. Crush all those bones. Because they hate her, and she hates them for hating her, and even then I loved her so much I wanted to keep her safe.”
Malina reached across the table and grasped my hand. “I felt it too. A shadow of it, at least, nothing as strong as you. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t there, but I’m still plugged in somehow, like you are. Do you think it’s these?” She reached tentatively for her hair, stopping short before her fingers grazed the ribbons, as if they might singe her. “I don’t think they have anything to do with Mama, anymore. I think someone else put these in for us. Maybe we should take them out, Riss? I hate it, I hate it so much thinking that something at the other end can feel us through them.”
A violent shudder ripped through me at the thought of a stranger creeping over our windowsill, bending over us as we slept the way I’d imagined Mama had. “We can’t do that,” I murmured. “What if we do, and they don’t work anymore? We need to know what they do, and what they have to do with the thefts. Maybe they can bring us to wherever Mama is.”
“I was thinking about that,” Niko said. Her dark eyes had taken on that hawk focus she shared with Luka. “It could be that these are two separate things—a bifurcation of what was once a single process or event. Ribbons aside, think of all the objects this Dunja has been taking. So far, it’s your belongings, a votive gift, and a saint’s bone.”
“That we know of,” Malina added.
“Right. Looking through Mama’s recipes and cantrips today reminded me of why it was bothering me. For spellwork—at least the small kind Mama did, sympathetic magic—you need symbolic ingredients that have specific connections with whatever you’re trying to achieve. Like parts to represent the whole. I have no idea what that would be in this case, obviously, but that’s what this reminded me of. Someone gathering ingredients for a spell.”